Learn Something New Every Day

You can show your disdain manually using your right hand by pointing three fingers up, to the left, down, and then making an "L" with your thumb and forefinger.  I didn't know this before today.

Change

Change.  It's unavoidable, right?  And the survivors are the ones who can adapt to change.  I've worked at the same place for 22 years.  I've had the same office for, I'm guessing, 15 years.  My office, although cold in temperature, is very nice.  I seriously could not ask for better coworkers and neighbors.  I have a great desk chair and comfortable office workspace.  I have lots of cabinets and file drawers.  I even have a window.  My window looks out into a hallway, not outside.  At first this isolation from the outside world was hard for me.  I would leave work at the end of the day and be totally surprised at the weather.  Now I am used to not seeing the outside.  I am also used to people looking at me while at work through the window.  At first I felt like an animal in a zoo but now I just wave and continue working.  Recently I was asked if I would mind moving my office to another location.  Since my job is mostly meetings and paperwork, this new office makes sense because I would be closer to the files and the conference rooms.  So I responded very calmly and professionally, "If you think it would be helpful for me to move my office, I am happy to move."  And then I added in an excited tone, "To an office WITH A WINDOW!"  I am not exactly sure if or when this office move will happen but if it does, my window has a southern exposure.  I already have plans to sprinkle bird food on my outdoor windowsill on my way in to work in the morning.  I'll be able to park and see my car from my office.  I've added a picture of my building with a red line showing the approximate location.  I stared at this picture for a long time before I figured out what was wrong with it. This is an old photo of our building and was taken before they added the fourth floor.  I think having a window is not going to help my work efficiency, at least not at first.  Like I said, I don't know for sure that this will happen. If I do move, this will be a big change for me.  I might not need a heated throw in my new office.  I probably will not get the same office visitors that I get now. I won't have the same office neighbors.  But a window - wouldn't that be awesome?

Ice Out

The ice went out on the Rum River yesterday, sometime during the day.  I looked up the ice out date last year.  Last year the ice went out between March 17 and 18.  We had an extra ten days of ice on the river this year.  Winter just doesn't want to let us go this year.  I started my river monitoring project today.  The temperature of the Rum River was 30 degrees (which makes me doubt the accuracy of my thermometer), the level was high, and the turbidity was good but not as great as it usually is.  The temperature of Coon Creek in Coon Hollow was 35 degrees, the level was high, and the water clarity was cloudy. Last year, on this day, March 29, the streets in my neighborhood were swept of sand and salt and I went for my first motorcycle ride of the year.   If the river is ten days behind schedule of last year, maybe the same will hold true for the motorcycle season.  I hope I can start riding on April 8th.  I really, really, really hope so. 

Wolves In The House

I have been working on a capstone project for my last Master naturalist class.  This project involves enhancing the entrance garden at the Wildlife Science Center near Forest Lake.  A group of four are working together.  We trimmed up the garden, added native plants, and mulch last summer.  We labeled the plants.  Everything looks much nicer.  The biggest eyesore is the propane tank.  We thought about painting the tank.  Instead we're going to draw the eyes away from the tank with the strategic placement of wolf shadows.  I've had five wolf plywood cutouts in my house since last December.  One of them scratched me on my leg and left a scar.  Wolves are dangerous.  I sanded the wolves and primed them.  I recently finished painting them with black enamel paint.  We have two of the howling wolf and two of the wolf looking forward and only one of the wolf looking back. I had a little fun while painting.  I'd say, "Open wide, let me paint your teeth."  or "I know this spot under your tail is sensitive but this will only take a minute."  I think they look pretty good.  Now all we have to do is get some fence posts or leaning stands and take them out to Forest Lake.  Keep an eye out for the black wolves if you ever visit the Wildlife Science Center.

