Bits and Pieces

Terry and I made another trip into New Jersey yesterday. She with her aching knee due for an MRI later this week and me with TWO sore knees. It was our intention to get (almost) everything of Jess' out of Mom's upstairs rooms as physically possible and we succeeded. There are one or two boxes left in the attic along with some computers (Jess' and Rick's), and a desk and chair which we could not get down the steps on our own, what with Terry's complaining knee and my, by then, aching knees AND back.

We got to Mom's on the right day. She was making cookies and perogies and we got to take some of each home.

We'll be going back next weekend to get the desk and chair with help from cousin/buddy Joe who will be visiting family for Easter. With his help we should get the desk downstairs and into the back of the truck in no time.

The weather was just gorgeous for our ride. We left around 7:15 AM (the one time the cats DID NOT wake us early!) had to wait for a flock of turkeys to clear the road on our way to Route 15 and enjoyed watching the thermometer in the truck climb as we drove east. From 18 degrees at home we got to 48 at Mom's. Traffic was either nonexistent or moving smoothly the entire time both heading east and then west. The only problem was the damn sun was in my eyes in both directions but that was a small price to pay for a beautiful day. When we got home we learned that the temperature never got much above freezing-again, so there was still too much snow on the lawn. (This time of year, one inch is too much!)

Everything we brought home is out of the truck and waiting to be hauled down stairs or up. This will be done a wee bit at a time as I'm the one whose going to be doing it!

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The weather is still trying to screw with us here in the Northern Tier. The latest prediction from AccuHunch is for 1-3 inches of snow from tonight through Monday evening. Weather.com is a little more hesitant in its forecast hinting that the mess they call Virgil might slide to our south. Might.

Currently it's just above the freezing mark mostly sunny with a thin layer of clouds moving in. A light breeze is blowing from the ESE according to the windmills I can see.

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I cracked open the final bag of sunflower seeds this morning. This is the tenth of the winter. If we had been home during Mardi Gras it would have been long gone by now. The culprits are squirrels and hordes of Common Redpolls. We've had a dozen or more gray squirrels on some mornings raiding the feeders. And when they leave, there have been 50 to 75 Common Redpolls out there along with the usual Chickadees, Titmice, Nuthatches and Mourning Doves. Some days I've had to refill the feeders twice.

Redpolls are a species usually found in the Boreal Forests where they eat pine and fir seeds as well as weed seed. (They love the thistle I put out too.) They usually stay well to the north of us unless the seed crop is really bad or the weather exceptionally cold. They should be heading north by now, but here they stay. Either they really, really like sunflower seeds or they know more than Punxsutawney Phil.