79 and counting

Speaking of every inclemency of the weather, it just keeps getting better and better. By the time I got home this morning the temperature had reached 42....that’s an increase of 79 degrees in a little more than two days. Everything is melting. And it is raining. On top of that, there is a howling windstorm ripping through the trees, enough of a wind that I left the car farther down the driveway away from the bigger trees in case the storm makes me more firewood. The wind is so wild between moving branches and blowing chunks of snow off them, it keeps both outside motion-detector lights on constantly. I have needed to get back to the East Pole to retrieve something I forgot the weekend after Christmas and haven’t been able to do it because it has been minus 30 and 40. Hoping to go this weekend but might not be able to because the temperature is plus 40 and the creeks might not be crossable.

Oh, and there has been a sighting. I am pretty sure I saw the Solitary Man last night. Driving to work, I spotted him across four lanes of traffic in the dark so I can’t be sure, but the silhouette was right, the wide brimmed hat, backpack, slightly hunched posture. He was heading down the hill away from the town toward where I think he lives. On the way home I looked at the area when I could. Freezing rain made that a little difficult since I was driving on what was essentially a skating rink-- 35 mph the whole way on a four lane 65 mph road. I couldn’t see anything that looked like a trail in the snow, but there were three sets of tracks up the hill. Could have been a moose, but it could have been him, too. Difficult to believe he lived out there through the cold time of the past couple of weeks, but you never know how tough a guy can be. Those buffalo hunters and mountain men did it. One reason I may not have seen him for a while is I finish my job earlier these days so go by his area much earlier than I used to and he isn’t moving yet that early. At any rate it was kind of reassuring to see him still among the quick instead of the dead.