This is definitely the time of year when living in Texas makes the weather interesting. It's about 28 degrees outside and everything is covered in about 4 inches of snow. Last Monday we had an inch of ice and sleet. And a week ago it was gorgeous and in the mid-70s. I'm not a fan of cold weather and frozen precipitation, but luckily in Texas it usually doesn't last long. And then we get those wonderfully warm days. I'm more than ready for the wonderfully warm to come for the year and stay.
So most of the pictures in this post are from the last two weekends when I had the house opened up and it was mostly beautiful out. For shock value, the last picture in the post is what it actually looks like outside today. Anyway, my flowering quince was in full bloom as you can see, and the honeybees were going to town on it. It might have been their first meal this year, but they were really swarming it. I took pictures of them go about their honeybee business.
I also discovered that the Russian sage I planted either is dead or goes dormant for the winter. It's just a few dead-looking stubs sticking up where I planted it. I'm hoping that it went dormant. We'll see if it comes back. The Texas sage keeps it's leaves year-round. Another surprising thing is the moss in the pot with the little pine tree. The tree is definitely dormant and dead-looking, but the moss is bright green and seemingly thriving. Of course, today it's buried under a little mound of snow. I'll be interested to see if it's still green when the snow melts.
I got out and trimmed back all my roses on Valentine's Day. Then I trimmed the peach shrubs into forms resembling trees. Then I sawed and cut up all the branches and generally cleaned up the patio area. Two of the peach trees now look fairly tree-like. The third one was harder because of the way it grew, but I trimmed it up as much as I could. This last Saturday was the same beautifully warm temperatures as on Valentine's, and I again got out puttering in the yard. Then Saturday evening I re-covered my aloe out on the patio and Sunday the temperatures plummeted from mid-70s to well below freezing.
Monday I didn't go to work. I have become less likely to risk life and limb, and car, to the nasty weather when we get ice. It's actually not the road conditions that make me stay in. It's the massive number of crazy people out of the road. By Tuesday the roads were relatively clear and I drove in to work, but the morons were still out there, both the morons under-driving the conditions (10 mph on the freeway is unacceptable), and the morons over-driving the conditions (the bridges are icy! don't approach them at 80 and slam on your brakes). Then Friday it began snowing around 10:00 am and was still snowing when I left work at 4:00. It took me about 1 1/2 hours to get home, and my commute is usually 30-ish minutes. At least I didn't have to be anywhere today.
Monday while I was home I watched the birds at my feeders on and off all day. I had a Cooper's Hawk hunting the little birds out there! Big, beautiful bird of prey. He probably stooped on the feeder about 8 times during the course of the day. He may have caught one dove, but I think he came up mostly empty. The shrubbery around there is prime for little birds to scatter into, and the patio where the feeder is hanging is a little bit tight maneuvering for a bird that size. The birds would scatter and hide for awhile, and then come back. And he'd try again. I got some pictures, and this was about the best one. They didn't turn out good, but he wasn't exactly trying to hold still for the camera. I couldn't decide whether to be happy that the little birds were escaping him, or sad that he wasn't getting a meal.
The hawk isn't around today, but I have a bunch of doves about there, probably a dozen. It's a mixture of morning doves and white-winged doves. It hasn't gotten up to freezing yet today, so the doves tend to like to huddle on the patio, even when they aren't foraging under the feeder. And of course the usual sparrows, finches, juncos and cardinals are out there. Occasionally I see a blue jay.
Addy is still doing well. I have to put a picture of her in my posts of course. She did fine with the new pet sitters, but I'll be glad to have my regular sitter watching over her on the trips I have coming up. March is pretty clear, but I have three trips in April - to Chicago, Washington DC and Philadelphia. Then I have two trips in May - to Seattle and back to Washington DC. Then I have a trip to Paris, France in June and a trip to Atlanta in July. And this is just my President-elect year. Next year when I'm President will probably be worse, trip-wise. So I'm really glad Addy's health is looking okay for a cat-kid that's 19 years old.
Anyway, this isn't the latest in the year that we've had ice and or snow here, but I'm hoping it will be the last this year. I'm really ready for warm and green and growing things. Not only am I not fond of cold, I'm not fond of dead-looking plants. Plus, I know I put my hummingbird feeder out in mid-March last year and had a hummer right away. So I hope this is the last frigid weather we'll have and it'll begin being growing season soon.
This is just a quick post today, to be able to post some cool pictures I took. I had a business meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico the first week in February and just got around to looking at the pictures today. This first picture is the view from my balcony, looking out on the Atlantic Ocean. Gorgeous!
