It was cold. The air carried no scent, ice squeaked under our boots, and every little leaf and twig crinkled and snapped as we walked over it. But this was louder than that. Much louder. Neither Jon nor I saw it actually happen, but when I found Will he was mostly upside down between a boulder and tree. The trail at that point was elevated by some rocks and bordered by pines that grew from the forrest floor some distance below.

After a bit of struggle we removed Will’s 60 pound pack, got him upright, and back to the trail. He had no cuts, and his head didn’t show any signs of injury, but his left arm was about eight inches longer than his right, and he couldn’t move it. More significantly, he was now very much disabled on top of a mountain in November. The sun and temperatures were falling and all of us were at risk of hypothermia if we didn’t act quickly.

I had my iPhone, and it had a signal. I looked up “fix dislocated shoulder” and quickly read the WikiHow article that appeared on top. I passed it on to Jon for a second opinion, and he read it out loud for us all. Will choked on the line “this will not be a comfortable experience, but do not give in to the pain.” And I choked on it a few moments later when I performed the procedure as outlined and felt and heard the snapping like a popsicle stick bent too far. Thankfully, the line “when the shoulder pops back into its joint, relief will come immediately” was true.

We were prepared for a winter night, but not Will’s dislocated shoulder. The iPhone gave us access to the wealth of knowledge available on the web, and that helped us deal with Will’s injury on our own[1]. It was a cold night, and a painful one for Will, but we survived.

1: I often carry my iPhone on hikes, but what might we have done without it? If we had just a regular phone we might have called emergency services, who would have likely dispatched people to climb the mountain to rescue Will. Nobody should be hiking a steep, dark, icy trail. And if we didn’t have any phone? We would have worked from memory, which was informed more by Lethal Weapon than real medical facts. Who knows what harm we might have done to the guy?

Karen found this spider in the snow yesterday when she wasn’t running for the camera. Will spied several more, all moving laboriously over the crystalline landscape. None of us had ever seen spiders on snow before, but it’s likely we’d never looked.

discovery, snow, spider, winter

The holidays are long since past, here’s a drink to carry you through ’till Spring.

Rusty Nail

• 3 parts Scotch
• 1 part Drambuie

Serve over ice in an old fashioned glass.

Please enjoy it responsibly.

Snow and rain mixed throughout the day Tuesday, but we awoke to glistening white fields and trees. Above is the view due west in Wentworth this morning, before the warm spring sun melted it all away.

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To go along with summer’s bicycle riding mower is this “Vancouver Snowplow” from Joe-ks.com (yes, I feel appropriately stupid for linking to a site with an animated gif splash page). Oddly, this isn’t the only such snowplow.

winter, funny, bike, bicycle, snow, snowplow, plow, snow plow

The folks at WMUR’s Chronicle are featuring my friends Joe and Wendy and their dog sledding tonight. The photos above are of Justin in a race a few years ago (video of the finish also online). Warren hasn’t been so proud since we put the rocket up.

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Winter in Warren can be rather picturesque.

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The Bellagio is all done up for the holidays, Vegas-style (which means it’ll give you a headache).

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Snow, thick and heavy because of the thaw these past few days, covers Warren. Our rocket stands tall for all seasons.

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I like Christmas as much as anybody (well, anybody who likes Christmas), but I’m a “happy holidays” guy. Why? because Christmas and the holidays aren’t about me, they’re about the way we spread happiness and joy to others, no matter how they celebrate. So while I quietly hope for my own merry Christmas, I resist the urge to wish everbody else a happy Festivus and opt for “happy holidays.”

That’s why I can watch this video and get quite a chuckle. Yes, Russell Arch and Lisa Kushell are reporting on the war on x-mas and all its bloody gory.

happy holiday, happy holidays, merry christmas, merry xmas, merry x-mas, holiday, holidays, winter, christmas, war on xmas, war on christmas, war on x-mas

A friend of mine jokes that every conversation in Warren revolves around heat. But, it wouldn’t be funny if it wasn’t at least a little bit true. As it turns out, most of the rest of the country is talking about heat too.

Pellet stoves have been all the rage this fall. I feel lucky to have gotten one before the rush, but I’m also a little dismayed about the selection. Why (as usual) do Europeans get good looking pellet stoves like this, but no American manufacturer can do anything that looks like it was designed in the past two centuries.

But I shouldn’t complain. At least I got the pellet fuel I need, others may not be so lucky. New York state’s Consumer Protection Board issued a press release asking retailers to ration supplies to three tons per household., but an AP report quotes a retailer saying “there is not a shortage of pellets, there is a shortage of pellets getting to us in a timely fashion.”

And all of that makes for good conversation in Warren.

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We’ve had snow on the mountains for a while now, but this is the first accumulation in my yard.

tags: holiday season, november, snow, snowfall, snowflake, snowflakes, winter