Nodding Off

For the last year or two, I have been nodding off whenever I could.  Drives Honey nuts, but I never considered it a problem until I almost fell asleep driving down the highway. 

Anyway, I took part in a sleep study over the weekend to see if sleep apnea is to blame. I didn't go into the sleep lab but did the whole thing from home.  We installed an app on my phone and matched it to a device that I taped to my index finger before going to bed.  It connected via Bluetooth and sent the information to the lab.

In the morning, after all the info was downloaded, the app had a short survey.  That survey was the only thing about the procedure that didn't make sense.  It asked:

• How long did it take you to fall asleep?  ____ minutes.
• How often did you wake during the night, and what time? ____
• Was this a typical night?  
• Did you wake more often? ___                                                                                               less often? ___                                                                                              about the same? ___

How in the heck am I expected to answer these questions if I am asleep?

Boquillas

 I first posted this eleven years ago - here, with some minor edits it is again.

Forty-something years ago, the summer after we married, Honey and I drove the MG Midget to Big Bend National Park for our first vacation together. 

We had been warned about flash floods, so when we saw thunderheads building while on a trip to Santa Elena Canyon, we made a detour to the “town” of Castolon. It seemed like a smart move at the time, but we actually ended up fording the deepest arroyo in the area, and once we stopped the car it would not start again.

The park service has a visitor center at Castolon now, but back then there was only a house for the single park ranger and a general store that catered to the Mexicans who waded across the Rio Grande to shop.  We ended up spending the night with a couple UT grad students who were living there for the summer, and in the morning, a Mexican mechanic helped us get the car going again.

In a corral behind the ranger’s house there were a bunch of sad-looking donkeys.  The ranger explained that they belonged to the wax smugglers who brought burro trains of chicle – the resin from the manilkara tree that is used in chewing gum – up through the park. 

When a burro was injured or starving and too weak to work, the smugglers would simply cut him loose.  The rangers would treat their wounds and feed them until they were well enough, then the smugglers would sneak in at night and steal them back.

Almost all US manufacturers of chewing gum have switched to artificial, petroleum-based wax for their gum, so the market for chicle has almost disappeared.  There is still smuggling going on in Big Bend, but it is not nearly so innocent, and it's gotten a lot more dangerous.  

Best Laid Plans....

 The bee guys showed up this morning, smoked the bees, cut into the tree only to find that most of the bees had abandoned the hive.

There was a lot of honeycomb, but it was already infested with maggots and unusable.

Bees 5

 

In what may be a serious case of counting our chickens, I went to Lowe's and got supplies for harvesting honey. 

The upper stacked bucket has a paint screen installed over the top and a bunch of holes drilled in the bottom. I know it is a terrible, out of focus picture, but you get the idea.

Of course, we have no idea how much honey is in the tree but we're hoping for (and prepared for) quite a bit. 

Bees IV

 

The bee tree is down.  

The tree guys felled it yesterday with only minor injuries.  The guy who made the final cut stood around watching for too long and got stung about a dozen times.  I was about fifty feet away from him and farther from the tree.  When he ran toward me, I ran away but I wasn't quick enough.  I got stung four times on my head and neck.

Bees III

 The bee tree is scheduled to come down today.  

All the wood from the trees previously cut down has been picked up by neighbors with fireplaces.  The wood was so good I almost wished we still had a fireplace.

Bees II

 Progress report on the Bee Tree.

We have located someone who will come collect the hive.  

He, and several others I talked to, suggested dropping the tree and letting it set for a few days, so the tree is coming down on Monday and he will be out to get the bees on Friday.

Bees in my trees

 We have had three large oak trees struck by lightning since the beginning of the year, and we had a crew out yesterday to cut them down.  

Two of the trees went like clockwork, but on the first one they tried they discovered a beehive about twenty feet up.  Since then, I've learned more about bees in trees than I ever needed to know.

For example, the beekeeper who will come relocate the bees for the hive is an urban myth.  The cheapest estimate I've heard was about $300, and that one came with a caveat.  

Everyone seems to agree that our best bet is to drop the tree then let it set for a while.  How long it should set is the question - I've been told everything from two days to two weeks.

The tree guys are coming back Monday to fell the tree.  Not sure what will happen after that.

If Sisyphus had a Blog

 

In my last post, I discussed inertia as a possible reason I haven't posted much lately.  I failed to mention other likely causes like old age, boredom and downright laziness.  

