Jeez, I haven't seen bare dirt in a month or 40 degrees for over two!! I'm ready to take up ice fishing again, but as fat as I've gotten this winter I'd probably just fall through. Jay, I'm surprised you don't have geothermal yet for your hoops!! It was -2 here Friday morning. I'm cleaning and sharpening tools, playing with some dried gourds, taking inventory on everything, exhausting the catalogs, spending too much time on line, and baking too many pies. The lengthening daylight is encouraging. Brook

IM kind of a pretty big weather buff myself, and I used to get the farmers Almanac every year when I was a kid as well. I still read it for its interesting articles and such, but really, I think that NOAA is more accurate as its more science based rather than on oak trees "MASTING", and other natural phenomena. For those who don't know, "MASTING" is when Oak trees overproduce acorns to an extreme amount. It happens from time to time some reigons, and from what I understand is more of a survival insurance than anything else. It happend here several years ago, and it was truly incredible just how much acorns were produced. Never seen anything like it. I think it only occurs once in like every 50 or 100 years or something. Anyway...Im still hoping for ( and thinking that it will be) a very mild winter here in the Mid Atlantic. We have the same saying here... " if you don't like the weather in D.C., wait 5 minutes". While its not that volatile all the time, we do get fairly changing weather for large portions of the year, especially spring and fall, we were can see 40 degree differences in temps in sometimes as little as 12 hours. The D.C. Metro just does not have the same winters it had regularly up until about 1995 or so. The last true "blizzard" we had here was in 1996. The rivers and bay almost NEVER freeze over anymore in the last 10-12 years here, and seeing teens and low 20's in the city is fairly uncommon anymore. Were also very hurricane prone here as well, although most are usually strong to medium tropical storms by the time they get here. Although, a few have come through at a category 1 hurricane, like Isabel in 2003. IIRC, it was finally downgraded to a Tropical Storm once it moved just north of the D.C. Metro. Its center passed about 50 miles due west of downtown D.C., putting most of the metro area, and most of VA/MD in the worst / strongest quadrant of the storm. What a trying 24 hours that was. I rode it out in my east facing 14th floor apt at the time, and we had sustained winds up there of 82 MPH for several hours at the hight of it, with a gust to 106. That was the gust that blew the anomometer off of the balcony railing. I can tell you the vines that I could not get down, and the 10' river birch in a large half whisky barrel were all defoliated by the winds, and quite a few of the windows were blown out on the east and south facing windows of the high rises we lived in. Im glad we heavily tapped our large plate glass windows up, because those were the ones that were breaking into peoples apts. Anyway, lots of varied weather here. It keeps things very interesting. I just wish we were 1 zone warmer! Who knows, in the close in dowtown areas of NoVA and DC we have moved into a zone 8 in the last 10-14 years, maybe a zone 9 is coming? Im not for "global warming" but man it would be nice to have even milder winters than we do now.

A delicious, quick meal that will use some of your filet is beef stroganoff. This is the recipe I use...sounds complicated but you can simplify the sauce. The point is that the beef is sliced thin and quickly, very quickly, sauted and then tossed with the sauce and served over egg noodles. Delicious ! Beef Stroganoff (Silver Palate) 3 Cup Crème Fraiche (can use sour cream) 1 1/2 Tbl Dijon mustard 3 Tbl tomato paste 3 Tbl Worcestershire sauce 2 Tsp paprika 1/2 Cup demiglace (or good beef broth) 3/4 Tsp salt fresh black pepper To Taste 1 Lb firm small sized, white button mushrooms 10 Tbl butter (or a combo of butter)and EVOO 24 pearl onions 3 Lb of beef filet Italian parsley Chopped Combine creme fraiche, tomato paste, mustard Worcestershire, paprika, demiglace (or beef broth if you don't have demi glace), salt and pepper in a medium size sauce pan. Simmer slowly for 20 minutes or until sauce is slightly reduced. Do not boil. Remove from heat and let sit covered. Cut a small x in the bottom of each onion. Bring a pot of water to the boil and drop the onions in the boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain the onions and run under cold water. Peel the onions. Melt 3TBSP of butter in saut pan. Saute Mushrooms until tender. Remove mushrooms and add 3 TBSP more butter, saute onions just until lightly golden. Remove the onions from the pan and add to mushrooms. Cut the meat into thin slices on the diagonal. Heat the remaining butter in the same pan. Cook on high heat just until lightly browned,do not over cook.This dish can be prepared to this point several hours before serving. To complete, set sauce over medium low heat and bring to a bare simmer. Add mushrooms, onions and any accumulated juices. Simmer 5 minutes. Add beef and juices, heat just until meat is heated through. Serve immediately over hot noodles , garnish with the parsley.

"We knew we'd have to change things but we also knew that the house had been lovingly and carefully designed. We could recognize that even though we were clueless 20 somethings. Your sellers aren't distressed. They have time to wait for someone who will respect their choices (even if they may want to change them). I vote for leaving everything as it is" You could be right, edeevee, and there are many people here who would know more about that than I do. However, IMO there is at least one thing that's changed since the 1980s - the advent (onslaught?) of HGTV shows in which rooms filled with perfectly good furniture are redone with new furniture as a means of so-called staging and where buyers, sellers, and real estate agents intone key words over and over, repeated as mantras, that include "stainless steel," "needs updating," "accessories," "granite," "open concept," and the like! On these shows, the latest crop of clueless 20 somethings walk into a nice house, take one look at the "dated" carpet or last year's paint color on the walls of one room out of seven or eight and reject the place out of hand because of all the work the house would entail. I realize I'm exaggerating quite a lot, but it's possible these shows, and probably many magazines, have cued people into expecting certain elements as part of a ready to sell house.