January 9, 2008 – My friend Drew has introduced me to the Pine Grove Diner in Granville, N.Y., which offers home-baked bread and other great breakfasts, including oatmeal. It’s my favorite breakfast spot, and I’ve started hauling my camera there. I will be there a lot this coming week, as brutal cold is forecast for the entire week – -15 later in the week – and it should be another hummer. This has turned out to be the toughest winter since I’ve been here (what happened to global warming?) and I feel for the animals, although they don’t seem to mind. But they’ve experienced rain, snow and cold for weeks now, and this cold is nasty. I will put the donkeys in the barn at night, turn on heat lamps for the chickens.
  I am plotting a way to get somewhere warm for a few days. Don’t know if I can do it. It should be good writing weather, on the bright side, and I’ll be hauling a lot of wood for the stoves. In the kind of cold being forecast, you never really get warm or stay warm thought.
  Even the dogs don’t like to go out. I got frostbite a few years ago and when the temperature dips like that, I have to sometimes dip my fingers in melted wax to keep them warm and pain-free. Got to the keep the writing fingers limber.