Note's on names, snowmageddon, and other stuff....

With the new year I'm changing the name policy.  Back when I didn't see anybody, referring to the infrequent friend by first initial was workable.  Now that the situation has changed, and I see people daily, and more people, the alphabet is going to soup and getting confusing.  From now on I will identify people by first name.
If you know me, and have a problem with that, let me know.  I'll make up a name for you.
And make fun of you while I do that....

We have decided to name the hawk Mortimer.  After Cary Grant's character in 'Arsenic and Old Lace'.
If I haven't mentioned it before, the homestead here is named after the sanitarium in 'Arsenic and Old Lace', one of the funniest movies ever made.  The sanitarium that Mortimer is trying to have Teddy committed to.  Because Teddy, who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt, blows a bugle at all hours of the day and night and runs up the stairs yelling 'Charge!' and creeps the neighbors out...

So some of the names around here are being drawn from there.  Not all, but some.
Cuz we have a Teddy...

Teddy

Cat took that picture the day we got him.
We got him for free.
Right now Teddy is living in a cage in the entryway.  He's got food and water.  The cage is big enough for him to move around in.  He gets out to stretch his wings everyday...

Cat took this picture too.  I swiped it off her FB page...

We want to find him some ladies before we put him outside.  He needs someone to snuggle with.
He seems to be a smart bird.  He's not thrilled with being picked up, but now that he knows we're not going to hurt him he doesn't fight it as much.







We got Teddy Jan. 4, 2014, the day before......

Sunday Jan. 5, 2014 the arctic vortex dumped on us.

And no, the arctic vortex is not a liberal conspiracy to further some evil global warming scam.  I've heard the term before, when I read about the band of winds that used to blow east to west that kept the arctic air in the arctic.  Thanks to climate change, that band is weak and dips way farther south than it used to.
Yes, I do believe in climate change.  Even if it was colder here than it's been in a long while last week.  Global warming was the term when we first started looking into it.  It's a simple term that was used to describe something that was way more complex than we knew at the time.
And things are way worse than that term implies.
And, as others have pointed out, what's the worst outcome if we accept climate change as a real thing?
We end up with a cleaner planet, with better air and water, and a more sustainable life style?  For no good reason?
And what's the worst if we don't accept climate change as a fact?
We end up with a burned-out, poisonous cinder and no fall back planet?
The cockroaches take over.....
And ya know, I'm with Marty from 'Cabin In The Woods', a fantastic film, if you haven't seen it yet...
Paraphrasing here...
If my friends have to die for you to live in your world, then maybe it's time for something else to have a shot.
If anything or anybody needs to die or suffer, and I include poverty as suffering, for you to have your perfect world, then you don't deserve to continue in this beautiful world we have been given and if we can't stand up and stop you from destroying this beautiful world, then we don't deserve it either...

We return you to your regularly scheduled post...

It started early.  It was a very fine, powdery snow.

 

 The dogs rather enjoyed it.

 

Doeman

The temperature was dropping.  The wind was really kicking up.

And everybody was ready to go in....

 The attraction of chicken, in a cage, on the other side of that door, helped to motivate them.










It snowed all day and the winds were wicked.  The temperature dropped into minus numbers.

The windows frosted in interesting patterns.  I stayed home and kept the fire burning, and the dryer running as much as possible.
The dryer really heats the kitchen with moist heat.
It snowed all day and was really too cold to be out very long.
We were not putting Teddy out in that.






I don't have a lot of pictures of the aftermath.  Monday was too cold, and Tuesday I could get out of the driveway so I worked.

We got about 13 inches of snow.

The drifts were deep.
The depth of snow throughout the yard varied from barely over your shoe to up over my knee.  You could tell where the wind was blocked by the depth of snow.  All the trees had a shadow of shallow snow on the upwind side.
It was cool!

The wind piled and sculpted snow into ridges, grooves, and swirls.

Looks a little like an Alien head under the snow....

Wish I had gotten more pictures, I kept meaning to go out and take more, and getting side tracked by other things....










On Monday the winds were still strong and there was a real chance of frostbite.  Sunday and Monday I didn't spend a lot of time outside.
Sunday I put out food for the squirrels and birds.  Still no feeders up.  Nothing fancy, just some seed in an old saucer sled.  But it's been a popular attraction.  Got a rock sitting in it to keep it weighted down.  We had a flock of Cardinals last week.  Looked like 2 family groups.  2 males, 2 females, and a juvenile of each.

