Baby It's Cold Outside!

Blizzards shutting down Colorado two weeks in a row; it's snowed here 3 days in a row, which is unheard off in this Banana Belt part of the state! It's making life difficult for a lot of people, but since I'm retired and not travelling anywhere for the Holidays I've just decided to stay in and enjoy it. We had planned to spend the New Year weekend with our kids in Byers, Colorado, as we do each year, but they are East of Denver on I-70, which has been closed from Denver to the Kansas line for a couple of days, so here we are. Joe took off from his business today and has been watching old John Wayne movies, reading, and trying to figure out if the computer will work faster if he adds some additional RAM.

I'm creature watching, and putting together Vansyoc/Van Syoc/ Van Scoyoc/Van Schaick, et al, family history books for two of Joe's cousins. This entails printing lots of text and photos from the computer, and in the process, I've rearranged mucho family photos into separate family files instead of files arranged by the multitude of dates on which they were originally scanned into the computer. This mess has bugged my efficiency expert self for years. When I get them all properly arranged for ease of access I'll back them up on CDs and distribute copies, for safe keeping, to several family members so in case of a catastrophe we won't lose them. We have a few photos scanned that were originally taken before the Civil War, and the originals are from various sources throughout the country. I just hope as family members pass away someone keeps these treasures safe. It breaks my heart to see old anonymous photos for sale in antique shops. These kinds of tasks are my computer games; actual computer games have no attraction to me, but I love to research and organize.

In the creature watching area, we had a big, fat raccoon eating stale cinnamon raisin bread outside the sunporch sliding door last evening. He left his/her tracks in the snow and posed for his portrait under the car in the carport.

The yard has been full of the little snow birds (finches, sparrows, juncos,doves) at the feeders and on the seed stalks of the garden flowers and herbs. This morning there were several Dark Headed Juncos happily pecking up the bread crumbs left by the raccoon. They left tracks in the snow also.

I read on my Colorado Birders e-mail this morning that most of the Christmas Bird Counts have been postponed due to the impossible driving conditions. Our local bird count is supposed to be next Friday; I normally take part by counting the birds that come to my feeders on count day. My days of hiking the wilds are past since I've gained the constant companionship of Ursula Oxygen, but I sure get a lot of enjoyment from watching them in the yard.

I'll spend New Years Day sewing on Women of the Bible blocks during another of our Virtual Retreats. I'm behind 3 blocks and hope I can get them done Monday.