Monday's Mentions

 It is nothing like the signs of spring when we see the oxalis blooming. We woke up to -1 degree F. and our high today will be 14 degrees F.  We won't talk about wind chills numbers. I had to go out to deliver the garbage to the curb and then later in the day to return it to the house. It was cold at both times. 

 While inside I keep finding things that I like to photograph. The French hen from my one collection stood out to me today as the sun shone on it. The one French hen is a token representative for the three French hens in the song.

 An angel on my wife's tree seemed to be one that I needed to photograph. It has the look of a wooden carved ornament even though it is actually made from resin. 

 In the basement where it is warm, the decoy mallard duck and the two wall shapes of goose and horse are sitting on the top of my new storage cupboard. My neighbor threw the mallard decoy in to my garbage bin back when I was doing remodeling at the old place. It was his sons and he was throwing away his stuff from the garage. I have never tried to float it on water but I am sure it will. 

 My large nutcracker is undergoing a repair in the basement. The belt buckle fell off and I have it glued down with wood glue. I am waiting for it to dry solid. The view of my garbage is an extra for you to see today.

 

The teddy bear tree is down and all are sitting in a plastic bin. They will come out again next year. I am trying to get my storage shelves arrange better and I did see the bin that all the stuffed critters are in looking out at me. 

Thanks for stopping by..... today. 

 

Winter on the Plains

 We have a little snow on our house roofs but the wind does scatter it a bit. We have been very cold and we had a warmup this afternoon to 24 degrees F.  It is just going to be worse tomorrow. It is winter. We could go to the store but we have a lot of things stored up that we can eat so we will stay inside. 

 

I have two larger house ornaments but really never took time to enjoy them. I thought of them yesterday and looked for the two. They were hanging on lower sections so they were sort of out of sight. 

The two are jot harmonious in design but they both serve a purpose. The indent is a replica of ones we had when I was a kid on the farm. They would look pretty magical hanging on a cedar tree cut from the timber. The new ornaments are done well as the salmon one has such great decorations and glitter too.  I didn't buy new ones this year as I thought the store didn't offer much in traditional designs. All plastic is the hot item now and I just like the glass blown one better. 

 I had earlier shared a few milk glass pieces on my chest of drawers. Afterwards I went down to the cupboard and dug out most all of rest of the ones of my wife's collection. These all belonged to my wife's mom. I found a couple of lamp globes also but they seemed to be too much for the display. Obe looks like it is a different white glass variety. 

 I had difficulty getting the shot of this. The grape vine and leaves don't show up very well even with strong light. It is a box piece with lid and everywhere it is decorated. The bead decoration is good. 

 I didn't loose a fish with all the water changing going on. I learned years ago how not to do it. I have killed fish with rapid temperature changing and also from chemicals in the water, I am going to be watching to see if I get any more birthing from the guppy mothers as things settle down. 

It is snowing again. Thanks for checking in today.  

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.