We are now in the depths of winter. A glacier has formed in our front yard as a result of the mixture of snow, rain and wide temperature fluctuations over the last few weeks. It grows and recedes, but remains slippery and very difficult to walk over. On really cold days we build fires in the fireplace. Chris has been pretty diligent about keeping our woodpile stocked with seasoned wood, and he has developed a system for cutting, splitting, aging and storing wood without power tools (he uses a splitting maul and a 100 year old Disston cross-cut saw). He thought he had a pretty good system in place until he saw a recent New York Times article about firewood in Norway. The article describes a 12 hour TV show that was inspired by a recent best selling book in Norway, Solid Wood: All About Chopping, Drying and Stacking Wood and the Soul of Wood-Burning. Sadly, the book is written in Norwegian and does not appear to be available outside Scandinavia, even if it is a best-seller. I guess we’ll have to go there to find out more. The article makes it clear that Norwegians have strong feelings about whether firewood should be stored with the bark side facing up or down. Could this be the kind of issue that rends families?

On a related subject, today was Everett’s first snow day. We received a phone call at about 5:45am from the school superintendent saying that school was cancelled as a result of about 10 inches of extremely wet, heavy snow which left the roads a mess. For Everett this meant two things: 1. iPad in the morning (it’s not allowed on school days); 2. Tromping around in the snow instead of school.

Snow days are a rare events here, so it’s unusual that Everett would experience one during his first year. And they don’t have the same charm for parents that they do for children. Instead, school cancellations set off a chain of events that most parents have no choice but to accommodate. But it’s also fun: Chris rode the Pugsley home from work through the hills and along the river north of his work (it took close to an hour to go about 4 miles). It provided reinforcing material for the igloo, and was a great reason for Everett to go outside for extended periods during his recent playdates.