<p>And the snow melts and the winter rains return. Compare the angle of the limbs of the big trees in this photo with the first photo in the previous <a href="/2008/12/21/snow-ski-lake/">post</a> (or mouse-over this photo) – these trees can shoulder a heavy load, until of course they fail and try breaking one of my benches.</p>

<p>As a kid, I fancied myself an Olympic caliber cross-country skier – I wasn’t, but I fancied it anyway. I would sneak out of the house during snow storms to ski at the nearby golf course while pretending I was <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE2D6133EF932A25751C0A96E948260">Josh Thompson</a>, America’s biathlon hero.</p>

<p>I returned to the Day Road farms last Sunday for my first Farm Walk.</p>

<p>For some time I’ve wanted the equivalent of Java’s ability to dump the stack trace of all currently running threads in Python as a means for debugging some hung processes. I finally found a solution and wired it up to the services’ http console:</p>

<p>Throughout high school I worked for the city in the landscape crew fixing front lawns ruined by snow plows or sewer renovations. One of the primary, and more memorable, experiences from that job was walking the streets behind a chipper and loading all the residents’ brush through rotating drums ready to suck in your arm as easily as the maple branches ripping at your legs – it was stressful and exhausting.</p>

<p>We finally received our <a href="/2008/12/12/moon-weather-winter/">promised</a> snow.</p>

<p>I took these photos a day early because the weather forecasts called for cloudy skies this evening and I wanted to capture the <a href="http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/09dec_fullmoon.htm">largest full moon</a> of the year.</p>

<p>We love the sunset and have been seeing plenty of really striking ones recently. Yesterday we viewed the show at <a href="http://www.parks.wa.gov/parkpage.asp?selectedpark=Fort%20Ward">Fort Ward State Park</a> and while the sky was decent I think the next set of photos work because of the bird flying through the frame – scroll quickly to make it all movie-like.</p>

<p>We’ve been experiencing crisp, clear days and nights coupled with stunning sunrises and sunsets – it’s been so clear Mt Baker has been visible the last couple of days.</p>

<p>With Thanksgiving over we’re on to the next adventure in the holiday calendar – the Christmas tree. We cut down a tree from Bainbridge Island Farms last year and it survived until May as green as the day we brought it home! So, under heavy fog, we once again made a trip to the farm to find the perfect tree.</p>