I went yesterday to arrange to have my car repaired and, wow, if I play my cards wrong, I can get two accidents being taken care of at one appointment. It is supposed to be icy, icy and icy and I have to go out this evening.

It is raining right now and the temperature is 31, so it is a good thing we don’t have many hills here as we did in northern metropolitan Cincinnati.

I have a lot of firewood in the garage and vestibule but the rest is getting wet. It should be all right, however, because the wood is seasoned and a hot fire from the dry wood will make it burnable – it’ll have a hissy fit, but it will burn.

They are selling something odd at the grocery: a slice of a tree trunk with sort of an asterisk cut into it. They say it’s an instant bonfire. I think I’ll let someone else try it out. If I were a good kindling maker, I could make a little money on the side, chopping up my logs. A pack of kindling (small) sells for six dollars. It looks like it is mostly fat slivers of wood and I think it would burn up fairly fast – don’t bother getting the hot dogs out.

I wouldn’t make roasting hot dogs tonight, but I don’t feel any enthusiasm, although people would probably show up when I stuck my roasting stick in. I keep intending to rig up grill to fit over the fire – or a spit to hold a bean pot, but then I forget. I think it would do people good to have some beans cooked in an old cast iron pot over a fire. We could eat them in pie tins and say things like, Boy we had a hard day of cowboying.

But back to the winter storm; I have this fear that the easy winter is going to turn into a spring that refuses to make a commitment and we will have precipitation and 30 degrees temps every other day or so. Last week, 50 cars slid off the road in this county in about two hours time.

I’m looking out the window and that rain, well, it’s looking like sleet and the neighboring roof is starting to look glazed. Rats, now what did I do with the scraper? Oh, it’s probably in the car which will ice up and the doors will refuse to open, necessitating the hair dryer technique.

I want a Hummer. No, a tank would probably be better. Best of all would be a beat up old Volvo that would tank its way along and if you slide into something, it will be able to take it. Actually, that reminds me of the winter Quentin and I aimed an old Volvo at the space between the two towers of snow at the driveway entrance. More than once, we bounced off and had to re-aim. That was the year Quentin had to rescue the Cocker Spaniel Little Ann from a monstrous drift. And she’d try it again. Sigh.