Dixville Notch, New Hampshire; The first town in the country to vote in national elections, with 26 registered voters, cast their ballots at midnight tonight. Last winter we snowmobiled with friends to the Balsam’s Hotel (pictured) for lunch and this is the site of the town of Dixville Notch. The Balsams is located within the unincorporated area of Dixville Notch and is set on 15,000 acres of the 31,000 acres of unincorporated land.Voting will take place at the hotel. If ever you get a chance, come see why the Balsams and Dixville Notch are so well known. Striking country in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The state is teaming with hopeful presidential candidates this week. From midnight tonight through tomorrow we lead the nation as the primaries begin. The energy is fantastic!

It’s 5 degrees here at 9AM and yet the sun is giving a good amount of warmth. The sheep are enjoying the bright sunshine after their morning feed. And when the snow is fresh they love to eat it! I am always amazed how warm they are when I put my bare hand under their front legs at the belly line it is toasty warm. Three cheers for 4-6 inches of wool!

We had some fun…took a ride south and the trails weren’t groomed and there were quite a few water bars which we rode through okay. But we got to a trail junction which had no signage so Jack decided to go left. For reasons of 30 years of being together and thinking out the area, I decided not to follow him right off. Sure enough Jack decided within 200′ that he needed to come back so he backed his snowmobile up and all was well til he hit a water bar, and in trying to work through it got somewhat stuck. We managed to get him out and turned around but no matter what we did he couldn’t get the skis to turn or respond with the track at all. Maddeneing! Until he figured out that the skis had hit the water area, then sat in the snowy area and caked and froze so they had no traction to help propel the machine. I didn’t take pictures of us tipping the machine on it’s side, scraping the skis off with a screwdriver and then we were good to go. We rode down through some beautiful country to Pisgah State Park, then came back up to the farm.

Today marks our 14th anniversary of snowmobiling. It was New Years Day, 1/1/1994, when we took our first ride in Pittsburg, NH. We poo-pooed the whole thing until we got aboard and went for a spin and have been hooked ever since. A hundred adventures we have had these past 14 years and hope to have 100 more!

The middle picture is a farm vista we passed by, the last picture was the trail home tonight…it is a winter wonderland!

The snow stick measures 15″ today, we had another storm yesterday and we are in heaven! Took the snowmobiles out this afternoon; breaking trails so we can walk the dogs, cross country ski and snomobile around the land here. We rode up to the top of the long ridge (about a mile uphill) where we celebrated out anniversary in May and had another toast to the upcoming New Year. The wind was high and waves of wind and snow squalls would come through. Deer sign everywhere as they travel to find browse. It is harder for them to get feed in this weather when the snow is getting deeper. They were eating the bark of some young hemlock saplings. The snowmobile trails pack down making nice trails for them to travel on.

Another storm due in on New Years Day….yippee!