Happy New Year - Cold Temps and Lost Power

Happy New Year to all the residents of Woodland Valley (even those of you who slipped off to warmer climates to avoid the winter weather). I wish everyone a happy, healthy, prosperous 2009!

We got about 4 inches of new snow here yesterday. Fortunately, it is the light and fluffy kind and it is easy to shovel. Most of the snow from the last storm (the 18 inches we had before Christmas) had melted before this storm arrived so there is no big pileup. The temperatures have dropped down into the single digits. Right now, by my thermometer, it is 8 degrees....Brrrrrrr. It was even colder last night. But it is sunny and quite beautiful in that "Winter in the Catskills" way. The temps are supposed to rise in a day or two.

The upper part of the valley had a power outage on Tuesday. Early that morning a huge, double trunk pine split in two and half fell across Woodland Valley road bringing down the power lines with it. NYSEG, Time Warner and the Shandaken Highway Department were all here quickly. The tree was removed and the power and cable were restored by 1:00 pm. I think everything was only out for about 4-5 hours. That is a miracle considering the size of the tree. I am not sure which houses lost service and which did not but it was definitely from my house to the end of the road.

Well, that's it for now, I am going to put on a couple of layers and go out and enjoy the sunny winter weather!