Project Feederwatch

Downy woodpecker-2, White breasted nuthatch-3, Black capped chickadee-5, Cardinal-2, Junco-5, Crow-3, Red bellied woodpecker-1

Tinkers

This debut novel by Paul Harding is published by a small publisher and has been hand-sold.  Yet it won a Pulitzer Prize last year for fiction.  Tinkers tells the story of George, as he lays dying and of his thoughts about his father.  George is surrounded by his family, his wife, his children, and his grandchildren in a hospital bed in his living room.  He feels his body changing as each hour passes closer to his final hour.  Time is marked by the many ticking clocks George has on his walls. He became a clock repairer in his retirement.  He knows the ins and outs of clocks and he describes and compares their functions to various times in his life.  He thinks about his father who was a tinker.  His father repaired cooking pots and sold household goods door to door with his mule and wagon.  The characters feel very real.  The writing is poetic and philosophical. Tinkers may not be a well-known book but it is well worth reading.

A Good Place for Toast!

I met some friends for breakfast this morning.  If you are looking for a good place to eat breakfast, try the Red Ox Cafe in Ham Lake.  The Red Ox is on the west side of Highway 65 at Constance Boulevard. The Red Ox does not look attractive.  It isn't attractive.  The food is great and the service is friendly.  When you order toast, you have your choice of wheat, sour dough or white either home-made or store bought.  Get the home made bread for your toast.  The Red Ox has the best toast around.  The other stuff like eggs, coffee, hash browns, and oatmeal are also good but the toast is the best.  I saw they have Eggs Benedict on the menu if you like that.

Fitness

For about the past six months, I've really focused on exercise.  Why?  Because exercise is the fountain of youth.  I joined a club and I've been going faithfully.  I have worked out six or seven times a week for the past six months.  I've lost ten or twelve pounds.  My upper arms don't waggle like bat wings anymore.  I'm starting to develop ankles.  Things are good.  I've been alternating between an hour in the lap pool with a half hour on the elliptical followed by a half hour on the weight machines.  In the pool I swim the crawl.  I totally look silly in my blue bathing cap, black headband (to keep my ear plugs in place) and blue swim goggles.  If my shoulder is bothering me, I'll crawl for 15 minutes and then do a couple laps on a kick board just to rest the shoulder.  On the elliptical, I surge every 3 minutes.  The machine has a heart rate monitor.  I usually keep my heart rate around 125 or 130.  But every three minutes I'll work as hard as I can for 30 seconds and get my heart rate up to 155.  I aim to get it up above 150 but less than 158.  At 158 beats per minute and above, my exercise induced asthma kicks in and I get this annoying cough. By the time I am done with that machine, I feel depleted and sweaty.  Then I walk over to the weight machines and strengthen my legs, shoulders, back, arms and abs.  I always wipe down the machines with the wipes the club provides so it is clean for the next person.  I've noticed not everyone does that.  I've also noticed that the people who don't clean the machine are also the people who grunt as they lift and/or bring the weights back into position with a loud clang.  The grunting clangers don't wipe as often as the quiet people.  I've increased the amount of weight I can press.  There is a machine that strengthens the upper torso. You kneel on this seat and twist your waist to the right and to the left.  My club has two of these machines side by side.  For the longest time I could not figure out how to use these machines.  I thought one machine twisted right and the other twisted left.  One day the machine would twist to the right and the next day it would twist to the left.  I thought I was loosing my mind.  I finally talked to a friend about it and she explained that I can change the direction of the twist by lifting a bar and moving the seat position.  That makes a lot more sense. I hesitated to join the club because of the cost and because I thought I didn't have the self-discipline to go often enough.  In my case, my tendency toward thriftiness helps me.  The more times a month I go to the club, the less it costs every time I go.  I worried I would slack off but so far that hasn't happened.  What has happened, though, is that if I don't physically deplete myself every day, I don't feel right.  And that is a good thing.

