Sunday, February 3 - We have a visitor

He (she?) had visited before, at night, coming up onto the front porch, but he had disappeared before I could get the camera, so only Barry saw him. Well today, he came right out in the open, and this time I had the camera!



Now the only way I had seen this particular creature before was as road kill. They are kind of ugly but almost in a cute sort of way. This particular oppossum may well have been sick, because they usually only come out at night. In any event, he moved very slowly, and Barry managed to coax him up into a tree so we could get some really good pictures!

With our Loretta Lynn cookbook, we actually have "possum" recipes, but I think the "Cuban Sandwiches" Barry is fixing for our Super Bowl party will be better. Patriots 17-0? Giants fall in huge New England victory? Let's hope.

Barry is buying seeds, and having gardening dreams -- planning to plant some items that just will not grow in Maine -- like ambrosia melons, collard greens and okra. We probably should get the peas in the ground as soon as we move to Alum Springs -- within the next 2 weeks!

The roses are on sale at Wal-Mart, and the ice in the pond will be history by morning. It's 56 degrees out, with temps not going much below 32 for the next week, and reaching 68 by Tuesday. The buds on the trees are swelling, and it looks very much like mid to late April in Maine. We're beginning to hear different bird calls lately -- we expect the northern migration will take place soon, and that we'll see our first robin shortly. The dark-eyed junkos which winter here will head for Canada, but our Northern Cardinals will stay with us.

It's "mud season" here now, officially. The driveway is wet and soggy, the lawn is wet and soggy, everything is wet and soggy -- and it's going to rain more tonight!

We have a new cell phone -- our old one was in the 606 area code, our new one is in Danville in the 859 area code -- we didn't want to have to make long distance calls from home (which will be 859) to our cell so we decided to change that too. If we haven't emailed you with the number (and our new MAILING address) yet, we will. Just remember that as long as we live in the Knobs, you MUST call us when we're NOT home! OK?