Sings of Spring and the snow is melting, melting

That glaze is melting snowy ice!

What a great week we had with the Texas Adams. Interesting choice of words - we used to be Texas Adams too, a long time ago now. Anyway. perfect conditions for whatever activity you wanted to do.

Had one more taker -Sherry-on the snowshoeing. It's fun but I think this activity is done unless more snow shows up on the next couple of week. Warm and melting is the word of the day.

In the last few days I've seen fox, coyote, robins, red winged blackbirds, great horned owls, a couple of chipmunks squirting across the snow, and bluebirds. Lots of them, including one of our two pairs that nest under the deck. Spring is coming! The sandhill cranes are here too, on their way north. Mark's had a sighting but I haven't yet. Quite the magical birds.

Before we have gotten over our sadness that company is gone, more is coming. Heather flies in Saturday for a week - yippee. We always have fun times when she's here.

Cross country may be done for the season too

And another "have you heard" piece: The newest dietary guidelines for Americans from the Dept of Agriculture and Health and Human services have just been released, and oh boy, is it a turnaround.. The low fat guidelines from the 70's that we've all been adhering to in the last 30 years, guess what, didn't work. All of that skim milk, egg beaters, margarine, egg whites, etc. etc. that were supposed to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease did not.
In addition all the "reduced-fat" processed foods could cause disease. The latest info all but says throw it all out.
So what do they say to do?
In brief:
Limit refined vegetable and hydrogenated oils. (use flax, sesame, avocado, or extra virgin olive oils (okay I've already talked about the olive oil scam - more work).
no faux meat products (soy products)
reduce refined carbohydrates and sugar
more vegetables - no surprise there
eat healthy fats - nuts,wild fish, grass feed beef,avocado, chicken
full fat products - just not masses of them - eggs, butter, whole milk, etc.
CRAZY right!  What in the world are all those companies that have been marketing this stuff to us all these years going to do??

And Happy St. Patrick's Day to all.