Spring Is Officially Here

Wasn't that me last night who was outside until 10 p.m. trying to get her car into the garage?  Wasn't that me cursing the soggy snow that clung to my shovel?  Wasn't that me kneeling at the snow pushed up by the plow because I had to give up on the shovel and move the snow boulders by hand?  Well, yes, that was me. Not my finest moment.  But today is different. Today I heard the "Tah - wheeeeee!" of the red winged blackbird.  For this bird, hearing it is more important than seeing it.  That sound, that "Tah - wheeee" is my harbinger of spring.  The sound of the red wings are back.  Spring has officially sprung.

I Got Spurs That Jingle, Jangle, Jingle

When I was a kid, I hung outside a lot.  My Mom was one of those "Play Outside!" parents.   So we played outside.  We could come in for meals and to use the bathroom, but we basically lived outside.  I was very fortunate to grow up next door to my grandparents.  I had an aunt who was my age and some uncles who were a little older.  I am sure I was an annoying seven year old girl when I followed my Uncle Ray around the yard.  If he was outside, I was there.  And he, being a young man, also didn't want to spend much time in the house with his parents.  I watched him work on  his Corvair that he had parked at the curb.  I waited for him to come home and watched him leave.  The poor guy.  He couldn't shake a shadow like me.  I remember him being a jolly young man.  He was always humming or singing that Tex Ritter song, "I Got Spurs That Jingle, Jangle, Jingle."

RIP Uncle Ray!

Rescue

Anita Shreve wrote Rescue, a novel that focuses on the life of a trained EMT.  The medic's name is Peter Webster, a good guy all the way down to the bone.  He likes to rescue people. One of his first rescues is a woman named Sheila.  He rescues her from the car wreck she is in but he cannot rescue her from her wanderlust, her marriage with him, her mothering skills, or her alcoholism.  He raises their child on his own until one day, when their child is about to graduate from high school, he needs Sheila's help.  I finished the book on CD as I drove on Highway 10 coming back from a meeting.  FGS!  Large, salty tears rolled down my cheeks listening to the last chapter.  I will admit, I cry easy, but not usually at books.  Movies, yes.  Some sappy commercials, yes.  Books?  Seldom.  I am officially a Shreve fan.

Frozen River

One of my volunteer jobs is to monitor the water of the Rum River on the Pleasant Street Bridge and Coon Creek on the Coon Hollow Bridge.  Coon Creek is swollen to the tops of the banks and the ice has been out for about 5 days.  To my daily astonishment, the Rum is still covered in ice.  I can't monitor the river until the river is liquid again.  The east bank has some open water showing.  More open water can be found at the bends of the river compared to the straighter sections.  Basically the river is still frozen.  The ice is dark in color. I can see the water level has risen.  That alone must loosen the grip the ice has on the banks.  After all these 50 degree days, why hasn't the ice slipped off yet?  Why hasn't the ice started moving toward the dam?  I would love to be there when all the ice lets go.  I remember one spring, when the kids were small, we went down to the dam and watches plates of ice float over the dam.  Some sections of ice were still attached to the sides of the river.  We pushed the plates of river ice with sticks to set them free.  We cheered when we got a big section loose and it went over the dam. That is a fun memory.

PS I have about two gallons of sap now.  The sap must be sweet because it gets my fingers sticky when I touch it.  I have to traverse big banks of snow to get to the trees.  In some spots the snow is so deep that when my foot goes through, I get snow up to my knees.  In other spots grass is showing and I see a lot of snow mold - white, webby strands laying on the old grass. 

Project Feederwatch Update

Northern Cardinals-2, Black capped Chickadee-5, Junco-5, White breasted nuthatch-4, Crow-2, Blue Jay-2, Downy woodpecker-2, Red bellied woodpecker-2, Red shouldered Hawk-1

Coming Back To Town

As I was doing some outdoor chores today, I noticed some birds are back from their winter vacation.  The red-shouldered hawk was back and is as talkative as ever.  Sandhill cranes flew by my yard making their cartoonish sounds.  My Juncos have not left yet on their northern migration.  Welcome back birds.  I've missed you.

