LUCKIE'S HAIRDO

Despite all the prognosticators of weather that Arkansas would only have snow in December due to La Nina, where the temperature pattern of the Pacific Ocean determines weather in the US, we had about 3 inches of snow Monday in north central Arkansas. We also had a light snow amount in January. So much for weather forecasters, the Farmer's Almanac, and other prognostications.

Luckie seems to be recovering from her chronic Ehrlichiosis. She decided to run and play in the snow yesterday, as if she were two years instead of 13 years old. She barked at everything that moved and raced around her fenced yard, trying to scare feral cats, squirrels and the neighborhood grouchy groundhog who were scavenging for food.

She came in several times with huge snow flakes to shake the snow and cold water all over us. I'd wipe her off and out she went again. She has a nest of dead leaves she uses as a soft bed from which she oversees her perceived worldly territory.


Once she came in the house in such a ridiculous mess I had to laugh. The hair on her head reminded me of small boys I see at church with short haircuts which stand straight up on their heads. Their parents probably use some kind of mousse to get the effect.

Needless to say, Luckie was very disgruntled when I closed the doggie door and made her stay in the house till her feeding time which was nearly dark. When I finally opened it up again, she had lost her zeal; maybe she has beginning dementia and forgot about grouchy groundhog. Not likely!

Despite her age, she knows exactly my morning routine: the order I start the coffee pots and additives like milk or flavors, then I take my morning medicines; then I retrieve water and cheese from fridge to start her breakfast.

She won't take her meds without cheese or peanut butter. She takes PROIN (for spayed female bladder leakage), Pepcid 10 mg for tummy, and phenobarbital for seizures. She gets Beneful and --get this: purified cooled water from the fridge.

If I am too slow she has a toy, a porcupine until I had to amputate its identifying nose, arms, legs and tail because she began her own surgery strewing cotton everywhere. (I sewed her surgery up, too.) She squeaks it until I feed her. It has an nerve wracking, nerve grating noise for a 75 year old woman barely moving early in the morning.

I ought to feed her the minute she waltzes in the kitchen, but I am just stubborn enough to think husband's and my coffee and meds come first.

Below is Luckie's Mother Nature hairdo!

Luckie's Snow Hairdo

We are remodeling a number of rooms, mainly renovated walls with bead board ceiling to floor. I love the effect, although a tad expensive. We have a carpenter doing the hard work including trim. My job is keeping up with where stuff gets shuffled to and from.

Posting may be short for awhile. I am too busy shuffling through the shuffled!

PHOTOS: BY NitWIT1 unless otherwise attributed.

GRAY, OR IS IT GREY?

Afternoon Sun  Last Week
We've had a number of gray, but relatively mild days for winter, the last few weeks.

Despite a relative mild Winter thus far, a large number of days have been about this color and NO sun peeping through at all.

Normally, you should not point any camera at the sun unless the sunlight is diffused by one of several ways; in my case the overhead clouds, or fog, or whatever is hanging over the Ozarks served as an adequate filter. It almost looks like moonlight.

I looked up the spelling of the word 'gray' and 'grey' to see there were truly any subtle differences. There is NOT. However the 'gray' spelling is considered American English, but either one is correct and have exactly the same definitions. Just another one of the little interesting things about the English language and the American dialect, as I like to call it.

Today was occupied with getting our Income Tax done at the local AARP Tax Aide center in my little city. I had to wait my turn for 2.5 hours. But as my husband said, "I assume you found someone to chatter with." He was right; I said, "Of course, in that length of time I found several."

Tonight I have a mild stomach upset so taking it easy this eveing, food-wise and headed to 'nod-off-to-sleep-soon-in-front-of-the-TV land.' Good night and blessed dreams to all.'

HERE WE SIT ...

TURKEY BUZZARDS AT BULL SHOALS DAM
These scavengers are permanent resdents at Bull Shoals Dam on the White River side. They wait for water generation, the effluent of which contains dead minnows and other decaying materials which provide these lazy birds a free and convenient meal, sometimes several times daily. Why work and hunt when it is so plentiful? A few seagulls compete with them in the winter, but migrate to the oceans and seas in May, leaving the lucky ugly critters to dine free.

Turkey buzzards as scavengers are protected species in US, so the "four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie" children's rhyme certain should not occur in reality in US, if it really ever did.

However, these somewhat ugly creatures remind me of another ditty.

My last 3 years of high school I was in a marching band which attended every school football game, in or out of town. When we traveled to a school in our conference it was by two huge buses. Often the trips were relatively long and we entertained ourselves by singing several group songs with no sense at all, like the 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, which decreased by one in each stanza, and the manner in which one bottle disappears varies with the many variations of this song. Few times we made it to the end, as most of us were asleep. (If our singing was every recorded, you would know why we were in band and not choir!)

But another such song is printed below, which has dozens of variations: we usually sang, 'waiting for something to eat, or something to drink.' 

 I am 75 and I bet these ditties are still sung. Maybe more remarkable is I remember them!

HERE WE SIT LIKE BIRDS IN THE WILDERNESS

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Waiting for our food.

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Waiting for our soup.

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,
Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Waiting for our bread.

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness.

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,
Waiting for our meat.

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness;

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Waiting for dessert.

There are  You Tube videos of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall and also Here We Sit Like Birds in the Wilderness. I won't bore you with them.  However, sever of the 'Birds' ones are children, which are cute. One they do some kind of hand signs, but don't think it is signing like for the death. I do not remember that performance.

Photo: NitwWt1