Cold And Windy

A cold north wing kept the sun from enticing me outside for a walk.  I decided  my time would be better spent on another jigsaw puzzle.  This little 750 piece picture of a ghoul/monster, holiday is quite detailed and tricky.  The border took an hour and I'm almost done with the black. After 4 hours I am ready to start assembling the castle.  I figured I could do it in a day.  Now my goal is 1/2 the puzzle in a day.  

Duane fiddled with his leather stamping until this afternoon.  The cold wind didn't deter him from playing pickleball outdoors, but everybody knows pickleball players are crazy.

In or out, we're keeping busy.

Louise and Duane

Still Shoppin'

Other truly southern stuff we found in the Alabama grocery last year.

We don't find this kind of stuff in Texas. 

Not that we'd buy it anyway.

Louise and Duane 

AL Shopping

 Grocery shopping in a store on the Alabama gulf shore in January of 2020 was an interesting pastime

Actually, that makes me want to go there again.

Louise and Duane

Cutie Pie

The sun shone warm for my walk today, but a cold north wind almost made me quit before I got a good start.  The cows looked as it the wind blew them along the fence to warm up and digest lunch.  There were a few babies in the group, but they were sacked out too,  

except for this little one who seemed to have lots of energy.  He left his mom (above right along the fence), ran along the fence watching me, 

then ran across the field to aggravate another cow.

Cold pickleball, cold walking, warm showers,  ahh.

Louise and Duane

Quiet

After a week of raucous shouting day and night, all the tree frogs on Lavender have finally gone silent.  As I walked the road reading my book today all was quiet.  The cry of a hawk brought my attention from my book to the sky.

Awesome!

Louise and Duane 

Break Out The Shades!

No travel pix today!  After a rousing thunderstorm this morning, the clouds cleared and the sun came out again leaving the sky this incredible blue!  I had to take a walk.  As I went along the trashiest road in the Piney Woods, I suddenly noticed that it wasn't trashy any more!  Unless the recent rains washed it all away, someone, sometime in the last rainy week had cleaned the roadsides!

Awesome day!

Louise and Duane 

Just A Reminder

 Sunshine?  What's that?  After 6 days and nights of clouds, I did see a round bright spot yesterday afternoon for less than a minute, and wondered what it was.  Today as I was reading I noticed the light brightened considerably.  Looking outside I saw that bright spot again.  It brightened and dimmed as thinner and thicker clouds allowed for all of 6 minutes then it was gone.  

As a reminder of what we're missing I revisited a nice November day of last year.

Happier times,

Louise and Duane

Getting Better

Practice is the key to perfecting a new skill.  Duane has been practicing a lot lately.  

Small pistol holster 

pickleball paddle cover.

Nothing like yucky weather as a motivator.

Louise and Duane

What Happens

When Apple killed my IPod, I was forced to retrieve all of my music cd's from storage and start carrying them around with me.  

Music and books and old radio shows 

The case on the left is holding 120 cd's 

Christmas music

Open to suggestions,

Louise and Duane

Escape!

We needed a break from our third day (and night) of dark gray cloudy wet skies.

We took a trip back to 2010 to revisit part of the Natches Trace.  

The weather was much nicer there.

Louise and Duane

Winter Activities

Outside--50 degrees, dark gray sky, everything wet.  

Inside lots of activity

 Trying to ignore  the icky weather,

Louise and Duane

Bright Spot

Goodbye beautiful blue skies.  Go away gray, rainy, 50 degree weather.

The only bright spot in our day was this little blue bird. 

A week of this in the forecast.  Yikes!

Louise and Duane

Falling

Yosemite, 2007 

Hoping for a revisit,

Louise and Duane

Fence Building

Jan. 12  sink all the fence posts including the reinforced gate posts. 

Jan. 14 finish with the posts, start stretching the fencing.

Keep unrolling, stretching and wiring the fence until you reach the end, about 1/4 mile.

Always more fun to watch,

Louise and Duane

Learning Curve

Duane has been very busy every day and evening learning his newest craft--leather tooling.  He's doing well with designs, but hit a slight snag when he measured this belt loop case for his phone.  It is just a tad small with the protective blue case on it.  It fits fine when he removes the case.  The difference is a matter of about 1/8".   

O well, that's all part of the learning process.

Not the first time, not the last for either of us.

Louise and Duane

Reward

I finished my New Year's resolution--cleaning and rearranging my traveling library.

To reward myself I played with my new Christmas 3-d jigsaw puzzle. 

Tricky, but fun,

Louise and Duane