It was only –12· this morning, though with a fairly stiff wind, overcast, and snowing very lightly. We seem to get an inch or so of fresh snow every couple of days, enough to give me some exercise, but not enough to warrant starting the snowblower.

The Park was quiet all week; the last school break ended last weekend so now it will be slow until May. Weekends, of course, will still be busy until the trails deteriorate; the snowmobiles start roaring around late Friday but will be gone by Sunday afternoon. Greenwater is almost the last place snowmobilers can go and still find snow; farther west what snow there is has blown into the coulees. The Park, and the snowmobile clubs, has been able to groom our trails and the comments I hear are how smooth they are.

I was a bit previous in writing the above paragraph – Saturday was wild, with thirty or forty snowmobiles in the Cove's parking lot at any given time. Connie was racing back and forth between the restaurant's till and the dishwashing sink (and, you know, I think she was enjoying it!). I understand it stayed busy until closing time, too.

One of these days, someone is going to make a little snowmobile with a liquid-cooled four-stroke engine and a top speed of about forty mph; it will be very quiet, and not enveloped in a cloud of blue smoke. When that happens, I may just buy one, if I'm not too old to ride it.

Did you ever listen to two snowmobilers standing by their machines in a cloud of smoke and shouting to each other over the noise of their engines about how great it is to get out into the peace and quiet and fresh air of the great outdoors?

Fishermen are getting their last licks in before the season ends at the end of March. I suspect that means they are entertaining the fish more than catching them, though Jim Carnago said he caught four perch and four jacks yesterday. His family were out, too, and caught all they wanted. Looks like fishing might pick up just before the end of the season.

I noticed the "Open" sign has been in the window of the Dreamcatcher Inn in Chelan lately, so stuck my head in there. Laverna tells me she has been open for a long time, except for a short spell around Christmas. She is open every day of the week except Mondays. We used to stop in there quite regularly at noon, for a soup and sandwich.

At Fisherman's Cove, the construction crew is putting on the siding, and it is looking better every day. The motel rooms are done, and were rented out during the school breaks. They are planning to move the kitchen and dining into the new part in April.

The new tobacco laws have brought some changes – There is a tall, narrow cupboard in the store for tobacco products, keeping them completely out of sight. I have to check and see if they have designated a part of the dining room and lounge as "no smoking".

For a long time we have not had a red-breasted nuthatch at the feeder, but yesterday there were both male and female. They are kind of scruffy-looking, which seems strange – we are getting close to breeding season, and all the birds like to look their best at breeding time. Of course, there's the evening grosbeak; though their colors are at their peak, pretty soon the males will be strutting around with their necks at a weird angle and their wing feathers touching the ground, like a bunch of miniature turkeys, or teenagers.