The truth is finding something worth posting every day is a Sisyphean task.

I am trying.  I haven't touched the rock yet - can barely see the hill - but I'm gathering myself for a running start.

Inertia vs Decay

 

Newton's first Law of Motion says that an object in motion tends to stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest - unless acted upon by an outside force.  

I think this inertia has attacked my blog.

For the first dozen years, I faithfully posted once a day.  Lately, it has been more like once or twice a month.

I can come up with lots of reasons - nothing worth talking about, or something too personal to share, etc.- but I think has more to do with inertia.  The longer I go without posting, the harder it gets to do.

The other possible cause is decay.  There is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine.  Whether from friction or gravity, everything eventually slows down. 

Going Green

 

I've never been a fan of the "Green New Deal." 

I understand the concept but realize that we can't get there without fossil fuels, at least for the foreseeable future.

That being said, my birthday present this year is about as green as it gets, and I couldn't be happier.  It is entirely electric, made in China, has as much or more power than a comparable gas driven saw and you don't have to crank it. 

I am not a total convert - I wouldn't trade my diesel truck for a Tesla - but this saw is about as good as it gets. 

Where Did They Go?

 I guess you all know that the Boggy Thicket is in a heavily wooded area at the Northeast tip of Harris County.  

That is changing - over the last year or so, literally hundreds of acres of wooded habitat within a mile or two of our home have been bulldozed to make room for a tollway and a half-dozen new subdivisions.

You would think that would cause an increase in the wildlife in our area, but as near as I can tell, it has not.  We still see deer, raccoons, possums and skunks, but they are no more common than they have been for the last forty years.

All that wildlife had to go somewhere.  I wonder where it went.

Slippers

 

Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy, has started selling house shoes. He calls them My Slippers and I bought a pair like the one above a few months ago.

I know I have friends who hate Lindell and his politics so much that they wouldn't buy a pair if they

• were the last shoes on earth
• made your feet smell like lilacs
• cost less than $10
• cured cancer
• came with a lifetime free replacement guarantee.

Well, it's their loss.  

I wear mine most waking hours of every day and can testify that they are the best house shoes I've ever owned.

Prints

 

Honey's Concealed Carry License is about to expire, and when we sent in the renewal, she was asked to take another try at getting her fingerprints.  When she first got her license, it took two trips to the IdentoGO fingerprinting office and a letter from them to the DPS stating that she did not have readable prints for her to get approved.

Now, they are asking her to try again.  Saturday's trip netted readable prints on only two of ten fingers.  Hopefully that and another note will be enough.

According to Scientific American, something like 1 to 2% of the population have no readable prints.  It is common with people who handle rough surfaces all day like bricklayers, and to a lesser extent secretaries who deal with paper all day.  Other causes include chemotherapy and aging.  

In Honey's case, years of working in medical labs, washing hands dozens of times a day is most likely the cause.

Seagull Paradise

 

Seagulls love landfills.

What's not to love? 

They get a constant smorgasbord of stuff to eat, renewed and refreshed with each arriving garbage truck.  The most work they do all day is fly fifteen feet or so to avoid a bulldozer.  

They normally have no natural enemies at the dump, although some places like Orange County California have spent millions to hire falconers to control their population. I'm not sure why - maybe because there are some people who can't stand to see anything having life that easy.

Shades

 

I’ve never read 50 Shades of Gray

But listing them made E L James rich they say

So, here’s my list of shades of green

There’s Corydon, emerald, aventurine

Viridescent, malachite and glaucous jade

Aquamarine and a touch of verdigris

are bound to help my wealth increase

Chartreuse and olive and lime

It’s only a matter of time

just watch all the green come flowing my way

Imaginary Squirrel

 

I was sure I had posted about this last winter, but a search of my blog tells me I didn't.  

I seem to remember writing about our Gray Squirrels having white ears, and even talking about the solid black, Gray Squirrels we used to see at a campground near Romayor, Texas.  The blog post should be there, but it isn't.

Anyway, our squirrels don't have white ears anymore.  Our squirrels did have white ears last winter, but they don't now. I suppose that is their version of a winter coat.

DIDN'T

 

If you're like me (and everybody else I know) you probably pronounce the word didn't like did-unt.  There's even a YouTube video 

that shows you how to pronounce it that way.