Considering that my window is far from clean that's not too bad a picture.  This male has black on his back and wings.

On a sad note, and pertaining to names, Rusty, our first resident squirrel, passed away last Thursday.  I've mentioned Rusty and Ruth before.  We've only had 2 squirrels around the place.  So it was easy to name them.  If we ever get too many more that will stop.  Jokes have been made about my penchant for naming things.  But even I will not try to name more than a few squirrels...
Now we are down to just Ruth.
She hung out at the food dish for 2 1/2 hours Friday morning.  I put the food dish under the tree where Rusty and Ruth used to meet every morning.  I put it there cuz that's where they met every morning.  I think she was waiting for Rusty.  She hasn't really been hanging around that tree much this week.  I put a squirrel block out under her tree, and she's been eating there the last couple of mornings.
Last Thursday one of the guys from the electrical co....

THIS is Rusty's Tree.

 We share the lot with a small business.  The building to the left of the tree is, I think, an electrical co.  They use the driveway and the roads.  Not a lot, but enough to be familiar with the place.

 







One of the guys asked Cat if LJ had a gun and told her that there was a squirrel at the end of the drive that wasn't doing well.  Cat went out to look and he went up the pine tree at the end of the road.  She said he didn't scamper up the tree, it took some effort for him to climb up.  So she knew he wasn't in good shape.  LJ came home and went up the tree after Rusty.  Rusty jumped down into the snow and Cat was able to catch him.  He didn't struggle or bite.  At that time he was cold.  LJ put Rusty in his jacket and they brought him and a cage we had out in the barn, that had been set up for Indy, a baby squirrel Cat and LJ brought back from vacation last summer.  LJ held Rusty in his jacket and he was starting to get active.  He was calm and mellow, not struggling.  We got a heating pad all set up for him in the cage.  But when we transferred him he seized.  Before we could get him back into LJ's jacket he died.
I think it was age more than anything.  He was a big, healthy boy.  But his teeth were worn.  I don't think the recent severe weather did him any favors, but I think it was age, more than weather, that prompted his passing.
 We still have Ruth running about, and we're making sure she can always find a meal here.  Keeping our fingers crossed for a passel of babies this spring.
We buried Rusty under the big pine at the end of the drive.
Seems there was some confusion over which was his tree....

Rusty's dining tree.

This week we've been working, dealing with weather.
Snowmageddon was not without aftermath, but when all was said and done not too bad.  Monday the 6th we had problems with the power.  We had a burst pipe in the upstairs bathroom.  Vehicles wouldn't start.  But after the rush of all that happening in the span of a couple of hours things were not too bad.  The house was fairly warm.  The horses had shelter.  The power problems were internal, so easy to fix, sort of.  This house needs to be rewired.  Until that happens, we'll have problems here and there.  When the plumber finally got here, he capped the cold water to the upstairs.  For the last week we've had some minor adjustment to that, no real big deal.
The plumber was back the day before yesterday to fix the pipes.  They've gotta come back one more time to put in a decorative panel over the hole in the wall.
Yesterday was the great kitty fixing event....

Jethro

Riley

Dixie

Yesterday 3 of the cats took a trip to the vets.
Actually 4 of the cats made the trip over.  Tom Traveler, one of the upstairs cats, made the trip over as well.  But he was too old and would have cost a lot more money than we had budgeted.  So he didn't get to stay.
The 3 from downstairs are now recovering from surgery.  They are all doing well.
None of us was happy about the trip over.  Traffic sucked, and nobody liked being in a crate.  Traffic sucked on the way back.  The cats had a traumatizing day.  Tom and I got the easy end of it.  He got out of the cage and I stayed in yesterday.
Hence this post.  Which I've been meaning to do and need to wrap up.  I've got 2 long jobs due tomorrow.  Wanna get as much done today as I can.  The longer I sit here the more that slops over into tomorrow.
But the internet, which has sucked for the last 3 days, is running fairly well, and I need to strike while the iron is hot...

Cuz another big thing happened yesterday...

LJ took this picture.

They put the star back up!
The star was there when we moved in, but there was only 1 strand of lights working.  A few weeks back the guys from the electric co. were nice enough to get it down for us.  Cat restrung the lights, and yesterday it went back up.
And last night...

The star was fully lighted for the first time.

So, all in all, not a bad couple of weeks.
Now I gotta move.  I've gotta clean litter boxes, move laundry, and go to work....