By Brett Hellerman

February is my favorite month. Sunsets throw their long light into our eyes, later and later with each passing week. Following are excerpts from my February weather log. I hope you will find this a good complement to the “fact-based” summary put out by the official Norfolk weather station.

February 1. A gorgeous day, glorious winter! Stepping outside for the paper, I sniffed a seasonal chill in the air. But after all, it’s winter! We like a bit of cold weather in Norfolk. Shoveled off the front step, carefully salting and sanding it to make sure no one slips coming in or out.

Feb 2. Damn you groundhog, damn you.

Feb 3. Still pretty cold, but crisp, clean, you know, like uh, crisp. Nose running constantly. Also, twisted my ankle slipping on the front step, but seems to be fine. Anyway, there is no shortage of ice to pack it with.

Feb 4. Freezing. The Town Highway Department showed up looking for salt, any salt. Traded the ten pounds of kosher pickling salt we have for a road grader.

Feb 5. Bone-chilling. A large iceberg calved off the permanent ice shelf on the north end of Tobey Pond and is endangering navigation in the pond and causing water levels to rise at the town beach.

Feb 8. OK, this is getting ridiculous. Ten degrees when I woke up, declining during the day. The dogs are not happy. They are stuck in here with me on the sofa. One made a permanent indent in the sofa cushion and in my thigh. Now my right thigh contains the outline of a pitbull head which glows weirdly in the light from the fireplace. Is this some kind of stigmata?

Feb 9. @%&!?# & %$#@)?!

Feb 11. It was so cold today that when I let the dogs out, one’s nose froze to the other’s butt.

Feb 13. On my way to the barn this morning, I started to flag, getting listless. So sleepy. Just wanted to lie down by Golf Drive and let the plow truck cover me. Hands were freezing. I tried to light a fire, but failing that, started to eye the dog as a last resort. If I could just get him close enough to grab….

Feb 15. It was so cold today that I passed John Funchion out on his daily walk and he did not wave. Now THAT’S cold!
Feb 18. Please Lord, no more. No. More.

Feb 21. Big excitement today. I had a to break up a fight at the curling club. One guy from Goshen apparently argued that Norfolk was not the coldest place in Connecticut. When I heard THAT, I joined my neighbor in kicking Mr. Goshen’s tail. Outrageous!

Feb 23. Finished burning all the furniture in the house. Also ate the last of the potatoes from the root cellar. It had more eyes than that spider thing in the Hobbit. Fought with the dogs over the last can of anchovies.

Feb 25. I am trying to cope. For my walk today I opened 3 dozen of those glove warmers they give you at the ski area and pasted them to my entire body. After a couple of hours, though, they started to burn something fierce. Finally, I couldn’t take it and called the ambulance. Those EMTs are good folk and got there right away, but did they have to post all those pictures to Instagram?

Feb 28. Finally. Finished. This journal thing is not for me. But these long, cold and dark nights have also forced some deep reflection. Perhaps the lesson is that, when its below freezing for 28 days, the unexamined life IS worth living. So, here’s back to drinking and hoping it all goes away.