My friends in the Midwest – stoics all – tell me the brutal cold they have endured is beginning to ease. They know that when it thaws this weakened, there will be an epidemic of broken pipes, potholes and structural damage.

We are luckier here. We have been living below zero more than above for much of the week, it is also supposed to begin to ease Sunday and into next week. Then we shall have flooding and ice jams to sort through.

Our Gulley Bridge leading to the woods has been destroyed by the weather, Ed would have come storming over her to fix it, sub-zero or not, and without gloves or heavy jacket, but we’ll find another way to get to our woods. Ed had a knack for that sort of thing.

Mostly, we feel nothing but lucky. We have two wood stoves, a shed full of wood, a heating oil tank full of oil, a snug and well-built farmhouse up on a rise, a foundation that hasn’t moved an inch in a couple of hundred years. They knew what they were doing.

We have an abbreviated chore schedule when it’s this cold. Life below zero is not as hard on writers as it is on others. I work more or less in the same way I do when it’s warm – sitting at my desk, surrounded by dogs.

Maria does the hay, I warm up the cards and fill the water tank, Red and Bud stay inside.  It’s too rough on their paws. We have it down to five or ten minutes, it’s hard to be out longer than that when it’s below zero and there’s a wind.

I stop here to think of the 21 people who died in the cold in the Midwest and Plains States, I pray this suffering will soften the hearts of the greedy and arrogant men and women who value money over the very earth we live on, and that our children and grandchildren will have to live on.

Tonight, our last Bingo game a the Mansion before the return of the wandering residents next week. I was very happy with the Hat Party we had, we need to do more of those.