The continuing saga of defragging - yep, my first love is still windows 7 - I have less problems using it than the the 11 on the other computer - and yes, even the 7 is programed to defrag on Thursday however, I notice that if I'm using the computer at the scheduled time it does not do a thorough job - even the 11 is scheduled for a night time defrag and it piles up and so every so often I defrag and sure enough you can see the spots first turn one color and then fill in - I have not trusted these automatic 'jobs' for a long time now and find I have a faster computer everytime I remember to do my own defragging...

Full house posting the past couple of days... so nice to hear what everyone is doing... The daily update of temps y'all post still shock me - I cannot even imagine how y'all live in that kind of cold - the difference here is over 100 degrees - Y'all are talking below zero and here it was chilly this morning so I had to put on the heat for a bit to warm up the house because last night the outdoor temp was in the 60s with days that warm up into the high 70s and this week it will be in the 80s - however, with the higher temps it is still 'winter' in that the deciduous trees and bushes are dormant - all the leaves colored in December and blew off the trees Christmas week and so now bare trees however most of the trees are towering lollbelly pine and so we're still surrounded by green.

Daughter-in-law is a real plant person and when they came over this week Sally always waters and trims my hanging baskets - this time she really cleaned up the hanging philodendron that had grown so long it was trailing the porch floor - while cleaning it up she found a birds nest in the pot - I noticed a pair of Finches last summer but had not seen them since - don't know if they reuse their nests or not so we left it - hope they come back - it was a delight seeing them fly in and out of that pot.

Looks like my daughter will be here the first week in February - evidently she has some sort of connection on her computer's opening window that alerts her to cheap flights from 3 of the closest airports in her area going to Houston and there will be one, I think she said Pioneer with flights for the unheard of price of only $64 round trip and so she arrives on the 2nd only 4 days after my 93rd - she will be here for a week and this time hopefully we can sort and go through the couple of huge boxes of family photos... also close-in to Houston there is a monster size Mexican Bakery that I would love to visit.

Every community in Mexico has its own cakes and desert recipes - I would love to learn more of these varieties since the grocery stores here only carries about 4 or 5 of the better known Mexican cookies and buns that I don't know for sure but my guess is they originated in one of the larger cities like Monterrey that is directly south of Austin.  With all the cook books on Mexican food I wish someone would do one with lots of photos showing the baked goods in these small villages - they could have a series that included villages from only a few close by states except the states with the larger towns and cities - those areas, like Mexico City probably would need a book all to itself...

OK late in the afternoon already and need to get something on for dinner... stay warm... 

Isn't it great – our country is large enough to accommodate everyone's life style. I have found it much easier to adjust to cold temperatures than hot. If it's cold outside you just had another layer and use common sense. During the winter the house holds the inside temperature – the setback thermometers maintain 72° during the day, and 68° at night. Managing summer heat/humidity is another matter. The humidity seeps into the house no matter how careful you are, and if you have to go outside there is a limit to how many clothes you can take off – and you need them to protect you from the sun. I find heat exhausting. For us the extreme heat (90°+) and extreme cold (-20°) days generally come in small doses (a few days at a time) and I can wait them out. I appreciate four distinct seasons.

Yes Cub Fan agree it is great however, I am still filled with awe and cannot imagine how to live in such super cold temps and then having to face clearing snow - it is so beyond me how to even put on enough clothing to do anything in these cold cold temperatures... My sister lives in upstate NY and I cannot understand why she stayed - it was her last place to serve in a small Catholic Woman's Collage and when she was retired she stayed - we all live in the South and here she too talks of clearing snow and icy roads. Unbelievable... my mouth drops reading everyday as these weather conditions are described here on this website... 

Good morning..

Starting out at -14° and it is snowing..just teasing at the moment getting ready for an all day snow!
Will just take the day  as it comes, if needed jobs get done....bonus if not oh well..

