Fire danger is low.  We have had some rain the past few days, and the creek is back up to where it was before the dry spell.  I haven't checked yet to see if it was cold enough to reduce the duckweed on the pond.  Mushrooms and toadstool abound.  We have an abundance of birds, although I haven't been stocking the feeders.  There was a large flock of lesser goldfinches in the front yard one morning this week, enjoying the seed heads in the flower beds.  Some varmint was hungry enough to venture into the chicken coop in the hour before dawn one morning last week when I opened the coop earlier than usual.  It got one of my roosters.  The moles continued their work even while the ground was frozen, heaving up a few new hills in spite of the frozen sod.  Soil moisture must have been better this past summer than it had been for the previous few summers, as we didn't have any more die-back in the tops of the mature western redcedars.  Activity at the big Christmas tree farms has slowed, - evidently the cross-country shipments have been all sent, and now the farms are mostly selling to the public and local distributors.  The tree care company working for the electric utility continues to be busy in the area this week.