Monday--

We had snow and a goodly bit of it over the weekend. We swept off the car and shoveled the patio twice so there isn't much to do this morning. The official count was 4 to 5 inches here but the official numbers are meaningless. What we got on the patio is closer to 8. And it is the patio we have to clear so it is what really matters. Only part of the snow that fell the weekend before had melted so that 8+ inches was on top of what remained. Next weekend they are predicting snow from Friday through Sunday for an additional 5-8 inches. At this rate we won't see bare ground again till April.

I have been busy getting cutting and folding the toilet paper cores into starter pots and getting the small plant tower back into condition. I want to start some lettuce and spinach. I think they might do well inside under the lights. We keep the house at 68 during the cold months and those are plants that like it cool. That will give me an opportunity test the cardboard tubes for starting plants before spring.

Is anyone really surprised by this development? In our wired world everything gets connected and becomes part of the "internet of things." Unless you are like us: dumb phones, dumb fridge, dumb freezer, etc. But I dread replacing any of what we have. How soon before the connectivity becomes "standard?" And on everything?

We have reduced our news (and TV) watching drastically. I have described our growing disenchantment with the media at several point in the last 13 years or so I have been posting on this blog. Someone else has found out exactly what we did: quitting the news makes us feel better, we found other sources of information on things that are important to us, that information usually comes with more depth and more reasoned an nuanced analysis, and is devoid of most of the drama of the "if it bleeds, it leads" style of TV pseudo-journalism. And this is likely to make matters worse.

Well, that is a bit more than normal so I will go ahead and post. See what happens tomorrow.