Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings posts give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.
Welcomings will be posted at the start of each week (usually Saturday night with a Sunday date). To find the posts, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is Moose for “I found everyone!!”).
The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining (or bragging!) about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or simply checking in.
So … what’s going on in your part of Moosylvania?
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NOTE: The comments page will split off after 20 or so left margin comments with the most recent comments on the current page. To see the older comments, scroll to the bottom of the page (right before “Leave A Reply”) and use the Pages Tool to view previous pages, shown here with 3 pages of comments available and Page 2 circled.
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It’s 16 heading for 33 and brightly sunny today. No generation yesterday and probably none today unless this bright sunshine manages to get rid of almost a foot of snow on the panels. (If I were offgrid rather than intertie I’d have had the system set up so I could get the snow off it. I’m not gonna and wouldn’t ask anybody to climb up on the roof with a heavy-duty squeegee that’s for sure.)
Somebody in this neighborhood must put out some really good bird food when it’s sunny. Yesterday I seemed to have every bird around at my feeder and had to refill it 4 times. This morning I’ve seen maybe 5 and there’s suet still out there from last night. Tracks in the snow told me a cat has braved the cold now the snowing has stopped so I wasn’t surprised to see an empty catfood dish on the carport when I took out litterbox detritus. I refilled it and will check it again in a bit.
Jill managed to get electric heaters before the temps dropped into dangerous territory. Amelia’s cough won’t let go but otherwise she’s feeling better. Best I can tell everybody else is managing/hanging in there. Me too. I got almost 7 hours of sleep and my hands, while achy and cold, are functioning fairly well. I’m not going to push it, but hopefully I won’t spend the day cussing at everything.
Holding the Good Thought for the world situations. Taken individually they’re bad enough. Taken together they’re terrifying. But there’s nothing I can do except hold those Good Thoughts as I go about my business. Off to twitter. Then I’m gonna bake some oatmeal-walnut cookies. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
{{{Bfitz}}}! Hugs right back atcha! Glad to hear the improved news re sleep and hands.
Ooh, oatmeal-walnut cookies! I’m gonna make some!
It is interesting how people’s bird feeding habits alter a neighborhood bird population. In our case, when we had some really dedicated bird feeders move in next door, we lost all our birds! The birds learned that we fed them but sometimes our feeders ran out and the woman next door never let hers go empty. After a while it balanced out but for a while we wondered where everyone went! :)
Good morning, 45 and raining outside my window so gardening, if any, will happen under a shelter. I want to replace the winter weary patio arrangements but I haven’t gathered the greens yet. When I get that part done making the arrangements will be easy. I hope to go to the garden shop today for some pussy willow branches and primroses, but first I need to do today’s onerous desk tasks. I’m slow and whining a lot but I am getting some necessary things done. Best wishes to all.
Good morning, meeses! Saturday …
It is -2 in Madison with an expected daytime high of 19. Mostly cloudy skies are in the forecast. Tomorrow the high will be 34 and we will begin a stretch of normal winter temperatures. Generally if one can hold it all together mentally until mid-February, you have a good chance of surviving a Wisconsin winter. :)
There is good news in the gerrymandering battles. The North Carolina Supreme Court blocked (for now) the Republican drawn redistricting map as too partisan. Something I saw suggests that aggressive gerrymandering from our side is starting to flip the House new seats advantage to Democrats. Good. It is political malpractice to play nice when the other side wants to kill you – legislatures in New York and Illinois are drawing maps that reflect the political power in the state. Until there is unilateral disarmament – federal statutes or a SCOTUS ruling – partisan gerrymanders favoring Republicans need to be met with partisan gerrymandering favoring Democrats wherever we can.
The governor of Virginia is discovering that you have to earn respect, it does not come with the office. The viral video showing him assholishly showing up unmasked in an Alexandria grocery store – and the pushback from a woman there telling him to mask up – was wonderful. And the courts are rejecting his illegal executive orders. It will be a long and ugly 4 years for him unless he can get his head out of tRump’s colon and govern as a guy who won by 2 percentage points, not a guy who has a mandate to wreck Virginia.
