Guns. There is a kill power line with six shot handguns, hunting rifles and shotguns on the left side and automatic pistols and assault rifles on the right. The dividing point in that line that says what regular people can buy needs to shift way back to the left. Way back. I sense a tipping point on this.

Winter bird count day is today, not on a Friday as usual, so I got to walk a favorite route with Melissa. It goes like this. Melissa says "See the mourning dove in that cedar?" We walk on as the dove is long gone and I am still looking for the cedar. Our route takes us along the lake until it turns uphill and takes us to a sunny rise above the Heald Farm. A crunchy thin snow turned to ice made for loud walking and good tracking: rabbit, squirrel, coyote, deer, and a lone turkey. A skin of ice on the lake but open near the shore. Cold and bright. The counters gathered at SRLT at dusk to tally up. I love the warm light in that room. An Amish family from Newport (not our local Amish) participated for the second year. The oldest two children in that family are avid birders, hungry learners, and would make great college students. The Amish don't do schooling beyond 8th grade, but school is certainly not the only way to delve into a subject of interest. I suggested to Dave Potter, the Unity College bird man, that he find some project or study with which to engage Asher. Potter reminded me that we share a history of such engagement and with some traumatic memories. Alex Nees stayed with us at the B&B for a month in January 2000 to do a project with Potter and so was there for the deadly fire nearby.

Sunday Morning. To Farmer's Corner in next-door-town Troy for breakfast and intel. When we first moved to Unity, there was a great full-service restaurant called The Homestead. Homemade bread and pies, good breakfasts. It has changed owners, food quality and names several times since then and recently closed, but the owner of the building, Dana Edwards, has done a handsome renovation and is investing in kitchen equipment. This morning Dana was sitting at the counter of Farmer's Corner discussing the onging work to move the restaurant to Unity and re-open as the Homestead on February 1. Good news indeed for a number of reasons.

The Farmer's Corner owner is a tall, rugged looking guy who makes all kinds of people feel welcome. The most amazing thing: the big screen TV in the restaurant is always on MSNBC, even though the grumpies give him some guff about it. I'm hoping the TV makes the move to Unity.