deer pasture

I try to stop wishing I had some cows, since I don't have the time and energy to spare to take care of them. I do have grazing ungulates, though. 

Usually the deer don't show up until just before dusk, but this very overcast day they were there not long after breakfast, so I took these pictures through the kitchen door/window. The one with the alert ears watched me the whole time, but the others looked up and then went back to eating.

Sunday morning coffee

Usually on Sunday mornings I drink my coffee out of a cup and saucer instead of a mug, in spite of the pleasure at this time of year of warming my hands around a mug. Thanks to my grandmothers I have a variety of fine china to choose from, and I try to select a pattern that matches my bathrobe and my mood. This one matches both my beige robe and my purplish-maroon one. I didn't manage to get my sleeve in the shot, but imagine terry cloth exactly the color of the little purple flowers.

During the years I worked for my boss's grooming shop, Sunday was the only certain day off I had--we were closed, so I knew I would have that day off, whether I was working five days or six, or four. I've made a ritual of using the fancy cups when I don't have to hurry off to do things, as a reminder to let go of all that and just rest.

well behaved snow

This time the snow did exactly what the weather service said it would. It snowed at the times and in the amounts predicted, and it isn't weighing down the tree branches in a dangerous manner, and it probably hasn't accumulated on the roads, although I doubt I'll trek three-tenths of a mile up to the road to check it out.

I do talk about the weather a lot, don't I?

96 years

Yesterday was my father's 96th birthday. This house was designed the way it was in the hope that I'd be able to keep on taking care of him at home. Skid-resistant floor surfaces; no steps except to the basement. (As I continue moving boxes and boxes into the house I congratulate myself on insisting on ramps to the outside doors. I'm getting more benefit from that than my father and his walker are!) Wide doorways. Water faucets and door handles that are easy for arthritic hands to use. (Which mine will be someday, if family history is any clue.) Best of all, no drafts! 

When we moved in at the beginning of December I said this was the Biggest Christmas Present ever. It's a good birthday present, too.

I wish I had pictures

Somehow I don't think my bank would like it if I asked to take pictures, even though they know me and know I'm not a bank robber, but they always have wonderful holiday decorations, and this year the Valentines decorations were marvelous. Bunches of shiny hearts like hanging baskets, and a heart lamp that looks like a giant gumdrop, and more.

Then yesterday I saw a familiar dog with a new friend. I always see this Great Pyrenees curled up (in the yard where the chickens cross the road) unless it's raining or snowing, in a big ball of somewhat white fluff. Yesterday she was curled around a very small black cat, being a cat blanket. The cuteness rules.

I did not blow away

Luckily there wasn't any additional damage from the winds yesterday to my old house, but I haven't seen my father's yet. I talked last night to the claims adjuster for my old house--he said it might be March before he got to look at the house. (He said he'd been in Louisville since January, working nonstop on processing claims.) Right after the ice melted, the only damage was to trees, but a few days later another branch came down (without any 65 mph gusts to help it) and tore the electric line running from the house to the shed loose from the side of the house, along with a lot of siding, the conduit, and some downspout. He was happy that I could email him pictures of the damage, and said that I should go ahead and get it repaired as soon as possible and not wait for him to inspect it. He sounded quite tired.

                                      

who built this?

Yesterday I checked the oil in the Jeep. When I checked it two weeks ago, nobody had built a nest on top of the engine.

I can't tell from the ingredients what is likely to have built it, but they don't seem to have chewed through any wires in the process.

I imagine they were disappointed when the engine heat faded away. 

mapping the ice crash zone

For future reference I went out and took some pictures of where the ice lands when it falls off the roof. See that little tombstone sticking up there? It's a piece of ice two feet tall, a foot wide, and an inch thick. I'm not going to plant any shrubs right there. 

Now you see the obstacle course I'd have had to get the garbage container across. The Jeep is parked just to the right of where the picture ends. 

The ice field is supposed to be a parking space. Note to self: do not park there unless the roof is empty! I will need this picture when I get ready to put up a carport. How to direct the ice away from its roof?

I spent half an hour this afternoon dragging branches to the edge of the road at my father's house. In the metro area the sanitation department is going to collect storm debris if it's on the right-of-way. I didn't get half of it done, so I'll have to go back more than one time (the trip is long enough that half an hour's work is all I can do) and I need someone to get the limb off the carport roof. I don't do ladders that tall. I wish it felt like I'd had some exercise, because lots of the branches were big enough to provide some weight lifting, but the snow crust was so slippery I had to move very slowly and I feel as though I've done nothing but sit around.

wimping out

Tomorrow is garbage day. Last week on garbage day we had the ice storm that led to a state of emergency being declared here. So this week I thought I'd better put the garbage out even though it was supposed to snow. It did snow; it snowed heavily if intermittently all morning, and I gave up the idea of going to the grocery, since I didn't really need anything, and I put off changing the address on my driver's license for about the fifteenth time, and did laundry and vacuumed and sorted papers instead. 

Late in the afternoon I went out to try to load the garbage in the Jeep. After I'd swept an inch and a half of dry powdery snow off the walks, and off the Jeep, and scraped some ice off the windshield, and put today's garbage in the container--it's about half full after two weeks--I looked at the distance between the container and the Jeep: about fifteen feet irregularly piled with inch thick chunks of ice that have avalanched off the roof. I gave up. The weather has to get better soon. I didn't try driving the Jeep up to the road to see if I have last week's mail now that I've put the mailbox back up, or if the snowplow has blown the box off the post again. One of today's abandoned projects was to attach the box more firmly than it was before. 

I'm still enjoying not having to go anywhere.