New Years Eve 12.31.2009

I woke this morning about 8; Dan was already up. I wondered what the weather was. I hollered out to him to ask about going up north. If he didn't want to go, I was going back to sleep....

He thought the weather would hold, so I got up and we got on the road about 9:20. The highways had been salted and most of them plowed, so they were wet with a bit of stuff in the center. As the day went on, temperatures were 32/33 degrees, and it was the wet salty spray from the other vehicles that was most annoying.

We had a good drive up, thank you God, and found that even though there wasn't even a foot of snow on the ground there, our driveway was not accessible because of the snowplow piles at the end, and the drifts along the length of it. Evelyn and Bob have said in the past that if we're there in winter we may park in their driveway and walk over. And that's what we did. We got there about 12:40.

The new roof over the back porch looks awesome with the snow on it, and Dan said something approving. And a nice part of the roof is that we didn't have to shovel or move snow to open the back storm door.

All was well inside. No dead mice, or even evidence of live ones. Finally.

The radiant heater has the interior temp to 46 degrees or so, so it wasn't too bad in there. Dan got right to the furnace.

I am happy/sad to report that he couldn't get it to work either. He took things apart and put them back together. I went outdoors to walk around the perimeter. All looked good. There seemed to be a small area of open water out front of us, but it wasn't very big. I also saw one ice shanty out across the lake. I walked around the shed to see if there were prints from anything out there, and there were, from under the back side, by the rhubarb patch. Not rabbit tracks. A smaller clawed hand-type print, like maybe a skunk or raccoon. I've not smelled skunk, though.

I also started the van and let it run while I was looking at stuff. The garage looks good, too.

Back inside, he has decided that the thermocouple he replaced was bad, or it's something else, and he passed it over to me to "make the phone call". I appreciate that he took a day to drive up and look it over. We gathered our things and left about 2.

You know we had to go to Big Bob's and eat. Today was BBQ country ribs. Yummy. Huge pork ribs, real mashed potatoes, coleslaw. We were both hungry.

We had a good drive home, too, thanks again, and got back about 6:30.

I stretched and checked the computer; Dan had a snack and read.

Tomorrow is a workday for me, 3pm-11 pm. Dan is off, but has gone to bed.

Thank you for being a part of my 2009. May 2010 be good to us all.

Hugs.