The business meeting was good, my first board of directors meeting as an officer. A couple of the directors were missing, but I think overall this will be an outstanding group to work with this year. The new directors and officers had to come in a day early for orientation, so I was early enough to take half a day and explore Old San Juan with one of the new directors. We had a blast, and walked our feet off. There are two old forts, one of which, Castillo San Cristobal, is a national historic site run by the US National Park Service. So we walked all over that, then walked to the other fort, called El Morro, and walked all over that.
I ended up getting much more exercise than a normal work day. It was uniformly beautiful, pretty much everywhere we went, and the food was amazing. I also ended up learning a few things about Puerto Rico, like how far it is out into the Atlantic. I always thought of it as Caribbean, which it is considered, but it's hardly even in the Caribbean Sea. There's also a weird feeling I got a couple of times because Puerto Rico feels so foreign sometimes, like Spanish being the native language, yet you see regular mail boxes and delivery vehicles and the National Park Service, etc. So it feels American and foreign at the same time.
The other pictures in this very short post show the little guard houses at the corners of the walls, which are called garitas, and the forts are famous for them. We also took a tour of the Castillo San Cristobal and went into the dungeon, where the figures of ships were sketched on the wall with a charcoal mixture by a sea captain prisoner back in history. Then we went over to El Morro, pictured here. And lastly, when touring El Morro, we came upon two large iguanas taking advantage of the beautiful day. This was one of them.
As usual, time is zipping by. I'm totally unable to keep up with it, or catch up with it.
Today I began writing the post with the good memories of Zoe. I got a little ways into it before I started crying again, but I'm getting better. I also realized that that good memories post may have to be longer than just one post. There's so many wonderful things to remember about that silly cat-kid.
So anyway, I didn't come near to finishing it, and decided to save it for later once I started crying. I actually have nothing to blog about today. It started out to be a gloomy day this morning, but the sun's out now. I got 1.2 inches of rain yesterday, so that was nice. I've been trying to get pictures of the birds other than sparrows and house finches that hang around my feeders, but they aren't cooperating. The chickadees, juncos and wrens are too schitzy to hold still for pictures. I took several million pictures trying to catch one of the little Carolina wrens that hang out here. Well, that may be a slight exaggeration, but I took a lot. The pictures in this post are the ones that sort of came out. Little bird was puffed out since it was chilly outside.
I also took some new pictures of the Addy cat-kid. She's still doing well, but I'm a little freaked about leaving her for 4 1/2 days this coming week. Yes, I've become a paranoid parent. But also she hasn't been by herself overnight for an extended period since Zoe died. And also my regular pet sitter is out having surgery so I'm trying a new pet sitter. So I'm a tad nervous. I'm sure she'll be fine, but I'm still a tad nervous.
I'm going to San Juan, Puerto Rico on Wednesday, coming back on Sunday. It's for a board of directors meeting. Let's hope I remember to take my camera. It should be a nice trip, and a nice way to start my duties as pres-elect of my organization. This is the only semi-exotic location we'll be going to. The other meetings I have this year are in Seattle, Atlanta, Washington DC, Chicago and Philadelphia.
I was going to clean house this weekend, but I was totally unmotivated to do it. I blame the gloomy weather, although I probably should blame my basic laziness. I have managed to start and keep going on an exercise program this last month though so that's some good news. Unfortunately that will be disrupted by all the traveling I'll be doing. I'll have to work to keep at it between trips.
My resolution to get the finances under control is . . . uhm . . . shall we say, struggling. I'm not shopping as much, but I'm still shopping. Still, if I can have the determination to lose 30 pounds and keep it off for a year now, I can get the finances under control too. Just a matter of getting serious about it.
Speaking of shopping though, I bought a little Fitbit. It's fun. It keeps track of your steps throughout the day and how many flights of stairs you climb. And if your wear it to bed, it keeps track of your sleep - how long you sleep, how many times you wake up during the night and when, how many times you were restless during the night and when. It's interesting. The goal they want you to shoot for is 10,000 steps a day. Well I work a desk job mainly, so my personal goal is 5000 steps a day. I can usually make that. Plus I take the stairs to the cafeteria, etc, so that helps. I've gotten 8,000+ steps one Sunday and 9,000+ steps, also on a Sunday. That's probably because I usually run around doing chores on Sundays, plus I exercise on Sunday. For me, it's not so much how many steps I take, it's more that it keeps me conscious of getting up and moving around. I pay more attention to how active I am.
I have roughly a dozen mourning doves under the feeder outside, squabbling over the seeds. They had better be careful. That many at a time tends to draw little birds of prey to the area.
I guess that's about all today. Later.
