Garage doors are delicately tuned engineering marvels, and their smooth, reliable operation is easy to take for granted. Mine broke on Saturday so I right away called a professional outfit and a technician came up this afternoon and fixed it.

It was a matter or re-tortioning that big spring that is over the opening, reattaching the cables on the sides, and squirting it all with spray oil that turns to grease. According to him, our installation is less than ideal, but we don't need an overhaul until the next time it breaks. The charge was the $85 base rate for a 1/2 hour service call plus $2 for that can of lube that he used and then left the rest with me.

What a lovely, warm day we had here, almost 60 degrees, and the same expected for tomorrow. After that, a change is coming with a small chance of snow every day. I would just as soon have a lot more snow and cold weather for another month. It makes me nervous for spring to come too fast.

I know you wonder what is going on with the foxes.

I was up at 1 am last night, and noticed the motion sensor lights on the driveway were on. Pretty soon I saw a fox crossing the bridge, and next thing I knew, there she was in the back yard. She took a dog biscuit and walked back across the bridge and re-triggered the lights. This is not a good thing because it means they are probably living across the highway - as high as that sensor is up our drive there isn't a whole lot of other places they could be going. It's not bad this time of year when there isn't much traffic, but come summer, it's going to be very dangerous. I'm going to stop putting out food at night. The friendly fox only comes during the day time.

He was out on the river ice yesterday, carrying dog biscuits across to bury. This is in the opposite direction from the highway, so I was glad to see him spending time over there. With this warm weather, the ground squirrels and chipmunks might be venturing out, so that's a good hunting ground for foxes.