Our days are warming up to the mid-forties, which seems a comfortable temperature after the 17 below.

I am taking my rain gauge to Las Vegas - the weather people set up a station for it there. I'm betting every day there will be zero precipitation.

It is a job to measure snowfall. We have an official gauge that has an 4 inch diameter outer cylinder with a 1 inch diameter inner cylinder with measuring marks on it. Usually the rainwater is funneled directly into the measuring cylinder, but when it snows we remove that and let the snow fall into the larger cylinder. Here are the steps to measure what came our way:

Use a ruler to measure the snow depth. Subtract the total from yesterday's to get new snow in the last 24 hours. Pour hot water into the measuring part of the gauge and remember the amount. Pour it into the larger cylinder to melt the snow. Pour that into the measuring cylinder and subtract the amount of the hot water.

They also would like a core sample of the accumulated snow on the ground- measure the snow depth, then melt it and measure the water content, but I don't usually bother with that. The reports are entered on an official weather site. I wish I'd had this gauge during the rainstorm leading up to our big flood, but it was because of the flood that the weather service handed them out for free.

Tomorrow is the day to wind things up around here, with an emphasis on what is in the refrigerator. I didn't use up all the perishables, so I'm taking them with me. There is a large ham in the freezer, and that will act as the iceberg in the cooler to keep everything cold.

We had a dry run with the cat harness, and Miss Cat didn't freak out. When we start out, she will carry on for about 200 miles because she always forgets that in the past she has lived through these long road trips, and actually seemed to enjoy watching the traffic and scenery once she settled down. I attach a clothesline in case she escapes, I will have something to chase. She never tries to escape, but I want to be ready for it.

Today I mailed off a Christmas package to my little cousins in Texas, the ones who come for a visit in the summer. I made doll clothes for the American Girl dolls, and corduroy drawstring bags for the boys. I put some pretty rocks in the bags, and am not sure if their gift is rocks with bags to distract from what a cheap gift it is, or is it bags that just happen to have rocks in them. They really are pretty rocks with lots of sparkly mica and colored granite and others that are quartz.

You can't see the river that is between the road and that cabin. The county is building a pedestrian bridge to it. It's surprising to see how much the hill is getting dug out.



I'm designing a website for a bamboo flyrod maker, and here's one of the pictures his buddy took for it: