Twice, It’s Been Years
Friday felt a little chilly for my bike ride with temps in the upper 60’s. My definition of chilly got adjusted majorly the following two days. Friday night I was up very late live streaming, turning off the camera shortly after midnight. I shot the entire episode on my new ZV-1 camera which worked well for the most part. There were a couple episodes of audio distortion that I think had to do with a new background music feature I was messing with.
So during the day Saturday the cold front was blowing in, the temps never left the 50’s. Despite this I wanted to get a couple things done outside. I hooked up the electric pressure washer and gave the pool area a quick blast. I only hit the lower frame and the deck itself. It wasn’t horribly dirty but I wanted to hit it quick before it got that way. This was the first time I recall pressure washing in such cold conditions. I did my best to keep the two sweatshirts I was wearing dry.
I also worked on cleaning up more stuff outside. There are a few areas outside that have things left over from Cindy. I have been dragging my feet addressing them partly because of procrastination, partly because of the depressing nature of it all. As my mood allows I have been hitting these things up. I only have a few more things to get cleaned up or thrown out to be back to a clean slate which I look forward to. Digging through things that once held value and required effort to implement only to be now tossing them away later really bums me out.
During the day I also took the time to take Elsa to the new park, something I did AGAIN on Sunday. They took down the construction fencing from a huge section of the grounds so there was a lot more area to walk through. Even though there were hardly any people at the park Elsa was nervous at first however as more time passed she seemed to actually start enjoying herself. I am trying to make an effort to go on walks with her more as she no longer gets the same sort of activity at home during the day as she once did. I think she spends most of the time just napping during the week.
Saturday night I spent some more time in VR, mostly in Big Screen. I wound up hanging with a group of adults, including three or four of them from the UK. The one guy made his own room and we all went in there to watch Streets of Fire. I couldn’t stay for the whole thing but I saw enough to remind me of why I thought the movie was so cool back in the day. What the hell was the deal with Wilem Dafoe wearing the leather trash bag with suspenders….
Sunday morning was cold, the coldest I recall it being on the property in at least two years, possibly three. The thermometer at the house read something like 34 degrees. When I went out to the chickens the hose end was partially frozen, water only trickled out. I let it keep running while I tended to other things. Eventually it melted enough to be functional.
After paying my bills I grabbed coffee and did my second park session with Elsa. I was wearing not one but two hooded sweatshirts. That combined with the coffee I was drinking kept me moderately warm despite temps in the low 40’s.
I didn’t have a lot of must do’s on my plate for the day. It was too cold for me to ride but I did shoot a quick video talking about the new portable stands I designed.
I did get to watch a significant amount of both the AFC and NFC playoff games. Both games were highly contested. The Chiefs/Bengals game outcome was very surprising. I watched the first half where the Chiefs were steamrolling the Bengals, leading 21-3 at the half. I figured the game was over. Well when I saw online an updated score from the second half I turned the game back on. The Bengals had totally reversed the game and wound up winning 27-24, an outcome that nearly no one expected. The Rams/49ers game was very close as well as they won by a field goal. I LOVED that when the Niners got the ball back with a little less than two minutes to go the Rams played aggressively instead of the hated prevent that so many teams default to when protecting a lead. Instead they pressured the hell out of Garrapolo and it resulted in a game ending interception. A Bengals/Rams Superbowl isn’t all that exciting from a network TV perspective but if the game is competitive, who cares.
This morning when I went outside the thermometer was actually a few ticks higher than the day before but the frost and freezing seemed much worse. This time the hose in the chicken area felt frozen solid. I broke the nozzle thumb lever on it trying to break it free so I had to skip the normal mat blasting that occurs, luckily there wasn’t a whole lot of action the night before.
Today should be the last frigid day in the immediate future. Hopefully it will be another 2-3 years before we get a hard frost like this. There have been a number of things in the landscape that did not survive this one.