THIS WEEK 02/22/17

CRAZY ROBIN

I spent some time this past week working on getting our computer working again, so hopefully we won't have anymore problems. While I was back in the office working on that I kept hearing this odd "bumping" noise. I finally got to a point in my computer repair efforts where I could investigate the noise, and it soon became evident what was causing it. A robin was perched on the fence outside the office and he was flying up against the window. We actually had a robin do this last year, in the same spot, so I wonder if it's the same robin? I believe that birds exhibit this strange behavior because they can see their reflection in the window, so they "attack" the reflection thinking it is another bird. I put the window blind down so he wouldn't be reflected in the glass, and he stopped his attack. This tactic had worked last year so I figured it would again. Some time afterwards I was in the den watching TV and I saw a robin fly onto our back porch and bump up against the sliding glass door! There is no way he could have seen his reflection from outside the porch, so I have concluded that he is just a crazy robin. He then perched on top of our little freezer out there, and I said to him, "You are flirting with danger, Mr. Robin, because the back porch is Summer Girl territory!" He must have heard me because he flew off and I haven't seen him since. Below is a very short video of him flying up against the window. Don't blink your eyes or you'll miss it!

SNOW PICTURES

Since I have posted so many pictures of the snow from the vantage point of our front porch, I decided it was time to post a picture with a different view point, so here is one I took from out of the truck window on 02/08/17. You can barely see our little Union Jack flag peeking out above the snow.

Snowed In

We have had some rain and much warmer temperatures lately, so here is a shot of this same view from today (02/22/17).

The Thaw Has Begun

We are glad to see the snow starting to go. Although it did snow Tuesday of this week, it was a very wet snow and didn't stick. Now we can actually see the ground in some places. Of course, now it is just like trying to walk in a swamp, it's so squishy.

PEPPERS

One of my projects this past week was to grind up my peppers that have been drying since October. I had so many peppers and I really didn't want to make just pickled jalapeno slices, so I put some out on a cookie sheet and left them there for about 5 months. It is so dry here that I figured it was worth a try. Here is what they looked like after drying:

Dried Peppers

Ground Peppers

We had an extra coffee bean grinder, so I used that to grind them up into a powder. My outfit for doing this was a pair of purple kitchen gloves and a respirator mask (that smelled like paint). You certainly don't want to get any of that powder on your hands or up your nose! I looked just like a mad scientist, too bad Linda was at work or else I'd have a picture to post. I mixed up some of the ground peppers into a Buffalo Spice Rub blend, but I haven't tried it out yet. There are some chicken wings on the menu for this weekend, so I will report back next week on how it tasted.

That's about all the news from here for this week, so check us out again next week to see what's happening in the Northwest!