Blustery Day

 It is winter again with snow and some very cold air temp. It is still snowing lightly. The wind chills are not too great either.

 Inside I created a tropical tank of fake plants and water. It got to be a completer water change for this tank and now it is back up and running.

 My angle fish hates to be netted and moved from tank to tank but he looks pretty happy now. He has a clear view of everything in crystal clear water. 

 He wasn't happy at first and hid over in the corner before he thought it was safe in there. The water sat for a day and the heater dig get the temperatures up in there. I even had some chemicals to make the water chlorine free. 

I ran the net across the top of one of my tanks and grabbed some guppies to put in there with him. The one female guppy looks like she is going to pop out some live babies. They will be lucky if they can stay away from the angelfish. 

 Our view from the basement sliding glass door. I had to raise  back up on its feet the male goose as the wind had him landing on his beak and him held in a bad position. They both have snow on their backs as usual.

Thanks for stopping by today.  

Friday's Fumbles

 The chest of drawers could just be on display without anything on top of it. It does do though call out for some sort of display. I sometimes do glass pieces. Eventually I want to do antique pottery bowls. Right now I think milk glass that belonged to my wife's mother seems to be appropriate. 

 An unexpected project showed up this morning while I was working with my aquariums. I was cleaning the glass of green growth and realized there was loose fish food covering the gravel.  My new fish food is large flakes and I have been overfeeding them. As that food would rot it would take oxygen out of the water. I know the water pump would never clean it up, so I took the whole tank down to bare bones and started it up again. After taking this photo I did fill it up to the top later in the afternoon. It is a lot of work to carry two gallon buckets of water so I had to take a break. 

 Ornaments with memories are the ones arched in a row in the back. I bought them in the 1970s at a mall near Omaha.  It was actually a kitchen shop but they had some Christmas ornaments laying in their window sill. It was on a great sale and I liked how they looked old. The middle green acorn ornament is one from my wife's family collection. It has to be another twenty years older than the others.  The bottom row is a new set of replica shiny brite ones sold at the lumber yard a few years ago. Now you can only buy them on line for large amounts of money as the company realized people were collecting them. I haven't seen them at the lumber store for three or four years. 

We bought a different health insurance for our supplemental plan. It has created a nightmare as I am busy trying, fighting, to get my diabetic materials and the one shot I take each week. I have a large supply of insulin from the past year so I am sure I will have to work the system to get that renewed when I run out of it. They have a web site we are suppose to follow things along as we go. I think it is junk. It keeps a record of what I finally get purchased but it is just a record keeper. We have to drive to a special pharmacy to percentages  of certain "over the counter" things.  I am going to be two days later on my one weekly shot but I will just have to start a new day to remember to take it. 

We are dropping into the deep freeze the next couple of days. The winds are strong and the wind chills are really low. We will have to get out in it when my stuff comes in at the pharmacy. Such is life. 

Thanks for checking in today.  

Trees Eliminated

 

I can see why some people keep up their trees longer. I miss them. I just started on one and moved onto the other. My wife asked me to bring up her bins for the stuffed animals and she took it out in a half hour.  We do have a couple more to go but that won't happen for a couple of days. I am starting to reorganize my storage area and filled boxes are being arranged on my storage shelves. Empty boxes are sorted for the last two trees.  

We look warm today with a good sunny day but it is cold. We are to get colder and snow is to be happening in a couple of days. Frost is all we have in the mornings making cars look like they have been snowed on but it is so cold that it sticks around until noon.  It is winter again and we will just have to cope.

Thanks for checking in today. 

Middle of the Week

 Santa takes a break sliding down the hill on a sled. I bet when he gets to the down the hill he can deliver the wrapped present.

 I learned from a PBS show that they Santas over there in England use to wear green. This is a replica of a European ornament with its blue Santa holding gifts.

 A gift from my wife is this reflective metal wind spinner. The tree of life is in the middle and as it spins it reflects all the different levels of rings that reflect in the sunlight.

 The coating on the spinner is designed to reflect so many colors. It puts reflections into the one of our windows into or living room when the sun is in the right direction. 

 It is windy today and it makes it feel very cold. Our neighbors have workmen across the street installing new siding, and the workers are dressed very warmly. It seems dangerous to be on a ladder with this wind. 

I took down one of the trees today and it looks sad and empty where it was standing. I think it was one of the most difficult tree to take down but the big tree is the hardest.  As the days pass they will all be down for another year. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  

Tuesday's Things

 I seem to be missing summer today. I was taking shots in the basement and I do wish I could go out into th sun with my hat on my head.

Having had a loss of many guppies a month ago from a faulty pump, I finally have two tanks of guppies again birthing baby guppies. I think there is one young one visible in the shot but it may just be fish food. The young ones have enough sense to shelter in the greens to keep from getting consumed by larger fish. 

We are in the 50 degrees F. again today. There is a breeze with that and it does feel cold.  Made a trip to the grocery store this morning and we are staying inside for the rest of the day.

Thanks for stopping in today. 

Monday's Mentions

 Evey year I share a shot of this ornament. The rocking horse is a replica of an old child's horse that is built on a platform with wheels. The tiny bear on it is an added thing that wouldn't have been on an antique toy.The antique one also would not have been fluffy but was carved fromsolid wood.

Two of my ornaments that are also replicas of antique German ornaments are the church and Santa Claus. I have more different kinds of these in this set that I bought probably fifty years ago.

 Another replica shown here is one of the Shiny Brite shape made many years ago. They sell Shiny Brite in today's market for a very high price. I bought mine before the prices went up.

 We had guests over yesterday for a coffee and they gifted us a banana bread loaf with an ornament on it. The banana bread really is beyond typical banana  bread as it is filled with cranberries and raisins and it is covered with pecans top and bottom of the outside of the loaf. 

We have 50 degree F. temps today and sunshine. It makes for a good winter day. Thanks for stopping by today.  

 

Sunday Sun Maybe

 

 

 

 We have guests coming today to see the trees and my wife's Christmas village. After today we will start to take down the trees. One a day for some and two days it takes for the biggest tree. My wife's sister memorial service was on Friday. Their church had numerous trees up and when we were leaving the church a few people were starting to dismantle a tree in the hallway. We put our things up slowly and we will take them down in the same way. I had started to take some of the clutter of things down already as they were things we enjoy but out guests don't necessarily see it all. 

Our snow was a short spell but it did cover up the ground. It has settled in a little and it makes things look more like winter again. We are not going to get warm enough for it to melt but no snow is predicted for today. We may hit a high of 34 degrees F. today so I guess we could lose some of it. I didn't have to shovel sidewalks. 

Thanks for stopping by today.