As for weather, I too like our 4 seasons. I may mutter   about the snow but I also see the beauty in it. Pristine snow dressing the pine trees in white lace or when the sun hits it, making it shine like diamonds.  Spring bring new life including the bug but the birth of animals ,flowers makes it worth while. Summer ,brings the bounty of the garden and yes heat too! Fall, this is a time of sadness, everything is dying but in doing so we get the vibrant colours of the leaves, the autumn smells in the air and the welcoming cooling of the temps. I agree with bundling up in the cold or hugging the cookstove. One can only take so much off in the heat without shocking the neighbours  

Better get this day on the go.

Enjoy your day and stay safe

Not everyone likes the same thing. I'm one who likes the four seasons, in spite of complaining all the time. When I was in the Navy I spent a lot of time in Florida. I did not especially like the weather. It was the same old, same old, thing all the time -except for an occasional Tropical Storm.

good morning everyfriend!!!  im home but theres a ton of stuff to catch up on so i've been busy up the gazoo ever since i got here!!!  [ wish you all a great day and a good year to come!!!

Welcome home Jane

Snowing like the dickens here with more to come tomorrow!!! Cancelled appointments and rescheduled  for a later date with hopes the roads will be bare! Guess I had better go sew.

    Hi Jane, I am happy to see you are back.

So nice to see you here, Jane!  I love your chatty posts and when they don't show up I really miss them and worry about you.

Take care, All, and keep talking to us.  The days are empty and long when I don't know that you are still with us.  I don't have that many friends left anymore.

Good afternoon, I've spent some time with friends, grocery shopping, and breakfast out.

Jane, it's so lovely to see you posting again

You want to talk about the weather. Last night at ten, it was minus 51. This morning at seven, it was minus 41; at nine, when I left, it was minus 20; and when I returned, it was minus 20. Today's high will be minus 16, and our low will be minus 18.

We usually don't have snow, it stays above 21 to 23 feet, but when it warms further, we'll see some humidity and with humidity comes snow.

Here's a photo of the Arctic Cam, about four blocks northwest of me.

Good evening, all... I spent the day making myself a new bill paying ledger to begin my New Year.  I love keeping track of everything and even though I pay most bills online or through auto pay, I still want a physical look at what's going out each month.  After I completed that I decided to pack away all the Christmas decorations in the kitchen.  It takes me weeks to decorate the rooms in the house but only days to pack it all away.  I've never figured that out. 

I too love the four seasons of the year although winter has already begun to wear on me. I think Fall is my favorite when all the beautiful colors burst into orange, brown, yellow etc., but then Spring brings all the new life of the flowers that have gone to sleep and are ready to awaken, and then of course Summer here in Ohio is usually a season I love just sitting out on the patio and enjoying the birds and admire my bounty of flower beds in bloom!  My hubby and I recently have talked about possibly selling our home we have lived in since 1984, but I can't imagine leaving all this for a condo. We know our house would sell just days on the market, so we have to be certain and have something all lined up.  Our friends listed and within the first days they had a bidding war and got $7,000 over asking price so they had to hurry and find a condo they could afford.  Thank goodness they found one.

Defragging is not something I even give a thought to, so I guess my Dell laptop does it automatically which I prefer.  I do remember those days back years ago I did defrag and yes, you could watch the color bar show what was happening. 

Okay just wanted to check in, loved all your posts and updates.  It's dinner time so I have to run.  Wherever you are and whatever your weather is stay safe & comfy.

 

Good morning.
 Starting off a 17°  with a mixed bag of weather on the menu, snow,rain and freezing rain.

Cleaned the driveway last night and have out back to do this morning.Wood is in along with another load to put in the woodbox when needed.

Now to figure out what we want for supper tonight. Doe anyone else have that same problem?

Better get the day started.

Enjoy your day and stay safe.

Good morning anyone. "mixed bag" from the above message reminds me, Have to bring up a mixed bag of veggies from the freezer

It's above freezing here this morning, and a couple of Mocking Birds were doing "fly bys" at the back window this morning. They do it to get my attention, --- and a hand out of raisins. While feeding them the Blue Jays showed up, and a Cardinal. Nice to see them here after the cold spell we had. The snow on the ground makes their food supply a bit scarce.

