My wife has started planting seeds in the greenhouse, inspired by all the seed catalogues we've been getting recently. She likes to work out there when it's bitter winter outside. The people at Lowe's probably thought we were crazy buying potting soil in this weather.

We're having a horrible cold spell here in Maryland. Low of 10 tonight, 6 Friday night and 5 Saturday night. Single digits are very unusual here. Then it gets back to normal January Maryland temperatures for a week or so; overnight lows in the 20's, daytime highs in the 30's and low 40's.

Not much snow, just an inch or so this morning from the winter storm that disabled much of the Atlantic coast. I was afraid of a major dump of snow as the backhoe doesn't feel like starting in the cold.

It's been too cold for the sheep's' water heater to keep up so I have to go out in the morning with a hatchet to break the ice and bring a pail of hot water to top it off.


Paul