A Little Wild Turkey

Nah, no turkeys around here .. or turkey buzzards. However, it is day two of our bitter cold. After a day of running around in below freezing temps when your hands start to ache with the cold walking from car to door and back again, I've taken matters into my own hands -- a little Wild Turkey. Friends and acquaintances from down here know we are from "the North" and think that we are always prepared and used to this cold weather. I always remind them that is one of the reasons we moved here, the milder winter temps.

I remember the days in Michigan of counting in winter:

1. The number of consecutive days of below freezing weather. I remember some January weeks where we thought above freezing temps would never come again.
2. The number of consecutive days of below zero wind chills. Wind chill is not really understood here.
3. The number of consecutive days of below zero weather. Yes, by counting those, we were displaying how tough we were to withstand such brutal temps.
4. By the end of January we were also counting the number of consecutive days without sunshine. How do people endure it? Maybe that is why people go crazy during the winter months. Now they have a fancy name for it - Seasonal Affective Disorder. We used to call it cabin fever.

No one told me all those years ago that a little bourbon would not make me care much about those four items! Moving to Tennessee sure helped!

What's the Point?

I'm sorry, I just don't understand why 20,000 people would put themselves AND rescuers at risk by staying in the path of a hurricane. Kudos to the Governor of Texas for advising holdouts to write their social security numbers on their arms to aid in identification. I think that would scare me into getting the he!! out of the way of a hurricane.

So on one of the endless news stations today, they show a family of four - parents and two children - who did survive and were eventually rescued. What the f---! If not for themselves, why didn't those parents take their kids out of harms way?

I hope FEMA, the state of Texas and whatever agencies are involved in rescuing these people present them with a bill for their rescue.

OK, got that out of my system.

Fall is Coming?

One day two weeks ago, we had temps that barely reached 75 degrees. It was beautiful and I thought that Fall was really coming.

This week, temps have been in the mid to upper 80's. Ninety is forecast for tomorrow. This has been our first summer here and while I do embrace the warmth, it is far too hot to do anything outside in the way of landscaping or laying patio stones. Or tilling up crabgrass. In order to germinate, seed needs to be down before October 15th. In order to put seed down in time for it to germinate, we need to rid the yard of crabgrass.

Last week, we learned that staining the deck in weather between 75 & 85 degrees was kind of stupid. But at least that is done.

When we moved here last October, it was still in the low 80's but nights had cooled down to upper 50's. That is what I am really looking forward to and being able to open windows and the screen door. Sigh.