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Civil or Uncivil Bird Society
We caught sight of several birds engaged in the usual interactions with each other and their prey (in the case of the hawk). Call it civil or uncivil society, it’s natural no matter how you see it. I’m going to call it a Red-tailed Hawk that caught a gray squirrel and had a tough time…
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Sena Gets Her Lume!
Sena finally got her Lume products delivered yesterday. That’s right, I said “Lume,” the total body odor remover you see being advertised on TV. I can’t bear to watch them, which might say something about how we’re socialized to avoid confronting our own B.O. In my defense, the commercials have been described as “in your…
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Tegeler Wrecker and Crane is the Heavy Rescue Team in Eastern Iowa
We saw the KCRG news item about Tegeler Wrecker & Crane getting almost 10,000 calls for help after the big snowstorms last week. They’re a big towing and wrecker service which reminded me of the Weather Channel shows Highway Thru Hell and Heavy Rescue 401. Tegeler pretty much does everything they do, including heavy duty…
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Woodpeckers Coming Out of the Woodwork After the Snowstorms!
We have not seen any birds in our backyard since the arctic blast began this past week or so—until a couple of days ago. We saw a Red-Bellied Woodpecker, a Downy woodpecker, and a White-Breasted Nuthatch. Hardly a flock, but interesting anyway. We had a little trouble deciding whether we saw a White-Breasted Nuthatch or…
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Balaclava Beats the Blizzard Blast
The arctic blast continues with temperatures well below zero and cautions about going outside—if you dare. I have a balaclava, which is a combination scarf, hat, and extraterrestrial two-way radio. I wore it on the first day of the snowstorm last week, when the snow was great for juggling snowballs. I somehow got it twisted…
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Sugar Pea Pod Prep
This is a follow up to the pea pod disaster I wrote about the other day. Recall they were inedible because they were tough and stringy. We found a YouTube on the web showing how to remove the stems that sounded promising. After removing them, we tried eating them raw. We couldn’t do it. In…
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Smoked Turkey Soup vs Blizzard!
January is National Soup Month and Sena made a smoked turkey soup in honor of the occasion. This is the counterbalance to the winter storm and blizzard warnings this month. This morning we shoveled—and shoveled—and shoveled. It was the Sisyphean labor all over again, only this time with Winter Storm Gerri. And then we went…
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Iowa Winter Storms One Two Punch January 2024!
I just got the update on what I think is Winter Storm Gerri. The National Weather Service has now upgraded this catastrophe in our area to a Blizzard Warning. Iowa is getting a one, two punch from winter storms Finn and Gerri. We hardly got a break from Finn’s left hook before Gerri’s right cross…
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Winter Storm Finn Defines A Sisyphean Ordeal
Okay, we got about 14 inches of snow from Winter Storm Finn, but that doesn’t begin to convey the human meaning of it. I’m going to call digging out from all that snow a Sisyphean labor. You don’t hear that term much, but it means a chore that never seems to end while you’re doing…
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Winter Storm Finn and the One-Eyed Snowball Juggler!
Holy horizontal, heavy, wet, driving snow. At least you could make great snowballs for juggling! I got up around 4 in the morning to shovel. Sena came out a little later and we took shifts a couple of times. I still had to run back out again in the mid-afternoon to clear away what’s probably…
Go Retire Psychiatrist 