zukes and cukes

 Tried to doctor Beagles's images, there was just not enough information to do a better job, but I do love those glowing eyes.  

This time of winter my lunches consist of a couple different kinds of vegetables chopped up with garlic, soy sauce, black pepper, and butter.  For the last couple weeks it had been Brussels sprouts and turnips.  But Sunday when I went shopping I didn't like the looks of the turnips so I bought ten zucchinis instead.

I generally do the chopping to the tune of America's Favorite Home Videos.  I don't care at all for the cutesy stuff, but somebody falling flat on their ass (and bouncing a few times to boot) when they are at the peak of their glory, well now Son, that is humor.  So maybe I was distracted while I was doing the zukes because as I was slicing the fourth I noticed something peculiar about it.  It was like way too juicy, and it had this odd slightly sweet smell to it, almost as if it were a cucumber.  Which of course turned out to be because it was a cucumber.  

I love pickles, but I have nothing for untreated cucumbers.  I hate to throw anything away, especially food, so I called my neighbor, and yes, she would be glad to take the cukes off my hands. She would be glad to take three and she thought a friend of hers who lived down the hall would take three.  Well fine.

Then the next morning there was a bag attached to my doorknob, obviously from the friend of my neighbor, there were three of those little oranges they call cuties and three zucchinis.  WTF?  Had she somehow misunderstood?  I called my neighbor who also thought that this was peculiar, so peculiar that she called up her friend, and then she called me back.  Those weren't cucumbers in the bag with the cuties, they were zucchinis. 

A last parting shot at the Trumpsters who will be parting us in twenty days, hopefully under guard from the White House to the big house.  If you have been reading the papers lately you will have noted that the distribution of the vaccines is like 90 percent behind what the Trumpsters had promised.  Their spokesman, Gustav Perna, says this is because of the two holidays and the three snowstorms that we have had in the last two months.  Well how could they have known that this year Thanksgiving would fall in November and Christmas would fall in December, and that it might snow the winter?

Happy new year

Bobcats Rule, Coyotes Drool

I finally got all my trailcam photos sorted.  I ended up with 47 keepers from the 12 days the camera was posted overlooking the deer scrap pile.  I selected these five because they appear to tell a story.  In the first one, a coyote seems to be running away from the site.  In the second one, the coyote seems to be trying to return, but somebody else is already there.  That's the last coyote photo in this series, the rest of them are all bobcats.

 

days of old

 When you click on New Post before you can make a new post you get to a screen that offers the option of Comments and clicking on that you are shown all the comments that have been made on the blog.  I click on it every time to see if there is anything new, but there is nothing except those November comments by Free Tim.  I wonder whatever became of him.  Tim, if you are still out there, we would be glad to hear from you.

But for now there are just the three of us old soldiers.  I am almost afraid to enter the electronics section of Target lest one of those swaggering young whippersnappers says "Hey Old Timer what are you doing here?  Did you get lost on your way to the buggy whip section?" and  the room would erupt with laughter.  

Well buggy whip is what I would have said back in the day when I was a swaggering young whippersnapper.  Anymore I guess they would ask, "Hey Old Timer, are you looking for the tv tube tester?"

Remember tv repairmen?  How they would turn your tv around and remove the back and fiddle with crap that you were warned never to do because you would immediately be electrocuted, even if the tv was not even plugged in.  Remember color tv's, and those little knobs you could twist to get it just so?  Remember knobs that listed all the channels VHF and UHF, and how they would click at each little twist, and one of them, the UHF I think, had numbers that went almost to a 100, and you would think like what kind of world would have that many channels?  And what a paradise it would be if you had like thirty or forty channels, why surely there would be something worth seeing every hour of every day.

Sorry I misspelled Cheboygan.  I knew better, but sometimes my typing fingers slip.  I know people who go up to Sheboygan for, well I don't know, whatever people find charming about woods and stuff in the middle of winter.  

Sorry to hear about those kidney stones Old Dog  I've never had them myself, but I have seen victims writhe in pain,  I hope that this too  will pass.

Cancelled Because of COVID

 Our little family did not get together for Christmas, or Thanksgiving either, this year.  My daughter, who usually hosts these events, was worried about my wife and I catching COVID because we are so old.  She has been meeting periodically with our grand daughter, who is a health care worker, but usually outdoors and socially distanced.  Our grand daughter came by today to drop off our Christmas presents.  She didn't stay long and wore her mask the whole time she was here.  She reported that the latest surge in cases has dropped off considerably, at least at the big hospital in Petoskey where she works.  She has gotten her first vaccine shot but hasn't gotten her second one yet.

Although my grand daughter lives in Petoskey now, my daughter lives in Charlevoix, which is about 10 miles down the coast of Lake Michigan from Petoskey.  If you want to look up Cheboygan, Michigan you have to spell it correctly.  If you spell it "Sheboygan" you will find it in Wisconsin.  Although the spelling is different, the pronunciation is the same, which is about the only thing those two cities have in common.

