Pretty Tuesday morning

Cold overcast and snowy 13°F Tuesday morning in Littleton, with the forecast calling for it warming all the way up to a balmy 26°F. It’s always interesting, when the high is 6° below freezing. We’re happy to be inside, with a fully functioning heater. The critters are busy out there, as is usual on weather days. Everybody out there is a little extra fluffed up - insulation against the cold.

Pretty frosting of snow on the deck furniture. 

I can tell where the squirrels have been on the deck railing. 

Our Magpie visitors got here early. 

Dark-eyed Junco has their eye on the bird seed trays. 

House Finches enjoying the bird seed trays. 

Rare visit from a Spotted Towhee. 

As Jennefer says, “We have some lumps in the trees.”

House Finches squabbling over the tire swing bird feeder, as a Nuthatch spectates.

And, of course, lots of visits from our local ruffians, the squirrel gang. Evidence of their recent vandalism is hanging right above their head.

Wire-chewing villians

Happy Sunday morning! We woke up to a gorgeous 29° morning, with a few hiccups already. Jennefer first noticed that our squirrel “friends” had completely chewed out a bulb on the Christmas lights that I had just put up on the deck railing last night. So we only got one good night out of those lights. 

 

When we went to pick up breakfast, I came out with the bag, and we realized they didn’t give us our green chili sauce, so I went back in to ask for it, feeling very proud of ourselves, that we caught that error. After we got home, we realized they gave us a Denver omelette, instead of our usual green chili omelette, which was a deal-breaker, since Jennefer doesn’t eat pork. So we called them, and drove back to pick up “the right” omelette. Come to find out, I must have ordered the wrong omelette through their app, since the original receipt says Denver omelette on it. Oops! I called them to apologize, and to offer to pay for the replacement omelet, but they’re such good folks, they wouldn’t have it. 

 

After we got home again, Jennefer caught the squirrels in the act of chewing on the wire again, and noticed they had cut out yet another bulb. Argh. I’m pretty angry at them right now, but… without a common language, it’s hard to tell them, it’s OK to eat the seeds we put out for them, but not the wires. We may end up without Christmas lights in the back this year… very disappointing... at least they’ve only chewed on the one string closest to the bird feeders, so far. 

 

Update: We found yet another Christmas light bulb and section of wire chewed out, when we got back from being out and about this afternoon… that makes four bulbs completely chewed out… those squirrels are voracious! 

 

I've read that the squirrels can mistake the bulbs for large nuts or acorns, and be proud of themselves, for getting themselves such a prize. In this case, they must have realized the bulbs weren't what they expected, so they left them behind. Apparently, squirrel teeth grow very fast, and they have a need to gnaw on everything around them, so their teeth don't outgrown their mouth. I've also read that manufactures have been mixing soy into wire insulation in recent years, to make it more environmentally friendly and recyclable, and an undesired side effect, is that rodents love the taste of the wires. 

 

Car owners, take note - they also love the wire harnesses inside your engine compartment. I was a lucky one, but there were people at work, who had significant damage done to their car wiring, while their cars were parked in the covered garage. My coworker had a strange warning light illuminate, on his trip home one night, and found to his chagrin, that he needed to splice a few dozen wires in his engine compartment, which had been chewed through completely. In some places, entire sections over a foot long were chewed through at both ends, and the entire wire had fallen to the ground. He had quite the challenge, repairing all that overnight.

Happy pre-Thanksgiving!

We woke up to a chilly 30° overcast morning in Littleton. With Jennefer not feeling well, and not interested in going to the store or fixing or eating a special dinner tomorrow, I made a run to the grocery store when they opened, to pick up some turkey and stuffing TV dinners, which I actually love. While I was there, I ran across a yummy-looking collection of fresh cooked turkey & yam, and homemade cranberry sauce at the deli, and grabbed those too. Then I noticed the pumpkin and pecan pies, and got one of each. I think my niece won’t starve tomorrow… and I won’t be traumatized, by trying to cook something special.