Good morning, minus 7 with the temperatures to rise again on Saturday. Snow overnight, but only a trace. I went out on a whim yesterday, have set it up for home delivery, but couldn't resist grocery shopping while others were doing so. I also picked up a soft green, fuzzy sweater, and wish I'd had it in the weeks before. It's so lovely to sit on the couch and not feel the cold air from the windows; however, I know the cold will return, as February is usually our coldest month.

Nothing interesting this week, I do have Amazon orders due next week and my first home grocery delivery. A lady downstairs got a new dog, a small mixed-breed terrier, and everyone is in love. She'll have no problems finding any needed babysitters. He's white with a brown patch over one eye and is usually seen with an orange ball in his mouth. He loves playing keep away and is soaking up all the attention, as are we.

Good evning every one ,
I'm  checking in. I don't have much to share. Still knitting: Heavy gloves. The weather is the same. I do have an Amazon dry goods order arriving Thursday.

I so enjoy reading all your posts.

I know what you mean Phyllis. The days are long and lonely as I don't have many friends left either. I watch videos while knitting. Today I researched food grade potable water storage containers (for the tiny house) and keeping them from freezing. In the past winters I've seen it get as low as -20°F.

Brrrr! Patricia!🥶🥶🥶 Alaska is too cold or me! I'm not thrilled with the thought of even occasional -20.

I'm not sure why but flocks of junkos, mourning doves and magpies have taken up residence all around my RV. They zip, dart and flutter across the windows constantly. I'm not feeding them Rick. Not even one single raison. Maybe its the Russian olive seeds.

Ciaobella, I put away my one Christmas decoration today.😊 I had the added excitement of doing it with a dog on leash in each hand.

I fought with my ipad system for more than 4 hours yesterday. It left me with a sick headache and crossed eyes. But I eventually got it sorted. The ipad, not sure about the crossed eyes.

Have a blessed night!

Last winter I do believe every bird in the neighborhood was either pecking or head banging or crashing into one of my windows - they were at it before light of day and kept it up all morning only to return again late afternoon just as it was getting dark. At first did not realize it was birds till one morning still in Bed and saw a bird spread eagle hanging onto the lower pane - inexpensive solution - Amazon sells these shinny disks that are attached to each other in a line so that I could hang two in the window that hung from top to bottom between the window and the blind - once they tried and quit after one sweep and the others came that evening and it was the same thing - no rat tat tat or swishing or rustling of wings since - great for me since I was so sure it was my furnace making sounds and being a pest trying to get Bradbury Brothers to make the sounds stop - when the culprit was IDed they were as surprised as I was...

Good morning..

Starting out at 17° and no snow in the forecast.   We did get snow overnight and  that has to be dealt with. The nasty weather, rain,freezing rain and snow were forecast and thankfully we just got the snow.

After the dance some unsewing /reverse sewing has to be done, not a job I like.

Rick , it seems your birds also have you trained.

Enjoy your day and stay safe

.

Quote from: Amy on January 07, 2026, 08:07:24 AMRick , it seems your birds also have you trained.

Well trained      A year ago we had Robins who would come to the back porch window and take raisins as I put them down on the sill. They learned it was safe, and all but took them out of my fingers. The year prior to that the Mocking Birds were dioing the same thing. I enjoy watching them and their antics.

Good Morning!     

Amy, I call that unsewing "frogging---ripit- ripit'. 

I didn't like it either.

Snow is cleaned up for now...our temp now is 35°

Rick, I love watching the birds. Blue Jays were flying in and out for the seeds this morning. I do miss the crows, they are not everyones favourite but they are so smart!  When I put feed out  one crow will holler at the others to come and get it. He doesn't fly down and eat it until he has told others. Some of them can be bullies with each other too! If I am late getting theier food out they don't mind hollering and at 6 am  it can be noisy!

Phyllis, I did get off lucky as I thought the two side had to come off but when I pinned it up and took a good look it was ok!!   BUT when I sewed a block on the wrong way I had to go get Jack The (seam) Ripper!! All is well.......for now!!