I don't mind winter except that it has gotten too short over the years.  Not because of that fake climate change, just because time goes by faster as we age.  Summer always did go by too fast, but I knew I was over the hill when winter started doing the same.

The new TV is working well.  The online manual was a big help once I was able to sort the things I needed to know from the things I will never use.  The DVD player is okay, but I wish I could get more sound out of it.  I turn the TV volume up to 100 per cent, but the DVD player is barely loud enough to hear.  There is also a volume control on the DVD remote, but it doesn't seem to do anything.  The DVD player allegedly has an online manual, but I can't find it.  According to their website, the model I have doesn't exist. 

Passing through

Mr. Beagles almost sounds like an antique collector with his old CRT television.  Ah, those were the days, when you could look at the back of the TV and figure out what connections were needed with none of this "smart TV" nonsense.  I don't think the new TVs will let you use a wire coat hanger as an antenna.

For a little historical perspective, according to the 1952 Sears Christmas catalog, a 17" black and white television would set you back the princely sum of $200.  I say "princely" because in 2020 dollars it works out to a whopping $1,963.99.  So, for the cost of a small black and white TV in 1952, today you can buy a 65" Samsung flat screen, full color of course.  Two of them, in fact, with enough left over for a couple of DVD players.  The march of technology is wonderful, isn't it?

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I've read about that Zoom thing and it's impressive, reminds me of a scene in one of the old James Bond movies where all the bad guys around the world (Spectre?) are having a meeting to decide the fate of the world.  I didn't expect the tech to show up so quickly and it's nice that one of the Beaglesonians has embraced it so fully.  Kudos, Uncle Ken!

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Cutting it a little short today.  It's been many years since I've had to deal with kidney stones and I think they're back for a rematch.  It can be tough to concentrate, but I think it will pass.

just around the corner

 Christmas now in the rearview mirror.  I assume Beagles hauled butt over the river and through the woods to Petosky I think it is.  Seems to be the big burg in the area.  Every now and then I read some item which mentions Petosky, but Sheboygan, not as yet.  And Old Dog, I like to think of him riding some north side bus with a just baked, still warm, pecan pie sitting primly in his lap.  I'd never heard of pecan pie until I moved to Austin and lived a couple blocks away from a chain called Bill's barbecue. Not much of a dessert man myself, but it was part of a full meal deal so I slipped it onto my plate and I have not looked back since.  For me it was a zoom Christmas.  I have become a zoomer, improv, water color class, holidays.

The zoom experience I have come to characterize as nowhere near as good as the real thing, but a whole lot better than nothing.  The real thing, which means real life I guess.  Crowded restaurants, crowded bars, movie theaters, zumba classes, stuff that we thought nothing at all about just nine months ago.

Ramping up for a Dick Clark rocking new years eve in just a few days.  Oh wait he's dead, well whoever.  Dating back to the many years that I felt it obligatory to get crazy drunk on New Years like all the cool people around me, I have always felt that I should do something on New Years.  Lately it has been a sandwich and two or three cold ones, stop off in a couple bars for a quick one, kind of kill time sipping at home and then just before midnight stepping out on the balcony for a really good fireworks show.  Nothing like that this year.

I guess if you are a football fan New Years day is a big deal, but I am not.  It is a day when you step outside your house reeking of figgy pudding, Auld Lang Syne ringing in your ears, and put your foot down into the first frosty day of January.  It stretches out as far as your eye can see white, featureless, and flat. After maybe three weeks that pass like molasses. you may be able to glimpse just a bit of February, a ground hog peering out of his hole, past that the lacy fragile edifice of Valentine's day.

But the days will be getting longer, the vaccines will be shooting into arms, Trump will still be carrying on from the dustbin, but hopefully nobody will be paying much attention to that.  

Like those nature shows that begin in the carefree summer, and phase into the seed gathering fall, and the long hard winter and then there is that shot of the icicles melting, spring will be arriving.

Speaking of Things That Drive People Crazy

 I bought one of those new fangled flat screen TVs the other day.  All I really needed was a new DVD player.  My old one was a combination DVD/VHS player, but they don't make those any more.  The kid who sold it to me expressed doubt that it would work with my old TV, but he thought it might work if I also bought a couple of adapters that cost more than the DVD player itself.  We have been considering buying a new TV for some time anyway because our old one chops off the edges of the picture display.  Did I mention that our old TV was probably older than the kid who sold me the new one?  Indeed, he looked at me quizzically when I told him it had a CRT screen.  Long story short, I finally got the new TV and DVD player up and running today.  They are sitting on top of the old TV for now, but I also bought a cabinet for them (some assembly required) which is still in the box waiting for me to recover from my experience with the new equipment before tackling a whole nother project. 

Here are some trailcam photos that were taken in front of my deer blind before the deer hunting season opened.