Thursday, 9:40 am: A subdued fanfare please – mud season is here, yet we still have about 20 inches of snow which is rapidly melting. Mud and snow sounds like an out-of-print gloomy Russian novel, but it’s the Saint John Valley.

On Route 1 north of Caribou

Tomorrow we load up the car and drive to Bangor and Augusta for two days of R and R. We will probably look like a pair of hayseeds with dried mud on our pants, and with frequent stops to gawk at “big city” attractions. Well it’s big compared to here. I’ll try not to act like the perennial butt of amazement, Gomer Pyle; probably more like Barney Fife.

I’ll turn 58 at the end this month. I think I am too old to look for new role models, and quite possibly I am supposed to be a role model. Let’s hope not for their sake. My diet is going well, I’ve lost 17 pounds. The diet food I eat makes me want to gag after awhile, but I persevere. The picture on the boxes of food look great, but what looks good isn’t necessarily intertwined with tasting good. I am back to my weight when I was 20 years old, before I got malaria in Vietnam.

One of my dedicated readers, Janos, in New Zealand has gone online with a new weather station. You can view his data on Weather Underground. They are in autumn now.

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

Temperature: 43.6° [F.]

Barometer: 29.78 & falling slowly

Humidity: 60%

Wind: SSW at 3 mph – light & variable

Visibility: > 3 miles

Skies: Overcast

Since midnight:

Low temperature: 34.7° [F.] at 5:10 am

High wind: 17 mph at 9:37 am