sound

The wind howled all night long. I remind myself that the farmhouse has been standing for one hundred years, solid years of storms and hails and tornadoes. And so it shall stand. But then we hear a big slap of something and I think -- mighty trees have crumbled after years of standing. Why should we assume that we're resilient?

But we are resilient. Or at least the farmhouse is. In the morning, we see fallen limbs scattered throughout, but nothing more than that.

And the wind continued to howl.






And the puddles are now frozen solid so that if you need a place to skate, may I suggest our looooong driveway?






Given the fact that I slid off of it with the old Ford just last week (my fault: I was searching around for a good radio program and not paying attention) and landed inches away from the ancient apple tree, Ed had little faith that I would manage to glide out without incident today, but after breakfast...






...he went to his various meetings, and I went grocery shopping, and apart from being whipped around a bit on my way to the car, I was fine.


In the evening, we go out to dinner. Our promise to each other that this should be a weekly event has been a bust. In fact, this will be our only dinner out in Madison, just the two of us, this entire season. (We haven't done it since returning from Turkey and next week, I'm leaving again, for quite a bit actually -- I'll be back only on the day before spring is officially here.)

We go to our local Italian place. It's not intimate, nor inventive and it's far too committed to Alfredo sauce in any number of its preparations, but  it's close by and we're grateful for that.






Late into the evening I load my kindle with reading stuff for the weeks ahead of me (I deeply appreciate your suggestions!). I'm not leaving until Wednesday, but somehow retirement has pushed me to be more aware of where I'm going and what I may enjoy doing while away.

And that's a good thing.