All right, I'll do it...

( (States I've visited map) )

Has a couple of interesting holes. I dunno how I've missed Kansas every time. States on the map where I'm cheating because I never got off the train or out of the car: Delaware, New Jersey, and Wyoming.

Photos!

Finally got around to taking advantage of beta test access to the photohosting pages. A few test photos of my horses are now available for the die-hard equiphiles who care to look. I'll add some more in the next week or two once I sift through the hundreds of images I have available. The horses are registered Haflingers: Augenstein WKF (Archie), Asher WKF, Contessa of Milk n Honey (Tess), and Cherokee Dawn FB (Dawn) who was born here on June 2, 2003.

Link is in the left-hand column of my journal, at the bottom. Or here:

Photo Gallery for altivo

Weather, whether or not...

Snow!

Now, I know, those of you who live in warmer parts of the US think that we are buried in snow up here from September to April, but that isn't the case. In fact, for the past several years, we have seen little snow before Christmas and it has usually been all gone by mid-March. Tonight it is snowing with a vengeance. The forecast was for one to three inches changing to rain in some areas.

Nuh! We are past the four inch mark and it is still coming down in huge clumps of flakes. With occasional thunder, which is very unusual for a snowstorm. The radio says that not many miles south of here it is raining. But up here on the Wisconsin line we have white stuff, the sticky, flaky kind. It is sticking to everything, making fanciful sculptures out of fences and bird feeders. Tree branches and shrubbery, now devoid of leaves, are all turned to fluffy white.

Driving home from work was a mite unpleasant, as apparently the folks who command the snowplows were caught unawares. Even the state highways were completely snow-covered. Fortunately, people were slowing down (very unusual around here) and if you keep your speed down to 35 mph or so, you can manage OK. The biggest problem is that the edges of the road disappear. To avoid falling off into soft mud or worse, people edge over to the middle and our roads are pretty narrow to begin with. Once I got away from town and headed toward the farm though, it was all just quiet and beautiful, with only short visibility due to the heavy snow falling in my headlights to deal with. Thought I might see some deer, but did not.

Evening events were cancelled. If this keeps up much longer and doesn't warm up and melt, tomorrow will be a day off for a lot of folks, maybe even me (unlikely, but I can hope.)