Hot and Cold.

2-18-11 VERMONT: We came up yesterday on a warm day. There’s lots of snow, especially around the house. The roofs have dumped and the piles under the eaves are thick and frozen. You can walk on them without falling in. The rest of the snow is up to two feet deep, soft and mushy. It’s what skiers call ‘crud’. After errands this morning, we slogged around the pasture on snowshoes, still sinking in 6-8 inches and making it a chore. On the return trip, it’s easier using the already broken trail. The dogs, without snowshoes, are in up to their shoulders. They leap around when not standing on our snowshoes.

Today the temps were in the mid-fifties, mid sixties in NJ, and melting was evident all over. Tomorrow—back in the freezer.


In the morning today, it was over-cast. An hour after this pic, it was all sun and blue sky. New England weather.

Yesterday we got some color in the evening, tinting the White Mts.

It's almost time for this place to get busy. A sugar shack has a distinctive look, small shed with huge cupola. The sides of the cupola open to let out all the steam. Inside there's a stove, called an arch, that boils the maple sap to reduce the water content by about 98%, hence the steam. In March when it's fired up, there won't be any snow on the roof.