If it were not for the forecast of colder weather, with the possibility of snow, to come it would be tempting to think that Spring was near.

Just to remind you of the recent cold weather here is a photograph:

A beaver has broken the ice and entered the pool.

This photograph shows the neatly piled heap of ice on the left of the now frozen over hole at the edge of the pool, where beavers came and went through the nights.

Windy Monday and that willow, so long held up by so little, fell.

Niall Benvie and Charlotte visited us recently and Niall has sent us this splendid advertisement for Beaver Engineering plc.

We plan to put this sign at the end of our drive.

I am reading Flaubert's Madame Bovary at the moment and noticed that, in the wonderful description of the wedding of Charles Bovary to Emma Roault, her father is described as wearing a new silk hat (un chapeau de soie neuf). Was this one of the new style top hats that destroyed the market for beaver felt hats and so saved the North American beaver from probable extinction? I should like to think so.