Fastnacht Day!

Early in the morning of "fat Tuesday", my husband will go to his brother's house to pick up fastnachts. A few will come home, but many will go to Nod's office. His boss just LOVES those fastnachts (Nod is joking that he can get away with anything on Fastnacht day).

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Ice continues to be a problem and is in the news quite a bit. Here are a series of photos from the local newspaper. Normally, residents are required "... within eight (8) hours after snow has ceased to fall ... remove the snow or ice from the sidewalk to its entire length and to a width of at least three feet ...". Most towns around here have extended the time until this morning (York, to our south, has re-extended it to Thursday).

The problem is that the ice is now like cement and it hasn't been warm enough to do much melting. Oh, sure, you can dump a load of roadsalt on it - that's horrible for the environment - or you can spend hours chopping it. I've seen people out with axes and pick axes and all sorts of other tools, trying to get rid of the ice. Often they spend hours getting a small area cleared. I did it for too long on Saturday and am still feeling the effects. This weekend a man died of heart failure after clearing his driving - unfortunately, this happens every winter.

When is spring coming?