Yellow gold
Thursday, 5 February 2026
Now that the ice storm and the snow storm have passed, budding has begun.
Musings
Eating better in 2026
Wednesday, 4 February 2026
I’ve been trying to cook/eat lower on the food chain, as in more plant protein. My go-to these days includes a veggie bean stew, which has endless variants. When I heat leftovers, lately I’ve been microwaving some fresh spinach in the bowl first, then adding the stew and heating it all again. This bowl has bonus cheddar.
Plus, I recently found out that since the beans (and this is true of cooked grains, too) have been chilled, their grams of resistant starch have somehow increased—and that’s also good for the gut. Apparently, in some chemical magic, the chilling reorders the starch molecules in a process technically called retrogradation (and that’s enough science for today).
Cold spell gone, too
Tuesday, 3 February 2026
Three times I had words and an idea to put with this picture, then the day slipped away, and all you get is a delayed-post picture with an apology.
Evolution
Monday, 2 February 2026
This park has a goodly tree count, but this is the only one that came down, I assume from the ice storm a week ago. This is how biomes change from weather events.
Askew reflection
Sunday, 1 February 2026
When it came time to write last night, I forgot my plan to reminisce about the year I went to 4-H Snow Camp. I must have been in about ninth grade, and I dunno why I wanted to go, probably to fit in. I have no recollection of how we got there (rented school bus?), or of how big our group was, or even what the scheduled activities were.
What I remember is that The Boys decided to throw The Girls into the snow. I was having none of it, and fought and kicked, and soon was left alone—so much for fitting in.
Cold & windy; not snowy
Saturday, 31 January 2026
The meteorologists’ models got the wind and the cold right, but our neighborhood only received a slight dusting, not nearly a ½ inch.
After the sun faded, I noticed an owl (pretty sure) hanging out near our back door. My theory is that it is perched lower than usual to avoid some of the wind.
Once…enough
Friday, 30 January 2026
After this, the colors got a stripe rather like the other day, but I was busy making coffee, and I didn’t go out and get a second shot.
43°F walk
Thursday, 29 January 2026
One more time…the sky reveals the sun is coming.
On my afternoon walk, I saw firefolk doing…something. When I came by on my return loop, the guy in training was. carrying and dragging quite a bit of hose, and the other guy was walking behind instructing and commanding. That hose seems darned heavy, even without being charged with water, which is darned heavy also.
So glad it was sunny
Tuesday, 27 January 2026
The pre-dawn looked lovely, with a nice smear of yellow.
Not so lovely, the temp, and we’re not even discussing the much lower feels-like.