A few days ago I had some errands to do.  I needed to get a card and mail some letters.  Luckily for me, in the next village is a CVS pharmacy and right behind it is a post office.  In my neck of the woods each little hamlet has it’s own post office.   Many of them are tiny affairs in one or two room buildings. 

Behind the post office is an old barn.  The postwoman told me that eventually the barn will be taken down by the owner of the land.  For now it stands there, decrepit yet proud, a reminder of the days when a farm and farmhouse were on the property.  In addition to the CVS a small strip of stores face the street.

A little further back is a pond.  In warmer weather geese and ducks abound, but on this cold day they had found a warmer place.  In the past this may have been a watering hole for cattle or sheep.

I love the cattails.

On the other side of the post office and next to the pond is an old cemetery with a church in front.  Some of the gravestones are likely of the early settlers.  These small cemeteries are all over the place.   At the end of my street, for example, is an old Mennonite cemetery.  The meetinghouse is gone, but the gravestones remain.

We are preparing for the coming storm.  Larry and I are  happy we don’t live in the DC area this weekend.  We are going to hunker down here and hope for the best.  I’ll be out tomorrow to take some pics of the first big snow of the season.  I’m not sure the mail will be delivered in the storm, despite the postal service creed.  Snow is starting to fall already.  I’ll post an update in the morning.

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”