Sunday, 4:30 pm: Our weather has done a complete turn-around; it’s sunny, warm and snow is melting everywhere. It’s melted enough that our snow depth, at our snow stake, is down to 36 inches [91.4 cm]. Yes that’s right it is down to 36 inches.

We saw two coyotes walking through the field which is diagonally across from our house. They politely ignored me when I went out to get a closer look with our binoculars. And the past week our Snow Buntings have returned to our birdfeeder. My wife assures me it is really spring, or at least it has started.

One of our resident squirrels

Yesterday we drove to Caribou and Presque Isle. The roads were great; no slick spots and no white-outs. Being the true gourmand, I imagine to be [yeah right!], we ate at a fast food hamburger place for some fine American haute cuisine. True to my whims yesterday, I smothered almost everything in ketchup. My palate is ruined for the next few weeks. I need something that’s not deep-fired to regain my mirco-sensibilities, such as they are.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen about political incorrectness; now I just need to write something controversial to bump it up a notch. I will keep you posted. As for today I am, sadly, and inexcusably politically correct through no fault of my own. Sorry Freidrich: I really like to tweak people’s noses, but I am at a loss the afternoon.

In case you like Euro oldies click here

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

Temperature: 36.3° [F.]

Barometer: 30.571 & steady

Humidity: 34%

Wind: WNW at 1 mph

Visibility: > 3 miles

Skies: Clear

Precipitation: Nome

Since midnight:

Low temperature: 17.4° [F.] at 6:37 am

High wind: 16 mph at 8:02 am

Friday, 1:40 pm: Lots of snow and much more than usual. According to the NWS in Caribou we’ve broken the old snowfall record. The NWS in Caribou now has 182.5 inches of snow and is an all-time high. This beats the 1954-1955 snow season. I think they’re calling it a blizzard and our current weather system is stalled over the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec for the next several hours probably into tomorrow morning. More snow and wind I suspect and this is not a day of leisure. I admit I like the term “blizzard” it evokes some mental imagery of darker and uncertain days from some long forgotten novel.

Is this enough snow?

After working hard for several hours my clothes were saturated with melted snow. I came inside and went through a complete change of clothing and back outside. Currently the work is done until later this afternoon when I need to go back outside and clear our driveway and walking paths again.

And me clearing the snow from our Internet satellite dish.

Today is the first full day of spring and I think it is buried under tons of snow. I know it’s spring somewhere, just not here. Fortunately we haven’t lost power or telephone service, and more importantly satellite television. Being snowbound has a few rewards; we are still connected to the outside world, we just can’t drive there. Today our solitude is just outside the door. Happy 223rd birthday J. S. Bach!

Note: This blog was posted late due to server probelms at MaineToday.com.

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

Temperature: 16.3° [F.]

Barometer: 29.150 & steady

Humidity: 80%

Wind: NW at 11 mph

Visibility: < ¼ mile

Skies: 100% low overcast – snowing

Precipitation: 15½ inches and still snowing

Since midnight:

Low temperature: 15.6° [F.] at 11:56 am

High wind: 22 mph at 7:09 am

Tuesday, 9:30 am: It’s a clear sunny day, and for northern Maine the temperature isn’t too cold. All in all it is a nice day. I have had a break today too; my outdoor chores are done, which these days, means bringing in firewood and making a few quick passes with the snowblower in our driveway. One of our dogs cleverly figured out she can now walk over the fence and into our buried [in snow] vegetable garden. I quickly remedied that by digging away the snow from the fence and putting the top out of her reach. I think she enjoys the challenge of escape and I feel like Sergeant Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes.

High snow banks by our garage

Spring is just around the corner, and by the looks of things it’s a very big corner. We still have 35 inches [88.9 cm] of snow at our snow stake, and that’s after a few days of partial melting. According to the NWS in Caribou they have had over 170 inches of snow this season. Caribou is about 37 miles south of us. I’ll go out on a limb here, and say we might have had more snow then they measured at their weather station.

Animal tracks walking over our 5 ft. high fence

Nevertheless it’s on to more culturally rewarding things; I found my Benny Hill DVD and it's time for a few hours of silliness and a few laughs. I can only listen to so many hours of Swiss Alpine music with lots of accordions, tubas, trumpets, and throw in a zither and a yodeler or two for good measure. It’s great, but I am folk “musiced” out. I need to find my Doors CD to reorient my musical sensibilities.

Cosmo, our Border Collie, today's editor

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

Temperature: 17.8° [F.]