Technology in the Woods

Yesterday I went to another Master Naturalist meeting.  The topic was "Technology in the Woods."  I didn't think it sounded that exciting but I went anyway because the people there energize and inspire me. I was wrong.  The topic wasn't boring at all. Our speaker, the naturalist from Wild River State Park, gave a spectacular presentation on the topic.  In the past, the woods have been a place to get away from it all; away from the phones and the problems of the world.  Times have changed.  To get our nature deprived children into the woods to appreciate nature, we have had to compromise.  Now we encourage them to bring their phones, their IPADs and their gps (global positioning devices) with them into the woods.  Geocaching is a huge craze.  You can log onto geocache.com, sign up, and learn all about this high tech treasure hunt.  State parks offer cards inside each cache (hidden treasure).  If you get 20 cards, you get a coin.  For each set of 20 cards, you get another coin. If you get a card from all 72 state parks, there is another prize.  Kids love it.  Adults are getting hooked too. State parks offer the gps devices at no charge so this would be an inexpensive way to introduce kids to nature.  The cache's are strategically placed to bring the kids to the most interesting spots.  Wild River state park is taking technology a step further and putting quick recovery codes (QRC's) on signs.  You take a picture of the code with your smart phone or IPAD and you are brought to a website that will tell you ALL ABOUT the nature in front of you and will include links to other pages if you want to know more.  It's amazing.  But to tell the truth, if I was to see a QRC on a stump in the boundary waters, I would be a little disappointed.  That is just me.

Beak of the Finch

I've been reading this non-fiction book about evolution ever since I returned from my trip to Ecuador.  Jonathan Weiner writes about Peter and Rosemary Grant, scientists, who have studied the finches on Daphne major, a small Galapagos island.  The finches on this island are difficult to tell apart.  Only experts can tell the exact species of Darwin finches at a glance.  A ground finch is very much like a tree finch.  They are all LBB's (little brown birds). The beak sizes differ.  But each kind of finch can have a small, medium, or large beak.  Ground finches have smaller beaks than tree finches but a ground finch with an unusually large beak can have a bigger beak than a tree finch with an unusually small beak.  The Grants studied these finches year after year. They also studied the seed available for the finches to eat.  With the assistance of graduate students, they would lay out a grid and count every single seed.  They spent hours and hours counting seeds.  The work was grueling and boring plus the conditions were terrible.  As time went on, the Grants realized that the finches with larger beaks are better able to eat the larger seeds.  Like me, when I eat a bowl of pistachio nuts, I leave the hard to crack nuts for last.  During droughts, finches with larger beaks thrive and propagate.  Having a larger beak has disadvantages when rain and seeds are plentiful.  By paying close attention, trapping and banding finches, and measuring beaks year after year after year, the Grants eventually realized (with the aid of computer technology) that they were observing evolution.  During dry years, beaks became larger.  When rain was plentiful, the beaks were smaller.  The evolution was on a minuscule scale but very real.  When they put data into the computer on rainfall and seed availability, the computer accurately predicted the size of the beaks of the offspring born the next season.  Some of the information was fairly dry and technical but the author does a good job of keeping it real.  He throws in funny anecdotes about life on the Galapagos Islands.  Reading this book has helped me extend my vacation just a little further. 

PS Collected six cups of maple sap today - all from the east maple.

Driftless

I listened to Driftless by David Rhodes on compact discs.  I loved it.  It has been awhile since I loved a book this much.  The author is incisive, thought provoking, engaging, and he must know a lot about nature.  He writes about morel mushroom hunting, warblers, cougars, tamarack and the change of seasons.  The story is set in Wisconsin, in the driftless southwestern area of the state.  Driftless means it wasn't scoured flat by glaciers.  Areas of Minnesota that are also driftless include the river bluffs down by Winona and south down to the Iowa border.  I personally love those hilly areas and wouldn't mind settling there someday.  Each chapter tells the stories of different characters in a small town.  The characters include farmers, engine repairers, retired people, a pastor, a felon, a cheese factory worker, and a person with a disability.  One chapter was particularly thrilling.  The chapter focuses on a character named July Montgomery.  I started listening to the chapter as I pulled into the parking lot at the fitness club.  I had a bad feeling, I worried about July.  I swam for an hour and kept thinking about the book.  I knew something bad was going to happen.  I don't know how I knew.  I had an hour to think about it and I could never put my finger on how I knew.  But I knew.  I couldn't wait to get back in the car.  I was right, something terrible did happen.  You know it's a good book when you can't hardly wait to get back to it.