After putting away groceries, I fired up the old Flight Simulator X on my old desktop computer, so I could try flying the VOR-A approach to Clarksburg, West Virginia, that was mentioned in this month’s AOPA magazine. They talked about how some pilots are getting too reliant on the simpler GPS navigation systems in a lot of newer airplanes, and are getting rusty navigating with the old radio navigational aids. I set the weather to 1 mile visibility in fog, and chose an aircraft that didn’t have a GPS for navigation. I surprised myself, by feeling very comfortable while enroute and throughout the approach, and was happy to see the airport through the fog just in time to make a leisurely landing. Fun times…

I stopped my subscription to the Denver Post years ago, after accumulating multiple tall piles of papers “to read later” around the house. So I had mixed emotions about seeing a paper in my driveway this morning. I finally just got around to looking at it, and I have to say, I still really enjoy going through the newspaper. Especially the funnies ( don’t judge me 😉 ), which felt like returning to a bunch of old friends, and of course I still love working the Jumble. I was unimpressed by the overly simplified weather maps, compared to the complicated but very informative maps we used to get in the Chronicle when I was a kid. But then, who looks at a weather map on paper anymore, when you can just get the weather from any number of apps and perspectives, on your phone? 

Some of the news was a surprise that I hadn’t seen online, especially the revelation that my favorite local charity for feeding the homeless had recently inserted some wording into their employee manual, that basically gave them the choice of either embracing their sexual orientation or keeping their job. I realize that sending them money helps needy people that are not employees, but I can’t help thinking that I should find another way to be helpful locally, without supporting an organization that would even consider implementing such a discriminatory dehumanizing policy. 

On a lighter note - I had to laugh, after capturing this photo, which looks to me like a baby dragon coming in hot, for a landing on the tire swing bird feeder. The previous occupant, a House Finch, is making a hasty departure. 

 

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow! 

RIP the B-17 and P-63 aircrew

I was sad to learn that the B-17 Flying Fortress that was delighting me over the course of a week this summer, by flying over my house with those big radial engines, was the one that got nailed by a Bell P-63 Kingcobra over Dallas Executive Airport on Saturday. 

It appears that the P-63 pilot was banking left and descending, and the B-17 was in their blind spot below and right. The Kingcobra hit the Fortress fuselage hard, just behind the wing, and bisected it. With no pitch or yaw control and severely forward center of gravity, the remaining wing and forward fuselage immediately nosed into the ground just a few hundred feet below. RIP the six aircrew of both aircraft…

First serious snowfall

We enjoyed a gorgeous sparkly white layer of snow, on this 27°F morning in Littleton! This was officially our first "serious" snowfall of the season - and according to the News, dropped more snow than other "first" snowfalls of the season over the past several years. They said that the Denver airport got about four and a half inches overnight, which sets a record since 2011.

I snapped this picture last night, of the deck furniture coated with wet snow, before retiring to the bedroom. "Snow!", I whispered to myself...

 

 

 

The bedroom fireplace's pilot light needed to be relit, after months of suffering through wind gusts blowing down the chimney, last winter and spring. We enjoyed our first fire, on this 29° foggy snowy night...

 

 I found myself shoveling a layer of wet snow off the side walk at 2:30am, while the dog was heading out to use the neighbor's lawn (per agreement of my very accommodating neighbor). Then we awoke to this snow-encrusted view from the bedroom window. But this morning, the driveway was already clear, so, no shoveling required, before heading out to pick up our Friday breakfast. Bonus!

The last Fall colored leaves on my Crabapple tree were mostly obscured by the snow. 

My weather station wasn't doing much good with measuring wind speed and direction, all clumped over with snow.

 

 

Jennefer got the seed bowls refilled and out there, but there were no takers at first.

 

 

 

It wasn't long after Jennefer put out the bird feeder, that this Flicker made their appearance.

Nice frosty view of the mostly obscured foothills, in the distance beyond my snow-covered deck furniture. 

 

After the sun came out, we had a beautiful view of the foothills, as the low fog quickly burned off. Such a pretty morning…

 

Just a little flash of Fall color in the trees, with the clouds rapidly dissolving in the distance.

I love this sunny view of my snow-covered deck! It makes we want to go out there, and enjoy the day!

 

We finally got a few visitors to the seed bowls on the deck box, after the sun peeked out. 

 

We made a quick trip to Snooze Eatery to pick up our delicious Friday morning breakfast, and this solitary rose looked pretty special, sticking out of a big clump of snow. 

 

Peaceful sight of a House Finch on the tire swing bird feeder, with some wispy clouds enshrouding the foothills in the distance.