For those enjoying watching and feeding birds;


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Wishing all of you a very nice evening,

Not a good day for me. It started nice enough when suddenly Kato alerted and I heard a tractor. The next door neighbor was spraying his field!😱🤯 Every one of my bodily system started crashing. I called Ron and asked him to get a hold of the neighbor. And find out what it was. I started taking remedies. Ron reported back what the neighbor was applyingad that he didn't give a damn that he was hurting me. I fought through the cognitive damage to figure out some place safe enough to go short term, until I could find some place safe enough to survive. Then I fought through my severe physical debilities to pack up my RV so I could leave. Ron was in bed with the flu, but still came out and took care of the outside things: unplugging, the step, following me to help set up. I drove a mile down the road to a neighbors' and friend's. I spent several hours searching on the internet and rechecking the general area for open but mostly vacant RV parks: none nearby. The only place is 2 hours away, in the opposite direction from my mountain, at the top of a pass, with ice and snow. If the road's open we'll go up tomorrow. Not looking forward to it. My RV has duallies - no traction. Volatility period for this chemical is 4 weeks. Coveting your prayers😞

Good morning..

We may see sun later on today! Need to pick up meds this morning then home to do some cleaning. Tomorrow we are to get rain, not looking forward to that as there is a lot of ice about now!

Jane, are you settled back in after your trip?

Patricia, did you see the price of the birdhouses? Mind you one could get interesting photos from them. My friend has a camer set up at her window ready to take photos of what comes to her many feeders. She get calendars made up of the photos she has taken.

OLM, that is not a nice neighbour. Can he not use a safer product?

Better put an egg in my boot and beat it..things to do!

Enjoy your day and stay safe

I hope you are able to find a safe place OLM. It may seem strange to some that farmers are out in the middle of the winter spreading things, but they do. Last month my rental manager called the gas company because she thought she smelled gas, then before they arrived she asked me to see if I could smell it. I smelled something very faintly. I didn't think it was gas, but I couldn't place the smell. The gas people said they get calls every year about this time, and that the farmers are out spreading their fields. Those fields are on the other side of town, several miles away. The only thing I can think of this time of year is manure, but it didn't smell like that either. It seems a bit early for pre-emergent weeds. Best practices for applying those say soil temps have to be at least 50^o for them to be most effective, otherwise the farmer is wasting money and possible environmental damage. I think the same thing would apply to grubs and nematodes. It depends on the soil temperature. BTW, I hope Ron is feeling better soon.

Hi MG,
I left you a big ol' long post this morning around 11:30, but it seems to have gone astray. I don't remember all the stuff. I said this morning. Some fumigants can be applied in winter, some people believe fertilizer can be. Not effectively by broadcast. It has to be drilled or it volatizes off and they won't get much benefit from it.

Its was 19°F this morning. Its requires a lot of "managing" But I have shore power, sewer and water. There's one guy here. The manager gave him the heads up, he's cutting me a wide berth. I'm good. The air is better than on the farm. Its a long trip for Ron to bring up supplies.☹️ 2 hrs each way. I only have one bar of cell service. 😬 pretty quiet.

OLM, Barb lost her post, too. Maybe a website or network glitch somewhere. Thanks for the info about drilling into the soil to deposit pesticides and fumigants, etc. Except for drilling holes to set live plants, I didn't know that.

It is Pennsylvania Farm Show time. It began yesterday with the opening of the Food Court. It is a big deal here. The PA Farm Show usually comes with snowy weather. In fact in the not to distant past they changed the week long event dates to try to circumvent it. We still get it sometimes, but mostly just cold and rainy. The rain started spritzing yesterday for a bit, and now, this morning, I see we will be getting more starting in the late morning. No precipitation forecast for the rest of the week. If anyone is interested in the Farm Show, including live stream events, or other PA Department of Agriculture postings, you can find it on YouTube  https://www.youtube.com/@padeptofag or Facebook and Instagram.