Project Feederwatch Update

White breasted nuthatch-3, Black capped chickadee-5, Northern Cardinal-2, Downy woodpecker-2, Red bellied woodpecker-2, Junco-3, Crow-2, Red tail hawk-1

Things were pretty busy in the yard.  I saw 4 species in my basswood tree at one time.  Then the hawk flew through and all was quiet for at leat 15 minutes.  The hawk must have scared the songbirds out of being hungry.

Squash Soup

On my trip to Ecuador, we were often served a thin soup before dinner.  Several times we had squash soup.  I wasn't too excited about it.  I don't like squash and the thin soup wasn't appealing to me.  I was starving by the time dinner was served because we ate so late and I tried it.  It was delicious!  This weekend I attempted to make my own version and it turned out really good.  I forgot one recipe at work and didn't follow a second recipe I found so basically this is my own recipe.

Ingredients:  one butternut squash, 3 Tb olive oil, salt, pepper, 4 cups broth, 1/3 cup chopped onion, 2 cloves fresh garlic, nutmeg, cayenne pepper

Directions:  Slice squash in half.  Remove the seeds and mushy part around the seeds.  Smear olive oil on the open face of the squash and season with salt and pepper. Lay open face of squash down on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.  Let cool.  Scrape squash out of the skin.  Compost the skin.  In a sauce pan saute onion and garlic in olive oil until translucent.  Add squash, broth, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper.  Bring to a slow boil and simmer for 20 minutes.  Remove squash with slotted spoon.  Using a blender, puree squash and return to pan.  Enjoy!!



Stupid Advice

Inside my Dove square were these words written on the wrapper:  Be Spontaneous  That is stupid advice.  How can I be spontaneous now?

Sap!

I got home at dusk tonight and decided to check my maple trees. Earlier in the week I set an empty milk jug beneath each tree and attached vinyl tubing to each tap. The other end of the tubing went into the milk jug.   The weather wasn't super warm today so I wasn't expecting to get any sap but I wanted to be sure the strong winds hadn't knocked off the tubing.  I checked the 3 taps on the box elder trees first.  All the tubes were attached and dry.  One milk jug had tipped over but the tubes were still inside it.  Next I checked the east maple in the front yard.  Holey smoley - there were droplets in the tubing and about ten ounces of sap in the milk jug.  My plan is actually working!  This is the tree that I accidentally broke a tap. Below that broken tap was a large area of wet bark.  I saw a twelve inch wet stain on the bark.  The west maple had tubes in place but they were dry.  I imagine the east maple gets the most unobstructed afternoon sunshine and that is why it is the first one to deliver sap.  According to those who know, the fluctuation in the air temperature is what makes the sap flow.  When it is warm, positive pressure inside the tree forces the sap to flow out of wounds or tap holes. When the tree gets cold, negative pressure draws up water from beneath the roots replenishing the sap.  The sugar is from the photosynthesis of the previous summer.  Amino acids in the sap give the sap the distinctive maple flavor - very different from plain sugar.  Tapping the tree takes away less than 10% of the tree's sugar - not enough to harm a healthy tree.  That reminds me, two years ago I tried to cut down one of the box elder trees I tapped.  I used a reciprocating saw and a bow saw.  I was unsuccessful but I cut the bark nearly all the way around the trunk.  I wonder if that tree will give any sap at all.  All my sawing did not negatively affect it's green leaves though.  I'll just have to wait and see. 

