The driveway needs shoveling, but the trail needs hiking. I will probably to the drive first so it doesn’t get iced up from the car tires. Hopefully i will have enough energy to go down to the Narrows. With the new snow it will slow down the hiking.

The drive won. Good thing it was pretty light there was probably another three  inches of snow. This should be the last time I shovel snow this year unless something odd happens. I need some melting, not a lot of room to pile up more snow.

We have some real nice ice cycles hanging from the house. Some are three feet or longer. Watch out overhead.

With all this snow it will be impossible to get tennis season off and running at the usual start time. Looking at the future weather reports it doesn’t look like there are going to be any warm days for quite a while to melt the snow off the courts. Snow blowers at twenty paces? I guess we will just have to see.

There were a number of the areas at the Narrows that I was the first to walk since the snowfall. The snow was light and fluffy, could have used my gators. I kept up a pretty good pace even with the snow. Only took about fifteen minutes longer than normal.

Worked the dulcimer some more and ordered two more lessons from Stephen Seifert. He has a good way of explaining how to play. My next purchase should be some of his song books. He even shows you which fingers he uses and whether he strums in or out when playing a song. That should help me since my hand have a hard time figuring out what my fingers should do sometimes.

The weather has struck again, we both have a to hour delay in the morning. Must be expecting problems with blowing snow.

They were talking about snow for today and it is here. Looked like a snowman when I finished my hike today. Not a lot of people out, but there were a few. When you have a holiday it brings out more people. Talked to one guy that was cross country skiing. He said the conditions were perfect the last few days. I told him I had not had much luck with my skis when I tried them here because the snow was too wet.

These were some guys I saw on the trail. The snow was not bothering them at all. I think they really liked it.

Paul finally caught up with Judy to let her know about his girlfriend having a daughter Sophia. Obviously your girlfriend having a daughter makes the relationship more complicated, but Paul has a good attitude in, what is meant to be, will be. Makes sense to me.

The snow is really piling up. Time to get out and shovel. It is deep enough, time to get Dave’s snow blower. The snow blower sped up the process, but with the stuff it misses and the extra snow that keeps coming down I needed to go over everything another couple of times.

Worked on the dulcimer for awhile until Judy needed to go to the store. She could not get up the hill. Normally that would have been enough to keep her from going, but we are having Dave, Anna, Chips, and Lynn up for chili. With my four wheel drive it was pretty easy, but a lot of people were having a hard time. Any little hill was a problem if they had to stop.

Everyone liked the chili. Chips saw something I had laying out on the dulcimer and asked about it. so I showed everyone and played them my really one and only Boil (Bile) Them Cabbage Down. I was surprised they applauded when I finished. I kept it to my simplest rendition skipping part B, but I did add the high octave part. Chips had a lot of questions and played with it a little. He has a music book that he said he would let me take a look at that might have some stuff in it for me to play.

Got the word early, no school tomorrow. Got to torture Judy until Mad River finally called off.

Everyone headed home and I watched a little TV and worked some more on my guitar fingering. It’s getting better, but still a long way to go.

This is a test of email bloging

Bright beautiful morning, should be a good morning for a hike. It was beautiful, the bright sunshine, the white snow. It was so bright I needed  my sunglasses. Just a nice stroll. The new boots seem to be working out well.

We tried to go to the movies. It didn’t quite work out, just as Judy was about to but the tickets there was an announcement that the movie we wanted to see Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It’s supposed to be the next Harry Potter. So we just went to eat at the Fox and Hound. I like the food, but the service is strange. The good thing is they are never really busy. We have sat at virtually the same table every time we ate there.

We also went to Sam’s. Judy wanted this one cup coffee maker. It seems to work well. There are a lot of choices for what you can make in it. You can even make hot chocolate. It is kind of week for my taste. It is just a powder you mix with water. I think I will use two containers next time to see if that makes it strong enough.

We watched two movies on pay per view Couples Retreat and Extract. Couples Retreat actually had some depth especially for a Vince Vaughn movie. Extract was a pure waste of time.

Didn’t get a chance to work on the Dulcimer, but I did work on my guitar fingering while I watched movies with Judy.

Appears warmer than I thought it was going to be. At this point doesn’t look like there will be much sun, but we can wish. Hopefully it will be a good day to hike. With the amount of snow out there and the projected weather forecasts it might be tough to have the snow gone by March 1 so we can go outside and start playing tennis.

Had a nice hike with Greg the new boots worked out fine. Greg says he looked at my x-rays and the tooth he fixed plus the one next to it need a crown. He is checking with the insurance company to see how much they will pay. He also said that he would try his new laser on my teeth to see if it will whiten them. I may look like a new person.

The sun finally came out in full force. It is really beautiful with all the snow and the bright sunshine.

Worked on the dulcimer for quit a while today. I am getting there, especially on Bile (Bile) Them Cabbage Down. While I was working on the dulcimer I saw that Paul had called, so I rang him back and even played him a little ditty.

Paul had an eventful trip to Canada on the exchange. The girl that went with him fell on the first run, the first curve of the first day and tore up her knee. They ended up coming back a couple of days early. I didn’t get much of a sense how much he liked it.

Paul also said he applied for an engineering job. With the various problems he has had with the Park Service he has kind of fallen out of love with them. Likes the free time, but they are still a bureaucracy.  I guess we will just have to wait and see where this takes him. He realizes that if he ever really wants a life the Park Service probably won’t get that for him.

UD blew another one. They had St. Louis beat, missed some free throws and they banked one in to take it to overtime. UD really never recovered.