When I was in high school, I dated a bright and attractive young lady who didn't say did-unt.  She pronounced it more like did-nit, which I suppose is more phonetically correct, but set her apart from all the rest of the English-speaking world.

I spent days trying to say did-nit, but I never could get it right.  

I wonder if she still says it that way.

Once in a while

 For those who have followed my blog over the years, you know that it has disintegrated lately.  It has gone from daily posts to occasional posts, sometimes only a couple in a month.

Recently, I promised to do better, but I've changed my mind.  From now on, what you see (and when you see it) will be what you get.

Woodpecker

 Way back in February, I posted about the woodpecker that visits our bird feeder Here.  Well, I finally got a picture -

Back then, I commented on the fact that although it is known as a Red-Bellied Woodpecker its belly is actually white.  

I don't think you can see it - even if you blow the picture up - but it does have a rosy glow between its legs, almost like a severe case of jock itch.  It is several degrees south of what I'd call its belly, but I suppose Red-Bellied sounds better than Red-Crotched

Outside of the (C.J.) Box

It should be no surprise that I am a huge fan of C. J. Box, and his Joe Pickett novels.  I may or may not have written about them a couple years ago.

I recently discovered the TV series, and I think, overall, it's pretty good.  Sharon Lawrence, for example, is perfect as Joe's mother-in-law, Missy.

There are some allusions to Joe's childhood that I don't remember from the books, but otherwise the story line is close enough.

Except for Nate Romanowski - 

In the books, Nate is a tall slender man of Eastern European heritage who wears his hair in a blonde ponytail. On TV, he is a black guy who looks like a retired linebacker. Mustafa Speaks, who plays Nate is doing a creditable job, but he still looks like a retired linebacker, and that grates.  For those who are fans of the books it is hard to swallow, and I can't for the life of me understand why the change was made.

Flashlight

 I was working on our 5th wheel yesterday when I lost my glasses.  

I knew just about where I had lost them - at least I knew when I had last used them - but I couldn't find them to save my soul.  Honey came out and helped, but after over a half hour of searching in the hot sun they were still lost.

I finally said, "Let's wait until dark and look for them with a flashlight."

It still wasn't easy.  We made several trips around the trailer, but Honey finally found them about 20 feet from where I expected them to be.

One Answer

For the last several days, the internet has been filled with ideas about how to protect schools and the children inside them.  This may not be the only answer, but our little school district has had these signs posted for the last couple of years.  

4 1/2

 Couple of heavy rains in the last 3 hours - between the two, we got 4 and 1/2 inches.

Here's a Post

 I've really been neglecting my blog lately - only three posts in April and May isn't much better - this is only number four.

• No more potential buyers on the 5th wheel.  We've decided not to worry - if it sells, OK, if not that's fine too.
• We made a trip to Naskila Casino.  Mixed results - I came home with more than I brought, Honey did not - still had a good time and a great break from routine.

Several other things I could report but most aren't interesting and the ones that are, are personal.

5

 

Second

 

It took a couple of tries but we got our second Corona booster shots Saturday.

We originally had appointments Thursday evening, but the pharmacy had suffered a power failure earlier and the computer system still had problems.  They couldn't log in our information, so they couldn't give the injections.

Minimal side effects this time, but 30-plus hours later I still have no energy.  Just taking the garbage can out to the street wiped me out.

First

 I only had three posts in April, so....Pick your holiday, and enjoy!

Ripley

 (Almost missed April entirely - promise to try to do better.)

Living with our dog Ripley is a continuing - and often expensive - adventure. This last week, Honey dropped a pill on the floor, and Ripley had it before she could pick it up.  She pried his jaws open, but the pill had already gone down his gullet.

The pill was a prescription for restless leg syndrome and a check online offered no suggestions about what it might do to a 10-pound puppy.  I called the Vet and they had me call Animal Poison Control.  

SPCA animal poison control will have you on hold for half an hour or more - my phone has an elapsed time clock and it was over 22 minutes before I talked to a human, then got put back on hold.  Eventually, I was able to talk to someone who talked to someone else and told me to take Ripley to the vet and have the vet contact them at a special number.  

That wouldn't have been so bad except they charge $75 -payable by credit card - to talk to you.

One we got to the vet and she made the call, we learned that as long as his heart wasn't racing and he wasn't having muscle spasms, he was probably just fine.

