1618 Kingsway Drive Archives

February 16, 2018

OK, Who Swiped It?

Mother loved to sit on the porch and watch the birds and squirrels.

I was feeling guilty the other day that I hadn’t put out any feed in over two years, so I bought a bunch of feed and put a couple new feeders in the back yard so I could see them if I got up from the computer.

Fuzzy-tailed rats

Even though Brother Mark calls them “fuzzy-tailed rats,” I enjoy watching squirrel antics, so I hung an ear of corn off the maple tree. In two days, it was mostly gone, so I replaced it last night.

This morning, I looked out the window and the corn was gone. I don’t mean the kernels had been stripped off; I mean the WHOLE darned thing was gone. I looked all over the back yard, and there was not a sign of it anywhere.

So, which of you had a hankering for corn in the middle of the night?

You can click on the photo to make it larger if you want to check for fingerprints.

February 12, 2018

The Frosty Flag

When I went out grocery shopping late Saturday night, I thought I could feel moisture in the air. In fact, When I came out of Sam’s, there was a fine mist on my windshield.

“This could turn into freezing drizzle and be really nasty,” I surmised. There was a state salt shaker prepping the intersection of William and I-55, so I wasn’t the only one concerned.

MODOT painted an ugly picture

My weather apps couldn’t make up their minds about heavy snow, light snow, no snow, etc. I saw a bunch of posts from truckers saying that north central MO highways were littered with wrecks, and a glance at the MODOT Traveler Information Map showed that almost everything but SE MO was painted as partially covered, totally covered or Don’t Even Think About It.

Facing a frosty flag

When ice finally did start forming, I debated taking a drive to see if it was worth shooting, but it didn’t look all that exciting, so I gave it a pass.

When I woke up this morning, I saw icicles hanging off the carport again. My all-weather, lighted flag had a strange look to it. It had gotten wet, then frozen overnight. It thawed out fine later in the day, but it looked odd for a few hours.

The closeup at the top of the page looks positively arty. You can click on the images to make them larger.

February 5, 2018

What’s the White Stuff?

The gravel in the driveway was getting a bit thin, so I put about a dozen 50-pound bags of it down several weeks ago. The recent rains exposed some more muddy spots, so I bought another five bags.

The irony is that Dad used to buy gravel by the train-load, probably for what I had just paid for about 20 bags. Anyway, while I was spreading the gravel, I noticed specks of white flying by. I didn’t think it was the fireplace belching ashes, so I watched more closely. Sure enough, some of the pellets were turning into flakes.

You can click on the photos to make them larger.

The Bolton House across the street

I decided I needed to bring in more firewood, so I hauled the wagon outside, then went back inside to piddle around for a few minutes. Suddenly, I saw people in the area posting on Facebook that it was snowing.

Son of a gun, it WAS showing. Snowing enough that the ground was white and I had to empty out the wood wagon before I could load it.

Walnut waiting to become firewood

When I bought Mother’s house from my brothers, I had a list of things that needed to be taken care of. One of the first was to chop down two maple trees that Mother and Dad planted when they bought the house. One of them was so hollow that it was a wonder that it hadn’t fallen on us or the neighbor.

I asked the tree trimmer to cut some dead walnut limbs that were about to fall either on the driveway or the roof. He looked this tree over and said, “You’d be better off to let me take it down now instead of having to come back in a year or so.”

I hated to see it go, but he does this for a living. I let him haul off all the big pieces, but had him leave pieces small enough that I could cut them to fireplace length without having to split them.

Shed in a Box

In 2013, David, Mark and I built Mother a Shed in a Box to park her riding mower in. It was a lot easier for her to do that than to wrestle tarps over it.

It’s getting some stress tears in the tarp top that I’m going to have to patch up with tape as soon as it warms up.

Mother loved having these spinners in the yard so she could tell how hard the wind was blowing. This is the last one left, and it’s only a matter of time before the elements get it, too.

Gradually returning to nature

There was an old tree at the corner of the yard that died many, many years ago. Mark said not to cut it because there were holes in that indicated that it was home for all kind of critters.

Old age and gravity finally won out. It’s gradually becoming compost to feed other plants.

Needles and flakes

The tiny ice crystals lodged wherever they could. Fortunately, they weren’t accompanied by damaging ice and sleet.

A study in green and red

The holdover red holly berries add a festive touch to the cold. It’s 18 and falling at midnight (feels like 8 degrees), and it’s headed for 11 at 6 a.m. I don’t want to know the “feels like” temperature.

January 20, 2016January 21, 2016

FL Van Sees Snow; Surrenders

My Odyssey van took a dusting of snow on Tuesday afternoon in stride, even making me switch the heated seat setting from High to Low and turn down the heater.

Predictions had been all over the place for the days leading up to the “snow event,” as the TV folks like to dub it. At first, we were going to get a mix of sleet and freezing rain; then they thought snow would be 1-2 inches, then 2-4, then 4-6, and once it went all the way up to 10-12, before dialing back to 6-8 or thereabouts. In reality, I doubt if we got more than two inches.

“Asking for a friend”

Since I’d been gone a bit, the cupboards were mostly bare. (Question: if you’ve had milk in the fridge for, say, six or eight weeks, and it has lumpy stuff floating on the top of it, is it safe to call it cottage cheese and eat it if you pour on enough sugar? As Bill Hopkins would say, “Asking for a friend.”) Even I know that if something in a plastic zipper bag has something green growing in it like these plants at the old Plaza Galleria, it is best to carry it outside immediately.

I wasn’t looking forward to braving the lines in the stores to stock up, but it wasn’t too crazy. I DID note a lot of bread, milk, chips and toilet paper in the baskets fore and aft. I didn’t see much beer or booze, however. I guess Cape folks keep plenty of that on hand just in case someone slips Prohibition back into the lawbooks without anybody noticing.

“I give up! Take me home”

What did I see the next morning? My poor van was holding up its little arms like a dying cockroach and begging to leave the land of Wind Chill to go back to a place where they talk about the Heat Index in January.

Actually, the idea of lifting my wipers was something Kid Matt passed on: “The lifting the wipers thing seems a new trend based on this article from Cleveland. Everyone in Oregon and Washington seemed to be doing it…”

I’m not sure I’d do that in a parking lot where it might tempt vandals, but I was cool doing it in my driveway. I didn’t go anywhere today, so I didn’t test how well it worked. We’re supposed to get some indeterminate amount of snow Thursday and Friday, so I’ll get another shot at it.

It BETTER snow this winter. I bought 50 pounds of ice melt. The way the woodpile is going down, I may be trading it for firewood soon.