It’s been solidly winter around NW Illinois since late November ‘07. Tomorrow the temps will begin to climb: 43 … 45 … 50 … 47.

I sound like some weather dot com. The snow has been the news in ACL these last few months, so the thaw is good news then, finally. I’m certainly not the news out here: all I do is sit on my ass, reading & writing. Sometimes I sit on my ass on the exercise bicycle. I’ve tried to read while spinning, and it’s sort of doable, but then one day I got really interested on this scene in a novel I’m reading, so I stopped spinning and sat in the saddle for like ten minutes. Finally I realized I could be sitting in a more comfortable chair. I guess I didn’t lose weight that day.

I’ve yet a few days to get in some XC skiing, so I think I’ll take that chance tomorrow and hit the trails. The lake looks might frozen yet — there hasn’t been a day above freezing, really, for two weeks — but March isn’t the time to die. Not this year, anyway.

The coming spring has drawn out the deer. Four of them wonder the property as I write these words. The fuckers are prolly starving after so much snow that has covered their traditional meager over-the-winter diet. Matter of fact, they do look a lot thinner than they had in December. Scrawny or not, if I had a bow & arrow, I’d like to skewer one and roast it over an open pit fire.