I heard on the news the other night that it was 17 F in Dallas---and so I just took a couple of minutes to check in on you Texas boys----and you are still in the chill

Dallas and Tyler at 30 F , Houston at 43 F and poor Joe at 36 F and a thunderstorm

We pretty much haven't been above freezing in more than a week (it could be a lot more) and it snows about every other day---but that is more like a "normal" winter used to be like for us. The deer seem to be perplexed by the snow---they have been staying close to the house and nipping the buds and young shoots on the shrubbery rather than paw through the snow for grass. It is only in the last few days I have seen a few pawed areas.

One interesting observation: when we got the first snow the ice on the ponds was pretty thin. The deer tracks skirted the ponds after the snow--despite the fact that the ponds were then snow covered and there was no clear demarcation of the edge of the ponds. Only now have I seen tracks across the ice---and not many of them. Somehow they sense what is under the snow.