What's going on...

 

No, this has nothing to do with you, Marvin...

So for the last 48 hours, our internet was down.  Our tech said something about "dirty lines at the DC", for whatever it's worth.  That's part one.  Part 2, we had our carry-in/plant meeting/gift exchange and ended our week with a whopping 24 hours, see you next year.  The carry in was quite good- I had several of Rhonda's meatballs, a couple of tamales from one of the ladies, and one of Phone's spring rolls.  (Phone is Laotian, her full name is an alphabet on it's own, and we pronounce it "Pawn".)  The plant meeting confirmed what we all knew, it was a dismal year.  Two years ago, I counted JUST the actual boat covers I cut, and was at +/- 10,000 at year's end.  This year, I counted everything that was a complete unit- canopies, curtains, tote bags, enclosures, along with covers- and I finished the year at 6,081.  So yeah, the economy for boat covers blew, we lost 2 big customers (of which one is already crawling back to us).  The gift exchange was full of music, some dancing as our full bellies allowed, and this year, I didn't get the "sissy gift that I re-gifted to my daughter".  Actually, I got a massive Hillshire farms cheese-and-summer sausage gift pack, so if any of y'all like Summer sausage, invite yourself on over.

The last 2 days, it went from bitter cold to cold to half-way warm.  Yesterday (Your Tuesday) was low 30s F, and the wind was nasty when you were going south our west.  And it looked much like this:

At this point, I'm not regretting it... yet

He felt he had to chew us out

I figured that these vehicles meant that, even as cold and windy as it was, we still had disc golfers.  Then I turned to my other side...

...and found it was actually a couple of winter-resistant socceristas.

They're out there with their coats hanging on the fence.  I'm wondering if I should go borrow one.

Misty is more like them, preferring the snow to the pavement.

They didn't clear the bridge so this is a stretch of half-covered frozen footprints I named the "ankle-turner".

Last year, the snowplows dug the yellow line right off the road; this year, they lifted a bit.

A file box in the horseshoe.

Hard to tell how much river we got, but what is, is frozen.

Misty inspects bunny tracks

Hmm, this is new, a roll-off at the Alumni Center...

A bit of reno going on

Yikes, the winter has already split this tree!

Misty kept getting wind of something, but neither of us figured out what.

So now we come to Wednesday, and we were MUCH warmer- approaching 50F as we left.

As you can see...

Misty chose Ground Hog road

And her early cut-in to the woods

Coon tracks

And another round, in virtually the same spot, of freezing to check something out.

Unlike yesterday, the black squirrels found it warm enough to venture out

ZOOM

But I really must complain about them leaving their packaging lying about...

These two were playing near the Alumni Pond

Something was allegedly hiding under this tree, I know not what

ith a little clearing we see it is still more mudflat than river

I'm getting better at in-flight catches

This is the "ankle-turner" minus the snow

Passed this dude with a big camera and tripod.  Told Misty I was glad mine was smaller