I have to admit I didn’t expect UCF to beat Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl. I knew it would be high scoring but nothing like what happened. Now I’m OK with Liv going there next year.
I woke up about 4AM to check out the plumbing. Our bathroom has one giant window that looks out on nature when you’re soaking in the tub or whatever else you might be doing. We’ve planted large viburnum plants just outside for a degree of privacy. I didn’t turn on the lights since I pretty much know where everything is but caught a bit of motion at the window. It was a large mama deer with her head up in the viburnum munching away and a fawn standing underneath her, also feeding. I was probably 6’ from them but they didn’t see or hear me. I went back to bed and started wondering if they’d go directly from there to the garden. Finally at 6 I couldn’t wait any longer and walked over to check if we still had a garden and found nothing disturbed at all. Never a dull moment living in the jungle.
And another wildlife sighting – three large hawks landed on the pole bean poles the other day. I was able to get within 15’ of one and snapped a good pic. George said they were pigeon hawks. While I was watching, it jumped down into the garden and started digging vigorously with beak and claws. It didn’t come up with anything but I have to guess he was going for a mole. I took several pictures but none worth posting but here’s a try. The hawk is on top of the second pole from the left.
I check the weather.com daily to check on the weather in places where we have family. Tommy, in Chicago, has led the group in terms of cold weather most of the time but I think he’s been displaced with Kathy’s move to Vermont. She’s moving to Northern Vermont, close to Canada, where they’re forecasting -31 in a few days while Tom will be experiencing a balmy single digit positive temp. I wonder what the temps would be like if you backed the CO2 out of the atmosphere? A new Ice Age? We must be getting close to having no polar ice caps – didn’t Al Gore say 2015? So those stranded ice breakers just need to wait a little longer. My weather station measured 41 at 7AM this morning and the wind was blowing. My instrumentation doesn’t give me wind chill factor so I went out to see if I could estimate a “feels like” temp. It was minus 41.
Did you know there’s a life limit on propane tanks? It’s 12 years. I know that because 12 years ago when the lake house was completed we started spending winters here and bought the Holland grill and two propane tanks. Six months later we bought a third so we would never again run out of gas in the middle of a grilling event. One of the tanks was filled in June, exactly 12 years after it was manufactured and just ran out of fuel last week. It was replaced with a full tank that expires today and we have another tank, full in reserve, that likewise expires today. Perfect timing. Not sure what you’re supposed to do with empty propane tanks since the guy who filled them doesn’t take them as I thought. I’m sure my neighbor George will have some creative thing in mind that converts used propane tanks into something.
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