By the Numbers

Number of weeks a cardinal has been singing songs of love in the black spruce tree outside my bedroom window-2.  Time it sang this morning-5:42.  Time I have to get up-6 o'clock.  Days until daylight savings time kicks in-2.

Waiting For Snow in Havana

Carlos Eire wrote this book Waiting for Snow in Havana, Confessions of a Cuban Boy.  The author has a PhD from Yale and typically writes textbooks about art in the 16th and 17th centuries. He was motivated to write this story after hearing the story of Elian Gonzales in the news.  Do you remember Elian Gonzales?  He was the little Cuban boy in Miami whose mother perished on the boat ride on the way to Florida.  His father lived in Cuba and wanted his son back home.  Fidel Castro wanted Elian to come home. Elian's relatives in Miami wanted to keep him in the United States.  I remember seeing the images of armed men breaking into a bedroom and pulling a crying boy out of a closet.  This story infuriated the author because, as a child, Fidel didn't care that he and 14,000 other children aged 8-14 were sent to the United States with no one there to take care of them.  The author writes in short chapters describing his life in Cuba with his father (a wealthy judge who had to have mental illness), his mother (a loving woman with a weak leg), his brother, and his tormentor (a boy named Ernesto who is adopted by Carlos' father and who repeatedly attempts to molest him).  Carlos and his brother have a privileged life in Cuba.  They are wild boys without much discipline.  They enjoy throwing rocks at each other and pulling the tails off lizards.  They enjoy riding their bikes behind the DDT fogging truck as it spreads mosquito insecticide throughout their neighborhood. Carlos describes the beauty and culture of old Havana and it sounds rather nice.  Castro comes into power and things change.  The author describes in vivid detail the Bay of Pigs incident.  His father is attacked for driving such a fancy car to the courthouse and ends up trading in his nice car for an old Ford.  Eventually the mother realizes they will be better off in the United States.  His father is lost in his own little world and does nothing to help them. She manages to get the boys out of the country as part of the "Operation Peter Pan,"  She hopes to follow right behind them but is unable to get to them for three years.  Carlos and his brother are on their own for three years in a foreign country and they're not even 15 years old yet.  How he got from that deplorable situation to a PhD is something he covers in the sequel, "Waiting to Die in Miami."  I am tempted to read that.  Although I didn't always like the writing style, I'm glad I finished the book.    

Trying Something New

This year I am trying something new, tapping some of my maples for syrup.  Back in BC (before children) I assisted in a maple syrup operation for one weekend up in Lutsen.  My assistance was with the boiling process.  We spent the entire weekend in the snowy woods collecting and boiling sap.  We had a blast stoking the fire and hanging out in the woods.  For lunch we (this was before I became a vegetarian) stuck hot dogs on sticks and boiled them in the sap.  Sounds terrible to me now but it was good then.  This maple syrup experience will be much different.  I had to put the taps in myself.  I borrowed a cordless drill.  Unfortunately the drill could accommodate a 3/8 inch bit and I needed a 7/16 hole.  Luckily there is only 1/16 of a inch difference between what I had and what I needed so I just drilled a big sloppy hole and let it go at that.  I tapped the taps into the hole.  My plan was to tap two red maples and several boxelder maples.  I thought I would start with the boxelder maples first. My history shows I improve with practice although it wasn't true in this case.  The first and second boxelder taps went in fine.  I considered tapping another boxelder but decided against it as it was too far into the poison ivy district of my yard.  So I put another tap into the largest boxelder. Then I went to the red maple.  I drilled a nice big hole.  And I pounded the tap into the hole a little too vigorously because I broke the tap off at bark level.  I don't think there is any way I will ever get that broken tap out of that tree.  I might fill the hole with something so it doesn't bleed sap all summer.  I then drilled another tap below the broken one in hopes I will catch most of the sap going up in that area.  Because the maples are so big, I put two taps in each one-one on the south side and one on the west side. The sap won't run until the temperature gets above freezing in the day time and below freezing at night.  Right now the taps are sitting there without anything to catch the syrup.  I bought some vinyl 3/8 inch tubing. My plan is to soak the tubing in warm water so I can stretch it over the taps and run the tubing into an empty plastic milk jug which I will place at the base of the tree.  I think I'll do that next weekend.  I'll let you know how it goes.  If all goes well, I might schedule a waffle party.