When I first moved here, I was privy to watching a small deer family, groundhogs and cats down by the tree line and in the small grassy area below the back parking lot. I barely saw anything this past year, just a groundhog (and maybe a second smaller one) the second part of summer. I wonder what happened to them all. The area below me is part of the Cedar Run watershed area that feeds into the Yellow Breeches Creek. Still that isn't stopping "progress". I see that the County has noted, in their final report of the Cedar Run Watershed Stormwater Management Plan (dated 2018, I think), that there are several industrial and housing developments planned for the area.  Here is a nice presentation of the watershed and sub-watershed areas. https://coldwaterheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cedar-run.pdf The closest photos to where I live are the photos on page 1 and 5 showing the storm water near Allen Middle School. Also, the photos near BJ's, Hartzdale Drive and the PA Correctional Institute are not much farther away. I should look up Willow Park is in Camp Hill. I've been by the lower end of it many times and never knew it's name or that it was part of the watershed. According to the main map the Cedar Run watershed area is fairly large, and take a look at how big the entire Susquehanna Watershed area is (map on page 2. Looks like it takes up at least a half of PA and goes on up into NY. The Susquehanna is a major contributor to the Chesapeake Bay. Careful attention to the health of the Susquehanna and it's watershed areas is extremely important. You can find tons of articles about these preservation efforts on the net. 

Good morning..

Talked with Jane and she said to say hello, she does read all your messages and  misses posting.

Been a tad busy here.Yesterday we took the garbage away beating the rain.   Then cleaned out the cookstove and onto laundry.While that was going took the ice chipper to the garage apron and got rid of the 1/2 - 1 inch of ice off of that and our walkway out back.

Picked up pails of sand at the township barn this morning and now the back  pathway is all sanded. Can't have Jesse splaying himself or me kissing the ground when I bring in the wood.

High winds last night knocked out some power but we are one of the lucky ones and although ours flickered a couple of times we didn't lose ours.

Enjoy your day and stay safe.







 

Oh how I miss Jane - her upbeat approach to each day was such a joy to read - thanks Amy for the update

Well we finally will get some cold - not near like most of you are dealing with but cold enough to keep most of us indoors - in the 30s tonight and not much warmer tomorrow during the day - evidently this cold will be with us for the next few days but thankfully it will not freeze...

What a mess with legally anyone driving my vehicle - needs its annual registration and with Katha coming the first week in February it is nice to have a vehicle here so we can run around however, when I got my ID last month had to give up my out-of-date license - although Paul has a copy on his phone so we are going to try to get one more year by applying for the new registration hoping the clerk does not look closely at the license date - if it cannot be done then all sorts of happenings.

The past 3 years since I've not been driving by keeping my vehicle registered and insured then the premium on my house insurance is significantly less - crazy I know, however adding up the cost of the registration and the new admissions inspection and subtracting that from the cost of the insurance on the vehicle it still saves me almost $400 a year on my house insurance and so if we cannot do this for another year Paul was going to transfer the deed to my vehicle into his name so at least it would have a current license plate however, once transferred then I loose ownership which means my house insurance will increase.

Then we looked at doing nothing and let it ride which will protect the lower cost house insurance for at least one more year and then getting a rental while Katha was here but that would be a bunch for even the smallest rental compared to transferring the car registration into Paul's name - then we looked closer at that and it will increase Paul's insurance on top of the now registered vehicle that was mine

We are going to have to face this for sure by next year but at least trying to keep things as they have been would give me time to re-arrange my spending - this is for sure a case of the ankle bone is connected to the leg bone that is connected to the hip bone etc as the song goes... Katha could swing coming often because there was a vehicle here she could use but without that it adds a couple of hundred dollars to her trip - both Paul and Sally need their vehicles since they both work - well no sense in getting in a twist over this till we find out if the clerk has the best 20-20 vision and can read the expiration date on Paul's phone copy of my license. Having a paid insurance card that was only renewed in December helps... All this just to save almost $400 a year on my house insurance and to have a registered vehicle for Katha to drive when she visits which yes, saves several hundred that would have to be spent on a rental- we shall see what we shall see...  

Good morning..

Do you think it would help if I hid my dancing shoes??? Yes, there is another dance this morning, not a lot of snow but the possibility of more later today.

For some silly reason I thought once winter came there would be more free time but I was wrong!

Barb, you're welcome.

Enjoy your daay and stay safe.