Poison Control for humans is free.  75 bucks for poison control for animals strikes me as highway robbery.  Still, if it is your pet, you're probably going to pay it.

Rotorod

 This has been a banner year for allergies, with pollen counts that are literally through the roof.  A count of over 90 grains per cubic meter is considered significant - yesterday, just the Oak pollen in the Houston area was at 9489.

If you've ever wondered how they count pollen, they use a Rotorod device like the one in the video above.

The Razor's Edge

 When I was first learning to shave, razors had one blade - just one.  There were straight razors, safety razors which might or might not use double-edged blades, but only one blade was applied to your face at a time.

Today, you can still buy straight razors - I won't, my hands shake too much - but it is almost impossible to buy a razor with a single blade.  The old Bics with two blades are getting hard to find.

Somebody decided that if one blade could give a close shave, that a second blade coming right after the first would do the job much better.  Now it has become a marketing ploy, a contest to see which manufacturer can stack the most blades in a row.  

A platoon of blades might look like a wonderful idea, but it ain't.  Once you get past one or two blades, you can't make more than one swipe down your cheek without having to spend the next couple of minutes cleaning gunk out of the razor.  It can make shaving a real pain.

Two or Three

 Last year, and for several years prior to that, we were in Harris County Precinct 2 - about where the 02 appears on the map below.

We haven't moved an inch, but now find ourselves in Precinct Three.

It's all part of a move by politicians to assure their reelection and happens after every census.  I doubt if it will affect us at all.

Speaking of Precincts, several years ago, I got a speeding ticket on FM 2100 a couple of miles from my house.  The ticket was issued by a deputy constable from Precinct Four.  I never understood why, but Precinct Two was farming out road patrol to Precinct Four.  That meant that I had to drive 40 miles to the west end of the county to appear in court  for a ticket that was issued within walking distance of my house.

It was a major inconvenience, but it worked out.  The deputy didn't show up and the ticket was dismissed.

Trailer Update

 

We put our 5th wheel up for sale about a month ago and last week, we thought we had a buyer.  They had seen the listing on EBay and realized they only lived about a dozen miles away.  Their house had burned down and they wanted the trailer to live in while their home was rebuilt.

Couldn't have been better.  

Then the wife called me on Thursday morning very upset- she really wanted it, but their bank wouldn't loan on an RV over ten years old.  I explained that was common, but the people who had listed it would finance.  I gave her a name and a couple phone numbers, but so far, I haven't heard back.

Jackrabbits

I first posted this in 2015, but I like it.  Thought I'd post it again...

In the fall of 1961, I attended Austin College in Sherman, Texas as a sophomore transfer student. 

Attended may be a bit of an exaggeration - I did show up for most of my classes, but formal education was not even near the top of my priority list.  The majority of my time and effort went to learning to play contract bridge, singing in a folk-music quartet called the Converts, and hunting rabbits at night from my pickup truck.

We had a five-man cadre of rabbit hunters, and three of them – all mediocre shots – used shotguns.  John Stuckey and I used 22 rifles. Mine was an old open-sight single-shot Savage that was older than I was.  We usually used my truck, and I usually drove, but one night Johnny was driving.

That was when I made what had to be the shot of a lifetime. 

Johnny had seen a jackrabbit out in a pasture, and stopped the truck at the end of a dirt road.  The rabbit was no longer visible - just past the edge of the high beams – all we could see was the glow of his eye about a hundred yards beyond the barbed wire fence.

Standing in the truck bed, I propped my elbow on the top of the cab and squeezed off a shot.  The glowing dot disappeared.

“You missed” yelled the guys in the back of the truck.  I’ll admit I didn’t know if I hit it or not – I wasn’t even sure that there was a rabbit out there.

Johnny got out, ducked through the fence and walked out into the pasture.  A few minutes later, he returned with a dead rabbit, shot through the eye.  “He got it.” he said, “He never misses.  That’s why he always drives - to give you other guys a chance.”

Maria, Maria

 

We did an interesting experiment this weekend - watched both the original 1961 version and the 2021 version of West Side Story.  

Actually, we didn't watch the entire Stephen Spielberg production, just enough to say with confidence that, while it wasn't any better, he didn't screw it up. 

If there was one plus, it was that the new Maria, Rachel Zigler, sang for herself - Marni Nixon did the vocals for Natalie Wood in the original. 

So Small That.....