Here is a hole drilled into the maple tree, ready for a tap to be put into place.

This is one of the red maples I tapped.

Close up of an installed tap.

How much sap will this tree yield?  What do you think?  Any guesses?

Project Feederwatch Update

Blue Jays-4, Black capped Chickadee-5, Red bellied woodpecker-2, Downy Woodpecker-3, Crow-2, Cardinal-2, White Breasted Nuthatch-4

Blue Jay Quartet

This year I'm keeping track of all the birds I see.  I hope to get 150-200 species.  I saw 37 species on my trip to the Galapagos so that helped the number.  But I hadn't seen any new birds since the end of January.  February was a dry month for birding.  There aren't that many birds to see around here in the winter.  But I hadn't even seen a blue jay in 2011.  The past couple weeks I've kept my eyes peeled for blue jays.  This morning I was reading the Sunday paper when I heard the call of "Rain!"  A blue jay!  I put the paper down and went to the window.  There, right in front of me in the basswood tree, was a blue jay.  He was so pretty and fine with his bright coloring, jaunty head shape, and gymnastic posture.  But he wasn't alone.  He had three fine feathered friends and they all jumped from branch to branch in the basswood tree while calling out.  Not only did I get my wish to see a blue jay, but I saw four healthy, sassy blue jays at a close distance from the comfort of my living room.  It doesn't get much better than this. Now, my next wish is for finchs - a gold finch and a purple finch and a house finch.

Ancestry

I went to a dinner party last night and met some new people.  Everyone in the group was interested in their ancestry.  We were all white, European descendants.  People wanted to know who was the first one in their family to come to America. What US port did they immigrate to and what port did they leave behind?  One person in the group is trying to get into the DAR - Daughters of American Revolution.  Sometimes a ship manifest will tell you who was on board and how much money each person had in their pocket - often just a few dollars.  Many people in the group use a website called ancestry.com.  The first few days on ancestry.com are free and after that dues come to about a dollar a day I believe.  You can avoid the fee by using the website at your public library.  This website will store your information and keep it there.  Evidently they encourage you to make your information available to other ancestry buffs.  People spend hours on this stuff.  They become addicted to checking information on ancestry.com.  I learned that the census can give you lots of information.  Questions on the census vary every time it is run; ten years apart.  In the past the questions have been how many in your household speak English or do you have indoor plumbing.  I learned a lot last night but I have to confess, I'm just not all that interested in looking back.  Seems to me the present and the future are more interesting.

Not Many Signs of Spring Yet

Icicles form on the side of the chicken coop. The snow bank hides the chicken run.

Snow outlines and emphasizes the branches on the evergreens.

My trusty 27 inch Yukon show pusher.

The driveway is hard to see because it's white on white but it's crooked as hell.  I do most of my shoveling in the dark.  The corridor is so narrow the tire tracks almost touch both sides.

Ugh!

Pinball

My body feels like a pinball machine lately, well, ever since Saturday.  And not in a good way.  This ugly green virus is what I picture the pinball looks like.  And I want to loose this game of pinball.  I want this bug to go down the drain.  A lot has gone down the drain since Saturday.  So much has gone down the drain I lost four pounds.  I don't know how this green bug managed to stay in.  At first the pinball stayed in the gut, bouncing back and forth and back and forth.  All the displays were lit up and high, nasty points were made.  Today the pinball is bouncing from gut to head to throat, gut, head, throat, gut, head, and throat.  I don't want it to stop in one place, I want it to leave.  I am mentally holding my flippers wide open.  Maybe I should tilt myself to end this game of pinball.  Excuse me while I go stand on my head in the corner.