This small buck crossed the road in front of me today, around lunchtime as I was heading out to pick up 3.r from school. These guys revel in the relative peace and lack of predators around here. They know that no one is hanging out in a tree stand with a 30.06 waiting for venison steak, venison chili, venison sausage, mmmm.

Oh, hi.

Delicate	Buoy Bell	Driveway
Trees	All Clear	From The Bottom

Here's a few shots from the snowy morning.

The day was unimpressive, snowing at dawn, but I fully expected the road to be passable. It was, half the way down, until the sharpest switchback, where two neighbors had lightly collided on the ice.

By then, the road was packed hard, dreadfully slick, and the traffic was starting to build up. After some neighborly chats, I punted and went back home, too lazy to put the chains on the car. But it looks pretty tough in the snow:

The Sube parked in the neighbor's drive to let traffic pass

This guy spun the truck a full-360, twice, before giving up and heading home

And the joy of the day was my girls, playing together in the snow, sharing the sled and mostly getting along. They had the day off from school for a teacher work-day, so we're not getting charged for a snow day today, but the email just came with news of the Wednesday closing.

Zooooooommmmm

Thankfully, they tend to run out of momentum before reaching the woodpile.

Winter on the mountain is a pain sometimes, but gathering the red-cheeked kiddos around the fire and later for some hot-chocolate was pretty homey. For me, I worked on the laptop at the kitchen table, tending the fire and such, while watching the snow fall at the big windows. Tomorrow, another day of working from home for me.

Here's a few more shots of the ice as the sun comes out to clean things up.

We had a quick and nasty little ice storm overnight. It's all on the melt now, but only after coating everything with a serious sheet of ice. The hickory tree lost a major chunk around 3:30am as Laura stood at the windows. The wind was flinging chunks of ice from the trees against the front windows, which woke us.

The tree seems to have slid down the edge of the roof and rolled over the corner of the deck, with no real damage to either. Those bushes that it flattened are another story.

There's lots of other bent and broken trees, but nothing major, as we still have electricity.

Ah, winter.

The hooved rats deer have been very active this week. I stopped and talked to this one on my road as I left for work, but waited a while before taking the picture. He just kept hanging around, just a few feet from the car window, instead of running away. I had to make him a star.

A handful of Bull Run Mountain residents, angry over a tax increase (among other things) used to pay for road paving, will be suing the Prince William County, according to this WaPo story.

A group of disgruntled property owners is moving to sue the county after it raised their taxes to help pay for last summer's $1.5 million paving operation on the community's roads. The project coated 7.4 miles of steep, badly eroded gravel roads with a tar-and-chip surface designed to reduce maintenance costs and improve safety.

As a resident of "Upper Bull Run", I can say that the paving increased the value of my home and eased any concerns we have about resale value. When we came out to see our house for the first time, we actually hit a hole so big and hard enough that we broke the radio in my wife's car. We've seen thousands of dollars of grading and fill washed away in a single thunderstorm. I've had to go to the bottom and drive friends up the mountain or out of a hole because of the sad state of the roads prior to the paving.

Snow-removal this winter went off like clockwork with the smooth, even and well-edged paved roads, something we've never had. Lacking guard rails on Sumney Drive or a Red Dawn-inspired survivalist SUV bristling with antennae monster truck, we appreciate that. We live in 2007, in Northern Virginia; our daily winter commute shouldn't be a flirt with a serious car crash.

Me pro-paving? Yep.

Me pro-taxes? Especially general-purpose gone-to-Richmond taxes? Nope.

A time-limited tax for a specific and seriously needed purpose? Sometimes it has to be done.

Acting as a community instead of every-man-for-himself? Priceless.

And in the end, only the lawyers win:

In the meantime, Cranshaw and Blatter have circulated a letter to some 200 property owners on the lower portion of the mountain stating their case and requesting donations to help pay for the services of the international law firm they've hired, Reed Smith. They've spent more than $12,000 in attorney's fees, and their attorney, Sally Gillette, has warned that they can expect $75,000 to $100,000 in litigation costs if the dispute continues.

$75,000-100,000.

Assuming the county has to spend something on par with that to defend against this nonsense, I'd like to thank Cranshaw, et al, for chewing up thousands of taxpayer dollars and allowing the fine folks at Reed Smith to have a new Mercedes or two for Christmas gifts. Jolly good show! The rest of Prince William County's taxpayers salute you!

We had a couple of sweet little visitors this evening. We served them an impromptu Thanksgiving dinner just for being so damn cute.