 The town where I grew up was so small that the village idiot had to do double duty as the town drunk.  And that was only on Tuesday and Thursday - the rest of the week we shared him with the next town down the road.

Never Learn

 I used to think I was pretty cynical and not easily fooled.  

Not any more! - I fell victim to another scam.

Facebook has been running ads for SAS Shoes at huge discounts.  SAS Shoes are just about the only shoes Honey wears, so when the website offered the model she wears most often at 80% off, I ordered a couple pair.

 When the shoes didn't come, I contacted SAS (oddly enough, the number on the website was correct) and they told me they have never advertised their shoes on Facebook.  

Atttaboy

 

Our last gas grill was mostly stainless, and still looked pretty good but the non-stainless portion rusted out.  I looked around, and Thursday I bought a replacement at Lowes in Atascosita.

They loaded it in the back of my pickup, and I headed for home.  I got less than halfway across Lake Houston when the darn thing blew out of the back.  It was still connected to one piece of the twine they had used to tie it down, but it was bouncing behind my truck for a hundred yards or so until I could pull over.  

It was a total loss.

Once I got home, I crossed my fingers and called Lowes.  I explained to the manager that since they had loaded it and tied it down, I thought they might be willing to replace it.  He asked me to give him a few minutes to review security tape, then he called back and made arrangements to have a replacement delivered to our house.

We got it yesterday and had steaks grilled on it last night.

Thanks, Lowes!

5th Wheel part 2

 One more place our 5er is being advertised:  HERE>

5th Wheel

We put our 5th Wheel up for sale this week - you can see the ad  HERE:

No nibbles yet, but it has only been a couple of days.  Meanwhile, I've been busy cleaning it up.  If you'll remember from after Imelda, Honey won't even let me GIVE AWAY stuff that needs cleaning.

Great-Grandson

 Beckett Lee Robinson, born February 17th.  8 lbs 11ozs, 21inches.

I Did That!

 Went to the Murphy's station at my local Wal-Mart today and saw this...

Little portraits of Joe Biden pointing to the price window on every pump.  Almost as good as "Let's go, Brandon!"

Mystery Birds II

 

Still having to refill our bird feeder about once a day, and we're hosting a wide variety of birds.  Maybe the most unusual is a woodpecker that I have been trying to photograph for the last two weeks.  It shows up several times a day, but never when I have a camera or even my phone.

He (actually, I think it's a She) doesn't land on the little perch like all the other birds, it hangs underneath and like a little avian contortionist, it reaches over to get seeds. I read that their tongues reach about two inches past their beaks and have little barbs that let them snag their food.

What I don't understand is the name - It known as is a Red-Bellied Woodpecker - and I wonder what sort of head trauma was suffered by whoever named it. Its belly is white as new fallen snow and the only red on its entire body is a splash of red on its forehead - more on males, less on females. I assume that Red-Headed was already taken, and White-Bellied lacks pizazz, but why name the poor critter something that it obviously is not?

Mystery Birds

 This past weekend's freeze brought in a flock of little birds I had never seen before.  There were a couple dozen of them, and they emptied the feeder in less than a day.

Today, there was only one of them left, and this was the best picture I could get.  They are brown with a beige breast with distinctive black and white bands or stripes on their wings.  I looked online but couldn't find an exact match.  The closest was a Pine Warbler, but they are mostly yellow.

FEMA, Constipation and Polio

 Haven't posted in over a week - not because I had nothing to report, but because there was a whole lot of stuff happening.

Good news and not so good news about Ripley:

• First, he graduated Puppy School with flying colors.  No cap and gown, but he did get a diploma.
• Second, he suffered a severe case of constipation last weekend - mostly due to the fact that he loves to eat sticks and twigs.  He's OK now but with the large number of trees in our yard, I don't know how we will ever break him of eating wood.

Cheryl's pet goat got POLIO!  

Not the sort of polio that kept us out of public pools as children, this was Polioencephalomalacia, which is a severe Thiamine deficiency, potentially just as deadly as Poliomyelitis.  When they got her to the Vet, he didn't think she would survive, but she's back home and doing well. Polio, by the way is a prefix that refers to gray matter, and both diseases attack the brain.

You might remember that we had filed a protest with FEMA about the payout on our home repairs from Imelda.  Two years after we filed the protest, we finally got an answer.  FEMA had upheld our objection.  That was a couple months ago, and we still haven't received a check.  That should change as I just signed (electronically) the final estimate that will generate the check from the insurance company.  

