So, we're all off and running, trying to keep up with 2014. I measured nine inches of snow on my back deck on Friday morning, January 3. The 24-hour minimum temperature was -6.7 F. Not a patch on northern Maine or Michigan, but hey, in our modest way, we too are freezing.

Belatedly, I've gone through the house, trying to identify where the drafts are coming from, and weather-stripping wherever feasible. I bought a bunch of double-sided Breeze Blockers, two polystyrene tubes in a fabric sheath which slide under a door, or even a window. Unfortunately, when I tried them on an exterior door, they were too thick against the jamb, so I could not close the door, so I turned to old-fashioned weather-stripping on the jamb itself, instead. But the Breeze Blocker works fine on the door to the cellar.

Personally, I think the dandy insulating windows you can make yourself, under the tutelage of Topher Belknap and Bob Hardina, are the way to go. If I remember correctly, workshops are still being held Saturdays, starting around 9 a.m., at the Midcoast Energy Systems site in Damariscotta. Call 207-563-5147 for information.

The only alert I've got, is that on Thursday, Jan. 16, the Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association is holding a field trip at 6:30 p.m., a follow-up activity after their program on Cornell Lab of Ornithology's citizen science projects (see my January 2 column) or go to www.sheepscot.org.

Susie Stephenson's cousins from Philadelphia had a scary time when their truck turned over, but luckily, Susie and Tom were able to take them in and feed them. Her chickens are not laying, due to the cold weather, so she got some from Frank Perkins. I met her nephew Jack, nice kid, apparently unruffled by the turmoil of the day. She says the furnace (a big boiler) in the Salt Marsh Schoolhouse does not work, but the wood stove in the classroom does. However, we'll all wait for more benign climate to develop before continuing the restoration.

A loud huzzah for the Bintliff family, now living in Jefferson, and working in Augusta, who opened the Senator Inn's restaurant and provided Christmas fare for all those heroic linemen, some from as far away as Ohio and Ontario.

Sorry to learn that the Baptist Church on Old County Road has no clear title, which will delay perhaps infinitely its sale, unless the town consents to take possession. Stop me if you have heard this: Way back in the 1940s, when Aage and Kitzi Colby moved up here, they stashed 4-year-old me in the Edgecomb Baptists' Vacation Bible School while they went house-hunting. All I clearly remember is sitting at long tables in a room dominated by a huge gold and brightly colored Eye of God, similar to the one atop the pyramid on our currency, glaring down at us all as we learned about leper colonies in far-off, romantic-sounding places.

Far-off, romantic-sounding, warm places. These days, I curl up in three sweaters, leg warmers, two pairs of socks, while my impervious husband scoffs, but I notice he's got the heat up to 70 F, which is not typical of us stern New England stoics! Waxing warm and hedonistic at 234 River Road, 207-633-2978, and jocam@tidewater.net.