4°F and clear skies this morning, going up to 21° today. Wind chill this morning was reported as -10°, and I believed it. Just downright cold this morning.
Got the chicken coop cleaned out Saturday morning. Had to make a run to the Tractor Supply store in Carlyle to get more bedding chips. Also got the BarnCam remounted. I'd notices something had marked on the inside of the tractor bucket, and it was too high up to be a skunk. Guessing a 'yote. So, I moved the camera from it's high mount at the side of the barn to a lower mount just inside the sliding door. See what we catch on it. Its been in its original location for so long, I'd almost forgotten about it. Put new batteries in it and pulled the memory card. I was shocked to find that there were 7611 pictures on it. Those batteries lasted from December 2016 to mid-August of 2018. Wife and I had a silly time perusing the pics on my laptop. Most (probably 6000-ish) were just birds and wood bees triggering it. Some entertaining shots of some raccoons climbing into the rafters to get to the barn swallow nests, one of a squirrel hanging upside-down from a beam, a rabbit visit, the neighbor's cat, the two of us going in and out a lot for various tasks, and more evidence that the boy was nipping gasoline from our mower cans. It takes awhile to scroll through over 7000 photos, but there was some funny stuff in there.
Glad I got most of the outside stuff done on Saturday, as yesterday was a complete loss. It wasn't yet snowing when I got up at 05:30, but it was coming down pretty good when I looked again around 07:00. It was a light, powdery snow that fell until sometime around 1pm, along with the falling temperature all day. I think we ended up with about 1" -ish. It was quite windy all day, so some spots had grass showing, and some had drifts anywhere from 6" to a foot or more. That 20 mph wind made for a cold walk to the barn to close the chicken coop last night.
I quit drinking coffee back in the late '80s. I used to drink way too much. I still enjoy a cup on occasion, but I mostly get my caffeine allotment from tea. Although, I'm certainly not averse to an icy cold Dr Pepper either.
As noted by others, RNG, that looks like a seriously nice, tranquil spot you have there. You should get around to the remote parts of your property more often.
Kyle, I'm not sure I'm the right person to give serious advice regarding the cello. As with most instruments I play, I'm self-taught. I will say that there is an over-abundance of cello music to be heard, from classical to modern. YouTube can be your friend here. There are some of the obviously great cellists like Yo-Yo Ma and Pablo Casals, but there are also a boat-load of non-classical and crossover cellists who make that instrument fun. Much of the ELO stuff was recorded with two cellos and a violin. I have a friend from Southern California, Tina Guo, who does some very interesting music on cello, from serious classical to popular music covers and even heavy metal. There is a group from Europe called Apocalyptica who plays heavy metal covers on four cellos (they started as a Metallica tribute on cellos). Movie soundtracks use a lot of cello passages, as it's a very moving sound ... very similar to the timber of the human voice. As with just about anything, it's only limit is your own imagination.
Condolences to you and your wife's family, David.
L4N, I've never heard of Shrove Tuesday either. However, since it involves pancakes, I'm all in.
Randy, my Wife and I became enamored with Navajo "fry bread" when were were vacationing at The Grand Canyon back in 2011. We don't eat it a lot, because it's incredibly unhealthy and something of a mess to make, but man do we enjoy it when we do. We order packages of a
mix from Cameron Trading Post in Cameron, AZ, where we first tried it in their restaurant.
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