We will not be receiving nearly as much as I thought we had coming, but since we went over two years not expecting anything.....

Rheemed

 

Not as long as you might think.  They don't make 'em like they used to.

The first water heater in our home lasted almost 50 years.  The one that replaced it is barely two years old, and it is down for the second time.  We are waiting for FedEx to deliver a new control valve to get it back up and running.

The symptom is no pilot light. Typically, this would be caused by a defective thermocouple, but in our case the Rheem customer service rep admits that there was a design flaw in the valve itself, and the valve had to be redesigned.

Thermocouples have been around since the 1940s - the patent was applied for in 1941 - and they have been used in water heaters almost as long.  Why they felt the need to redesign something that has worked that well for that long in beyond my comprehension.

It brings to mind the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Just A Thought

 

Photo I D

 

You ought to have to have a photo I D to vote.  There are those who disagree, but they are misguided at best. 

Yesterday's unsuccessful attempt by Senate Democrats to pass a national voting rights bill reminded me of something that happened in November of 2011.  The terrorist attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon had just happened a couple months previously and airport security was disorganized but intense.  Larry Baker and I had been to a Ricoh trainers' conference in Florida and were boarding a flight in Ft Lauderdale on our way home.  Larry had won a mini-Leatherman at the conference and had it confiscated at the gate - that two-inch blade was obviously a weapon.

I thought I was home free.  Then, as we prepared to board the plane, I was pulled aside and taken to another room.  My boarding pass read COUCH ROBERTA and they didn't believe that was my name.  It took two armed guards and a supervisor to finally decide that yes, my middle name was Allen, my middle initial was A and the boarding pass printer probably should have added a space after the T.  I was the last person on the plane, getting on just as the flight attendant was closing the door. 

My first act when I got to the office on Monday was to call American Express and have them drop my middle name from my profile.

Might As Well Be ....

 

Two out of three of our Saucer Magnolias are blooming.  It is a couple months early, but they are.

It makes me hope that we're in for an early spring - emphasis on hope - much as I dislike cold weather, I can't really believe we could skip winter entirely.

Still - - -

We also have Azaleas beginning to bloom.

In Your Dreams

 Got an email from my sister this morning.  It said:

> Had a dream last night that defies my interpretation. It was of you

> and Honey getting married at a special skiing venue. All the guests

> were seated at tables, and then you and Honey each skied down the

> slope between the tables and to the altar. Honey came first, and

> naturally she was a very polite and reasoned skier who greeted people

> along the way. You were spraying snow on the guests as you went by

> laughing and slaloming from one side to the other. It was quite interesting.

I replied that I had only been on skis once, and that was on the golf course at Tartan Park, the 3M country club in St Paul, Mn.  Honey has never been on skis in her life.

I am not sure what the dream was supposed to represent, but I guess dreams don't have to make sense.

Rain

 

The local weather wizards told us it was going to rain yesterday.  They just didn't come anywhere near on the amount - guessing about two inches along the coast and less elsewhere.  Oh, and they didn't say a darn thing about tornadoes.

Actual rainfall totals were much heavier north of I-10.  

Our rain gauge maxxes out at six inches and it was full to overflowing while five miles north of us the Plum Grove Fire Department spent the night doing high water rescues.  

There were numerous small tornadoes from Humble to Kenefick.  Nothing huge, but big enough to do damage.

All in all, it made for an interesting 24 hours.

Ripley

 

Ripley impressed the trainer at puppy school this week, but here at home the house training is still hit or miss - mostly miss.

He actually asked to go out yesterday. He did his thing and was praised for being such a good boy.  A half hour later, he had gone on the rug.

It's been twenty years since we had a puppy (puppies) in the house, but we don't remember it being this much of a challenge.

Summing Up 2021

 

The Big Drop

 The local weather gurus have been warning us for a week, and for once they were right. After a balmy New Year's Day at the Boggy Thicket, the bottom dropped out overnight.

Yesterday at this time (2:50 p.m.) the temperature was 82⁰ and today it is 37⁰ with a wind-chill factor that make it feel like the upper 20s.

Looks like we'll have the first freeze of the year tonight.

New Year

 Happy New Year. 

I'm not sure we are not going to have a major money crisis this year, but I'm holding out hope that this will be a better year than the last one, or the one before that,