Barometer: 30.466 & falling slowly

Humidity: 36%

Wind: N at 1 mph light & variable

Visibility: > 3 miles

Skies: Clear

Precipitation: None

Since midnight:

Low temperature: -3.3° [F.] at 6:21 am

High wind: 8 mph at 9:28 am

Saturday, 7:45 am: We have been up bright and early for the past two hours. I thought Saturday was a day to sleep late; I guess not. Moving right along, we’ve got snow everywhere. The snow is high enough that small wildlife is walking, with ease, across the top of our five foot high fence and into our garden. And because of the large amount of snow with a high moisture content, the NWS predicts localized spring flooding when the snow begins to melt. Of course it has to melt first, and mud season seems light years away.

During the week I had to put on my snowshoes and trudge up the snow bank next to our garage and shovel snow away from the window. It was an odd sight to see me resting my elbow on the edge of the roof trying to sort out which way to throw the snow. At the end of the day the snow was cleared and I was reaching for aspirin. It’s a way to burn off calories, but it’s not my first choice and it’s near the bottom of my list of favorite things to do.

Recently our friends Don and Diane in Saint Agatha drove into Fort Kent for some shopping. Don told us they kept hearing a dog bark while parked at the local drug store. As it turned out the dog was on the roof of a garage next to a nearby house. Apparently the dog would bark a bit, then run and slide down from the roof on the snow and ice and run back up and do it all over again. It sounded like some inspired canine winter fun. This must be a first for me: All three paragraphs are weather-related. I am Charles Ames and I approve this blog.

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

Temperature: 16.7° [F.]

Barometer: 29.935 & steady

Humidity: 78%

Wind: Calm

Visibility: > 3 miles

Skies: overcast

Precipitation: None

Since midnight:

Low temperature: 3.8° [F.] at 1:53 am

High wind: None measured

Sunday 4:15 pm: Another day for lots of snow. My snow stake is barely visible above the snow; which means more than 36 inches of snow are on the ground. Of course areas where the snow has drifted or piled up it’s much deeper. Looking at the weather radar on the Internet it appears the storm is on its way out. As my wife says; we spend all winter preparing for the next snow storm, and we spend all summer preparing for winter.

Another surprise, we lost our mailbox, once again to our town’s snowplow. I’ve decided the snowplow is a precision-guided weapon, and the U.S. Military could save stacks of money by contracting with our town’s maintenance department. I need to close the screen door in my mouth to keep other less complimentary observations in my head on not on paper.

My world has been turned upside-down today: I heard Perry Como singing Catch a Falling Star on Austria’s Radio Burgenland this morning. It seems he has a fan-base in Europe. As much as we’ve visited Austria, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Perry was cool, he‘s also, sadly, dead [May 2001], but I thought he was an iconic American pop-singer from the 1930s to the1960s. Austrians have good taste, you know Mozart, Strauss, Como and those guys. I am still baffled – Hot Diggity!

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

Temperature: 12.9° [F.]

Barometer: 29.802 & rising rapidly

Humidity: 68%

Wind: NW at 2 mph gusty - highly variable

Visibility: < ½ mile - blowing snow

Skies: Overcast

Precipitation: ca. 11 inches - snow

Since midnight:

Low temperature: 11.6° [F.] at 9:21 am

High wind: 27 mph at 1:07 pm

Low wind chill: 3° [F.] at 8:21 am

Monday, 1:30 pm: Another day in the frozen northland. Yesterday was a day to prove my alleged hardiness, such as it is. I was out in the wind operating our snowblower. I was frozen to the bone. I had to come inside a few times and my wife warmed me up with hot tea; then back outside. Occasionally the wind chill dipped into the minus numbers. My fingers and nose are still attached with no ill-effects. Nothing has snapped off.

Ruth by our Internet satellite dish

After briefly clearing snow and ice this morning, today is an inside day. We have an installer putting in a new kitchen floor. There’s plenty of noise and sawdust, but we’re warm. All of our kitchen and dining room furniture is crammed into our living room, porch and any other free space that we could find. The plan is for the floor to be finished by tomorrow afternoon.

. . . and in our backyard in one of the paths we cleared for our dogs

At the moment I am dog sitting two of our dogs upstairs. They tend to get in the way of the work. The other two dogs are dozing in their crates downstairs. All of the dogs are too curious; they have to put their noses into the equipment the floor installer is using. Eventually we decided they’re safer, but not happy, and are out of harm’s way.

Our houseplants overwhelm our living space in the winter

The forecast is for rain and possibly sleet tomorrow, and then it’s back to my gulag labors outside.

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

Temperature: 18.6° [F.]

Barometer: 30.023 and falling rapidly

Humidity: 51%

Wind: S at 4 mph light & variable

Visibility: ca. 3 miles

Skies: light haze/overcast?

Precipitation: None

Since midnight:

Low temperature: -2.9° [F.] at

High wind: 12 mph at 12:45 am