February 15^th, 2004:
 

The temperature dipped to about –33° last night, but by the time we got up it was up to –15°. It was overcast, with a cold south breeze, and trying to snow a bit.
 

Next week is school break pretty well throughout the province, and people started moving into the Park Friday night. When the groomer goes out on the trails, it grooms a trail on the boulevard past our place, and dozens of machines are whipping by. I worry about pulling out onto the road with our car; visibility is limited until one is right out on the groomed trail, and some of those machines are travelling quite a bit over the limit.
 

We went to Prince Albert on Monday, to visit Cathy and Ted. The plan was to spend the night there, then go on to Saskatoon Tuesday morning. We started out as planned, got about a mile south on Highway 11, then turned around and ran for cover. Visibility was limited to nil, and it looked as if it would be more nil than limited. Listening to radio reports, we were glad we chickened out. We came home Wednesday morning. We didn’t see any signs of a storm; no huge drifts, or places where a vehicle might have hit the ditch. There were some interesting snow sculptures on both sides of the highway, so the wind must have alternated blowing from the south then the north.
 

Highway #3 was good from PA to Melfort; there were a few icy spots between there and Crooked River, and to Chelan there was a lot of packed snow, or ice. Highway #38 was all packed snow, but it’s pretty well clear now.
 

There didn’t seem to be a lot of new snow with the wind, though our driveways were blown in pretty deep. A north wind coming off the lake tends to dump its load on the south side of our house. I had to blow out the driveways before we could drive the car in.
 

We can see drifts and ridges out on the lake that weren’t there before; Mel tells me it would be easy to get stuck out there. It must be rough for snowmobiling, too.
 

Ted has ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. First symptoms were difficulty speaking and frequent choking, and biting his tongue and cheeks while eating. It was diagnosed last spring, and since then he has declined to the point where he has to feed himself through a tube surgically implanted into his stomach. His food is pureed and injected into the tube with a large syringe; the same with water. His weight is down to about 120 lbs. and his muscles have atrophied to the point where he has very little strength. His sense of humor is intact though; he has trouble signing his name and when we opined that it couldn’t be any worse than his normal signature, he laughed. Cathy seems able to understand him sometimes, but neither Doreen nor I could. He has to write everything out. He prepared a delicious supper for us Tuesday evening, though, and still plays a mean game of bridge.
 

On the front page of the February 9^th edition of the Foam Lake Review is an article and picture of Susan and Wilfred Wilcock of Sheho, holding a laser-engraved crystal received from the mayor of Yellowknife. “The gift is in appreciation for the Christmas light display that the Wilcocks build in their farmyard adjacent to Highway 16 near Sheho.”  They mayor and his wife were two of many citizens of Yellowknife to enjoy the display last Christmas. Congratulations, Susan and Wilfred! You’re famous!