We had the chimney sweepers out on Wednesday. Only one of the chimneys actually needed to be swept as it turned out. Better safe than sorry… lest we have another New Year’s Eve chimney fire like we had back in 2002. We were the first call of that year for the Groton VFD in New York. As a matter of fact, one of the volunteer firemen had just left our house not an hour before with his family. We had ushered in the new year together. Good friends, good times…

Stephen immediately started a fire in the family room fireplace on Wednesday evening. It grew pretty toasty in there. Once it really starts to get cold, I think those fireplaces will be a great asset. Thus far our overnight temps only occasionally dip to the freezing mark. Generally they’re around 40 degrees. Daytime highs are in the upper 40’s at this point. No snow yet at our elevation, but it’s coming.

Tess got her hair cut yesterday. We’ve noticed that most girls here have bangs. Her hair had been all one length. So now she has bangs and layers and we both agree it looks very nice. She took this photo of herself yesterday evening.