Friday, 9:00 am: It’s Friday and it’s foggy, and what a delightful way to begin the weekend. I heard on the radio this morning Maine’s own Stephen King turned 60 today. Happy birthday, Stephen! You would appreciate this morning’s creepiness, I know I do.

One of our colorful maple trees in our garden

Last night was an evening bordering on frantic searching. Apparently a skunk was somewhere very nearby, and its pungent scent was wafting into our house. Our dogs relished the chance to get whatever residual odor onto their coats, which didn’t help the situation. Keeping our dogs inside didn’t help either – they brought the smell in with them. The other option was to let them outside and take chance they get a face full of skunk scent. Opening all our windows also didn’t help. Eventually we narrowed the search down to the crawl space underneath our tool shed, which we decided it was better not to poke our heads in to confirm it. After a few uncomfortable hours the odor dissipated, both inside and out. We hope the skunk moved on to a more suitable location; anywhere but here. Our house is back to normal this morning; no smell and I really hope no skunk, and it's dog bath day. Life in the fog shrouded Saint John Valley.

This morning my brother emailed me some photos from New York City. I can’t imagine that many people in such a small area. Just looking at one of the skyscrapers I thought; there’s more people in that one very tall building than there are in the entire hinterland of the Saint John Valley. At least we don’t have to pay to park up here.

Current values from our wireless Davis Vantage-Pro weather station:

Temperature: 49.5° [F.]

Barometer: 30.241 & rising slowly

Humidity: 100%

Wind: Calm

Visibility: < ¼ mile

Skies: 100% overcast - low ground fog

Precipitation: None

Since midnight:

Low temperature: 42.1° [F.] at 5:35 am

High wind: 1 mph at 8:21 am