799 (looks to have been a fairly uneventful common year starting on Tuesday)

Good morning! It is another rainy day here. According to weather.com, it is only supposed to rain this morning for which I am glad because the goats want to go out and after two days of rain, it would be nice for a break.

This morning I read an interesting blog post about New Englander’s and the temperature and turning the heat on. As with almost everything, New  Englander’s seem to think that they are unique in this. It seems to be, here, a matter of frugality (cheapness) and pride that they wait as long as possible before turning up the heat. Granted, it is expensive. However, New England is not the only place in the country that gets cold. It isn’t the only place in the country where it snows. It isn’t the only place in the country where the weather changes sometimes by the minute (or faster). I don’t remember our house being overly warm in the winter although it wasn’t terribly cold either. Unless you went upstairs because the doors were shut and NO heat got up there. I do remember Grandma keeping her house cool; you had to wear long sleeves, a sweatshirt or sweater. And, for those of you who don’t already know, I didn’t grow up in New England but rather that state where everyone here thinks everyone there lives in a city and the median temperature is 70°. Hate to burst your rather inexperienced bubbles, but your view is very limited.

One thing that I found curious is the averages listed on city-data.com. According to it, we have the following:

	McCloud, CA		Hubbardston, MA
	Average temps	Average snowfall	Average temps	Average snowfall
Nov	Mid-low 40’s	1”	High-low 30’s	6”
Dec	Mid 30’s	2.5”	High-low 20’s	14.5”
Jan	Mid 30’s	3.5”	Low 20’s	16”
Feb	Mid-high 30’s	1.5”	Low-high 20’s	16”
Mar	Low-mid 40’s	1”	High 20’s – high 30’s	9”
Apr	Mid-high 40’s	.5”	Low-high 40’s	4”

I think the information for Hubbardston is fairly accurate from what I’ve seen since we’ve been here. However, I don’t think the information for McCloud is unless the climate has changed that much since I was growing up. I mean, really, with snowfall amounts such as this shows, how on earth did I regularly walk to school on top of the snow that was as high as the fences? Looking at various cities near both places, I really have my doubts. Worcester is almost identical to Hubbardston and what I’ve heard is that Hubbardston is usually ten degrees cooler than surrounding areas. McCloud and Mt. Shasta are practically the same and Redding’s reported snowfall is less than an inch less than either of them. Yeah. Don’t think so. I’m not sure where the information is collected from, but McCloud being a little tiny town with no noteworthy (and I mean this from a who’s who in Hollywood kind of perspective) citizens, I don’t think most people care. Sad. So very sad.

So-called Otter River at the bottom of the hill. Not far from where Paul had to pull the Jetta from yesterday. I go right by this when I do my walking/jogging on Pitcherville.

Anyway. We had a rainy day yesterday. It was a good day. The boys didn’t do any school work Wednesday so they had double yesterday. And they got it done in very good time and with the exception of Seth’s grumbling at the very beginning, with a good attitude. Very, very nice.

Seth and Joseph had a pack meeting after dinner. I asked Cedric if he wanted to go and he said he did. When we got there, he told me that I told him he had to go. Nope. Sorry. Not buying that. There was no need for him to go so it mattered not if he wanted to go or stay home.

Joanna came over but it was after we left for the pack meeting so I didn’t get to talk to her.

Paul doesn’t like to drive out the lower end of the driveway because if you don’t hit it just right, the Jetta’s scrape bottom. He goes instead down the hill between rows of trees and at the bottom meets the place where you can go in or out along the creek. Well, yesterday, being our second rainy day in a row, it was rather wet and slippery so when he went to turn, the car wouldn’t turn. He got stuck and had to come back up to the house to get the truck to pull the car out.

This morning I had to mop in the living room. I want to do Pilates this morning because the chances of walking are pretty slim with the boys today and I did my walking/jogging yesterday afternoon in the rain. I made the boys do some picking up and I swept and then mopped. It was pretty exciting and I won’t go into my feelings about dogs right now.

Have a fantastic day!