Devastating news - Mandy's gone

Mandy’s been having a really rough time the past few days, and thinking back, probably longer. Her regular Veterinarian hasn’t been answering their phone, and her regular Animal ER has moved far away, so I finally reached out to the new animal ER, CVSG, who took her in right away. It turns out to be bad - really bad - the kind of diagnosis where there will never be a good time without pain and drugs for the rest of her life. It is unbelievably difficult for me to say, but we came home without her. Rest in peace, my sweet little Italian Greyhound Chihuahua rescue dog. We had a pretty good run of nearly sixteen years, after her first two rough years. Jennefer and I are a couple of emotional wrecks right now. It’s helping a little to talk about it, while composing this announcement for all of you. Whew… This is a completely unexpectedly rotten way to end our year. Through my tears, I found some solace from knowing when she relaxed into my lap, that she didn’t have to suffer any more.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

 Quiet day for us. Jennefer still isn’t feeling all that well. She was a little better, so we went for a walk today, and the streets were all still icy from the snow on Tuesday. The sidewalks were pretty navigable though…

 We enjoyed a pretty sunset a little while ago, while we were talking to my sister's family in Atascadero. 

 Now we're just relaxing on the couch and watching an episode of the Netflix series The Crown, about Queen Elizabeth II...

Record low!

The weather folks say that Denver Airport hit -24°F last night, the lowest temperature in 32 years! I think that’s kind of a funny record, since the airport hasn’t been there that long - it was first commissioned in 1995, but “whatever,” as Dad would say. We’re glad to have a relatively new, fully operational and (comparatively) very efficient furnace, and woke up to a comfortable morning, with this beautiful view out the bedroom window. It’s somewhat over-exposed, but I really liked it that way, since that’s about how it looked to my sleepy eyes.

We received a few inches of snow overnight, which made the drive to pick up breakfast prettier. We went out to shovel the driveway before leaving, and I had on warm boots, thick socks, flannel lined jeans, three upper layers, and a hat. And I still froze my ears and face off... and decided to quit before finishing, for fear of them literally freezing off… with earmuffs and a scarf a short trip into the house away, I had no excuse, but still didn’t wear them, which felt kind of dumb, after the fact. 

Somebody is having fun decorating their yard, at a house that we see on our way to pick up breakfast.

Pretty expanse of snow-covered grass at Little’s Creek Park, on our way home from picking up breakfast.

The local birds are enjoying the bird feeders even more in the cold weather. We’ve seen House Finches, Chickadees, Nuthatches, Woodpeckers, Flickers, and Dark-eyed Juncos. 

Here’s a House Finch inbound to the tire swing bird feeder, with what looks like a bank of frozen ice crystals in the air over the foothills.

The local squirrels have been somewhat miffed, ever since we turned off the hospitality switch for them, after they chewed through my Christmas lights in multiple places. Sorry guys, you’re free to do what you do, but I’m also free to decide I don’t like that.

Goodbye Degoo

This is just a friendly warning, to anyone who was considering using Degoo for cloud storage backups. It was a fun experiment, but since the email announcement from Degoo.com yesterday (12/17/2022), and some of their unwieldy operational considerations, I no longer recommend them for free cloud storage.

They're lowering their free storage limit from 100 GB to 20 GB, and requiring users to either delete data to get under the new limit, or start paying for their "Pro" service, by 1/6/2023. That's an inhospitably short grace period, especially considering that they also have a limit on downloads per day, which could make it impossible for some people to retrieve all their files in time.

I was experimenting with relying on them for backing up all the screenshots from my flight simulator adventures, and some Linux development files, neither of which is a big deal for me, as the originals are already in two places. So I simply removed all my files and deleted my account.

Some people are accusing them of a bait-and-switch tactic, but since I've been using them for over a year now, with no issues, I'm thinking they simply found themselves in a bad financial situation, and felt compelled to make a quick change to fix it. Their "Pro" service isn't expensive, but I didn't like the other constraints they were imposing, so I don't expect to be looking back at them.

Lights and sunset

I caught this nice sunset picture, with my Christmas lights on the deck. I'm glad that the squirrels have focused on the first string of lights, and left the second string alone. The first one happens to run past the bird feeders, and the deck box where we used to put out the bowls of seeds for the squirrels and larger birds. I had the lights daisy-chained, but after they chewed out several sections in the first string, I dragged the power cord around to the second string, and so far, we still have some pretty lights out there in the evenings.

Fighting back

There’s a new Sheriff in town... armed with the deadly dihydrogen monoxide projector! And the Christmas-light-chewing squirrels are learning new places to hide… Even racing across the deck, over and under the furniture, they're not safe... from The Enforcer! 

 

Checking all the hiding spots… they like to quickly run around behind things, and knowing we can't see them, pretend they're not really there.

 

 

 

 

  

Making sure they stay down, after they scurry down off the deck… they often will rush down to the backyard, and then hurry right back up another support post. 

 

 

 

Chasing them across to the other end of the deck, and making sure they leap off into the trees in the yard… 

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. 

Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween evening - we greeted 37 trick-or-treaters this year - plus a bunch of their parents and older siblings - and gave out almost all the "fun size" candy bars we had ready to go, in the huge mixing bowl. The last group showed up a little after 8:30… so civilized! (Picture obscured for privacy…)

Light snow

Woo hoo! It’s 34° and snowing in Littleton! We really enjoyed driving through the lovely snowfall, to pick up a delicious breakfast. Here's our view from the breakfast table.

 

 

And here's a pretty view of the foothills and clouds, over my neighbors' snow-frosted houses.

 

I caught this House Finch just landing on the tire swing bird feeder.