I have already started too many projects and now I need to find the threads on them and either finish or document my progress.
See all y’all later!
Good morning, froze again last night and will every night till Tuesday — this is a really long stretch for us. Going to get my 1st shingles shot this morning, hope I’m one of the people it doesn’t affect. Got my groceries yesterday, planning on doing some cooking later.
If I were you, another, I’d plan to take it easy today. Cooking is fine, but you may not feel up to much else.
Hey y’all — Ali Velshi is starting a Banned Books club. First one is All Boys Aren’t Blue. The author will be on his show next Saturday. Join in if you want.
Good Saturday moaning, Meese. It’s 28 horrifying degrees F., with winds between 20 and 30 mph in Ashburn this morning. Ugh. I have to get dressed and go outside to pick up the little green bags of “dog waste” that blew out from underneath the bushes so I can put them in the bin.
Then comes a run to the garage to pick up the heavy cans of dog food from the trunk of the car, followed by an upstairs run to FINALLY take the Christmas and January wreaths to the storage unit and get the Valentine’s Day wreath out.
We had tremendous fun at the meeting of the Autobiography Book Club yesterday. I guessed the Marquis de Lafayette, and the newcomer guessed the subject of the book I read, Rita Moreno. Remember that story of the WWII American General who, on setting foot on French soil, said, “Lafayette, we are here!” That makes me laugh and cry at the same time. Lawks, I should try harder to control my emotions.
Both Dearly and I had nights from hell last night. He said he got NO sleep, I did sleep between 1 and 6:30 a.m. in the green recliner. I managed to get five sigs on a petition yesterday after the meeting, Dearly and I will sign also, and I’ll lurk in the gym in late afternoon to see whether I can spot any Democrats. I know who they are. Some eejit is trying to primary Jennifer Wexton, so we have to get Wexton’s name on the ballot. The Democrats across the street told our precinct captain they were going to get more sigs than our community, to which our precinct captain replied that they were going down. Thus do the Old and Poohed amuse themselves.
Got lots to do, so I’d better get to it. Hope I’ll find time to watch the ice skating between naps.
Jan, we are SO PLEASED that #RacistGoobernatorDumbkin is falling flat on his face! Ha, ha! Did y’all see the deep blush that dyed his doughy cheeks after that SPLENDID woman called him out for not wearing a mask? Meanwhile, back in Richmond, JASON is taking a Texas Chainsaw to massacre women’s rights.
Princesspat, if I were a nasty woman, I’d tell you to grab that pussywillow in the garden shop before someone else gets it. Your proposed arrangements sound lovely..
Wishing a good, quiet Saturday to everyone at the Pond.
Started the morning at 9, at 14 now, and actually heading for over 40 today. Sunny as all get out. No generation yesterday (m-t-d still at 5 KWHs), probably none today – there’s probably less snow on the panels but not enough less for even this bright sunshine to get through. Holding the Good Thoughts today will be warm and sunny enough to clear the panels so we can start generating tomorrow.
I haven’t checked in with anybody yet today but as of last night nothing much new. Not really new anyway. “Another day in the life of. . .” kind of new irritants but nothing as far as health or situations. Holding Good Thoughts for everybody on that, too.
Seriously Holding Good Thoughts that everybody stays warm, safe, & has power. Off to twitter. Bright the day, Meeses. {{{HUGS}}}
Good morning, 43 and cloudy but it’s not raining so I may be outdoors today. I bought a few primroses yesterday but it was to wet to plant them so I’ll try again today. I’m still just partially aware of the daily news, but the RNC statement re “normal political discourse” did filter through. Egads! They are dangerous fools and the fact they still have governing and political power just infuriates me. But being angry all the time is exhausting so I’m going to try to just focus on my small world today. Best wishes to all.