With Beth working in Beulah this month I got the opportunity to bring the dogs along on my weekly commutes.  To make it more fun I was blessed with the opportunity to stay at a friends farm outside of town which the dogs love.  Max has been re honing his hunting instinct and Roo just wanders heading know-where in particular for hours at a time.  It is a bit like staying at my parents old cabin.  Luke warm bathing water, and lots of peace and quiet.  It has been a wonderful time and here are a couple pictures.  Last year at this time the cabin and barn were both still under several feet of water so I picked a perfect year. 

Our return trip brought winter quickly back into perspective, all told at least 80% of our drive home was on some combination of slush, ice, and packed snow.  Luckily this year the wind didn't pick up until we were about an hour from home.  So we could at least see most of the time.  Just like last year we left the house with just a couple of inches of snow in the yard and returned to banks 6 feet high.  See picture one.  On the plus side the skiing around town is much improved although Roo is asking for stilts for her birthday.  So she can maneuver in the drifts like a deer instead of being continually high centered.

Back in Grafton the story wasn't much different with a dozen line workers shoveling 18 hours a day to bring some relief to the office roof trusses.  Every year we wait until they bend enough that ceiling tiles start falling down and get the shovels out.  Here are some pictures of the front of the building.  We had to employ a front loader to find the plant entrance doors that were completely buried.  Of coarse accross the street the snowmobile trail was almost bare.