The most common question asked by many who live here year around is, “What is it like here in the winter?” The second most common question is, “What is it like here in the winter?”

Well, the answer is not simple. It depends a lot upon who you ask. If you ask me, last winter was, on a 0-10 scale of aggravation, an 8.795. Scores did not seem to vary much throughout the region.

For myself, the fuel bill is a big contributing factor, and it got our attention. The cost of heating fuels went up with each delivery, and from our first load in November until our last load in the spring, the cost per gallon increased nearly 70 cents per gallon across the board — with the exception of wood — we horde our own.

That increase is tough to absorb, regardless of the weather. We had no locked in pricing and sometimes delivery schedules were badly disrupted by weather.

If you snow ski, it was a good winter, but cold. If you water ski, it was challenging. But, you could ski on parts of the Harbor — it froze — frozen enough so that some who commute to the outer waters were taking on ice, and that's not good.

It’s been quite some time since I've seen that much ice, the early 1980s maybe?

Winter is changeable. We often get snow and rain and ice. But it’s Maine and winter happens — we adjust. I think most of the Northeast and some considerably farther south, had bad weather. We have friends in North Carolina who reported substantial snow. There was snow in Louisiana and awful ice around Atlanta. At least we have equipment to deal with winter, if that's any consolation.

Our best reference for winter continues to be Elbridge Giles. When he goes south for winter, we won't be far behind!