Thursday, 8:30 am: More records, more rain and everything goes squish underfoot. It's even difficult to find enough dry days, in a row, to mow the lawn. And yet as I write the sun is breaking through the fog. I guess that's life on the frontier, or at least on the border and somewhere in the hinterland.

The Saint John Valley has a new common goal [for and against]; wind power. Apparently local residents are divided about whether to allow their construction. Anti-turbine positions range from the NIMBY argument, to the electricity will be sold out of the area [I thought we are part of an electrical grid, anyway.], and profits will not stay in the area, you know - globalization, and the ever-ubiquitous "it's not part of our local tradition and life-style." I suspect folks up here want the benefits of 21st Century renewable technology, such as it is, but don't want to contribute to its improvement or sustainability. Or should I say, long as it is somewhere else so we can tap into to it, so we can continue to be rural and appear self-reliant. If you haven't guessed already; I am pro-wind power, but then I am "from away", and a transplanted urbanite with a different view.

A wind turbine in Germany

Let's see now, that has, unabashedly, nothing to do with weather, neither does this; our Border Collie, Cosmo, will be 12 years old tomorrow. We adopted him in October 2006. He's too clever. It's difficult to outwit him, particularly when it comes to snacks and playtime. He seems to enjoy keeping watchful eye over us when we work in the garden.

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

Temperature: 62.2° [F.]

Barometer: 29.846 & rising slowly

Humidity: 100%

Wind: Calm

Visibility: currently < ½ mile, less than 100 yards earlier

Skies: Dissipating ground fog

Precipitation: None

Since midnight:

Low temperature: 55.3° [F.]

High wind: 2 mph at 8:14 am