And so it begins

A cardinal and nuthatch at the beginning of the snow.

For the past week, our area has been preoccupied with the predicted blizzard for this weekend. The news has been full of ever changing weather forecasts predicting 2-3 feet of snow and high winds. Warnings have been issued to expect power outages. The store shelves are empty and gas stations are out of gas. Schools and business closed early today in anticipation of the impending snow.

Ward and I have done the necessary preparations. We have the mandatory toilet paper and milk, and I baked bread today because the store was out when I went on Wednesday. We have water set aside to drink and flush the toilet in case we lose electricity. (When we lose power, our well pump no longer works and we have no water.) The flash lights have batteries and we have gas for the generator. We have a few good books and puzzles.

And as predicted, this afternoon, the snow began. It is supposed to last until Sunday morning with the winds picking up tonight. Now we are in the fun part of the storm--the beginning where we are watching the quiet white flakes cover up the grays and browns of winter with no urgency to go anywhere or do anything. I hope it continues this way. But if I believe the predictions, we may not be so lucky. Stay tuned.

A Second Look--January 20, 2016

Well, the big excitement this week was that the hanging wire on the bird feeder broke sending the feeder to the ground and spilling a lot of seed. This made the squirrels very happy. Even the deer have shown up for a snack or two.

Ward said that it's not an easy fix, so it may be some time before it is repaired. In the meantime, we've hung up another feeder that we had in the garage. I got the feeder from someone who no longer used it and I was going to sand and paint some of the rusty places it had. However, our first real snow of the season is coming on Friday and we want the birds to be able to find something to eat. So, we hung the new-to-us feeder. They seemed to be adapting to it just fine.

Here are a few things I saw this week

 during a Second Look.

The squirrel found the downed feeder right away.

He was still quite happy with the sunflower seed left when the feeder was picked up. We decided to leave the seed where it was. (You may notice some snow in the squirrels tail. We ended up with a dusting that day.)

The deer have been by a few times for a sunflower seed snack.

The birds seem to like the different feeder. Here a tufted titmouse and black-capped chickadee are visiting.

Our regular downy woodpecker visitors were joined this week by a red-bellied woodpecker.

The dark-eyed juncos like to stay a little closer to the ground. They are rarely seen on the hanging feeders.

Flocks of crows (otherwise know as murders) visit the yard a couple times a day now. They've been doing this for about a week.

Thankful Sunday--January 17, 2016

These are the books Kimmy and I read yesterday.

I am thankful for the library.

Kimmy, a special needs teenager who lives next door, visits me most days so we can read together. She loves the actual process of reading out loud more than listening to a story, so that has evolved into she reads a page and then I read a page. While her reading has improved, she has not progressed beyond the beginning reading stage and that limits our choice of books.  

Kimmy has a very good memory and remembers most of the books we have read. She doesn't like to repeat a book, so that limits our choices further. That is where the library comes in. While we have read hundreds of books together from there, there are still hundreds (thousands?) to go. And for that I am thankful.

Lottery Fever Lingers

As you know, the Lottery Fever that had been gripping the country lately has been cured. Meaning that someone finally won. Actually three someones each won over a billion dollars ($1,000,000,000!!!). Now just a few days later after the drawing, people have quickly moved on. Back to reality and dealing with the same amount of money they had yesterday.

However, thoughts about the lottery are lingering with me. Like many others, Ward and I had a conversation about what we would do if we suddenly came into a large amount of money. It seemed like a silly exercise, but it was interesting all the same.

We started with the big picture and moved inward. First, we said that we would give most of the money away. Now if truth be told, we wanted to do this as much as to avoid the hassle of everyone wanting something from us as doing a good deed. But if we were going to  give it away, how would we do it? I saw an interesting show once that interviewed some very rich people about philanthropy. They said donating money to good causes was much harder than it looked. First there was no end to the people that would like a slice of your pie and everyone believed their cause was the most worthy. Second, they wanted to give their money to people who would actually spend it well and not have a large overhead in their organization. That took a lot of work to figure out.

Gates Foundation

So we decided that maybe we'd give a large amount to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Many of the issues they support such as improving the health of children around the world, we were in agreement with. And they certainly knew how to deal with large amounts of money. (Of course, we'd have to check into the statistics of how well run their organization was.)

Next we made the circle a little closer and thought about other people we'd like to help. One was providing dental care for people in Appalachia. We talked about the grants we'd give to understand and implement a program for this. We also wanted to help rural libraries. Another idea was to provide scholarships for needy kids to get tutoring. After discussing a few more things such as new camping equipment for the local Boy Scout troop, we moved on.

Then we narrowed our circle more and talked about the extended family. Luckily, most of our relatives are in pretty good shape and don't need much. Maybe a little fun money would go their way or maybe a family vacation. The exception to this was to make sure our elderly relatives had all the money they need to get the best care.

Now down to our immediate family. We want our kids to find their own way, so we wouldn't be giving Wally and Theo much. Maybe some help with health insurance and or a low interest loan to set up a business that has been mentioned. Maybe there would be a trust for them that they could access in a decade or two.

Swedish Chef

Then finally ourselves. We'd keep enough of the money that the interest on it would provide us with our current standard of living. Well, maybe a little better. A personal chef and tailor sounded pretty good.  And Ward would build the workshop he has always wanted and I'd have some professional landscaping done on the yard. We'd also keep enough to pay for good health insurance so we could take early retirement if we wanted.

Not very exciting discussion, was it?  Especially since a billion dollars was involved. But the reason that this conversation is lingering with me is the very fact that is was not exciting. There's not much on this list that is beyond our ability to do now if we put our minds to it and do some creative thinking.

So we didn't win the lottery, but I'm glad there was lottery fever which prompted our "what if" conversation. Unknowingly, our talk gave Ward and I a chance to revisit our priorities. So, we're off now to start our lists and do some creative thinking.

Did you have a Lottery Fever discussion? Did you have fun imagining some exotic things you'd do with the money or were you more down to earth?

Thankful Sunday--January 10, 2016

I am thankful for the simple, silly things 

that make me happy.

Yesterday, Ward and I met with Wally and Theo in a central place to have lunch and take a hike. The hike had us exploring muddy trails around a lake in a cold mist and fog--meaning the weather wasn't good. We were trucking along through the naked trees with occasional glimpses of the lake when seemingly out of nowhere, a large billboard appeared. Now I don't think I had ever been up close and personal with a billboard that can be seen from the Interstate, so I was interested in checking this one out.

And since I was with the rest of my "Cleaver" family, I immediately thought about the Leave it to Beaver episode where Beaver gets stuck in a bowl soup on a billboard.  The rest of the family vaguely remembered it, but listened as I told the story. We all got a chuckle of how the Beav always manages to get himself into messes and how Ward always seems surprised that he does.

So during a cold, muddy hike with my family, we had a simple, silly experience that made me smile. And for that, I am thankful.