The “storm” arrives…

And we have got some snow, though I wouldn’t call it a storm…

It seems almost unnatural to see snow falling straight down. Doesn’t snow normally fall sideways? But the wind has dropped to nothing at all. I don’t know when the snow started – the sky was clear when I went to bed but that was a long time ago. We have maybe as much as 3 inches, which in a normal winter would seem like a lot but right now seems hardly worth mentioning. I’m sure the mud will be more influential.

With the lack of wind it’s not even cold…

…and the cabin is toasty. Not that you can convince my mighty hound of that…

Yeah, Torso Boy went out to pee at 4 and balked at all the snow. We went back to bed for an hour and I haven’t seen him since. You’d think it was freezing in here, which it is not: It’s headed toward “too warm.” Why would a dog with such a thick winter coat hate cold so much? Little Bear wouldn’t have been able to stay under those blankets for a second.

Anyway, the snow has arrived. I’m interested to see how much we get in the end – 6″ to 10″ has been bruited abroad but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Oh! And this is a special day, because Ian’s promised book Chassepot to FAMAS: French Military Rifles 1866 – 2016 has completed its technical peer reviews and is heading into copy editing/proofreading. I know this because I’m one of the copy editors, which gives me something to do for the next few/several days. I’m very excited for Ian, because this is a serious work of scholarship: I’m old enough to regard an actual book as somehow more substantial an accomplishment than all his thousands of not-at-all-frivolous videos and I’m delighted to be involved.