Happy New Year everyone!

What a busy holiday we had. I barely got out of Oregon ahead of a pretty nasty storm, and was very happy to arrive in the mild Texas winter weather. Two weeks few by with the regular holiday festivities and a little bit of work on the place. Steve will be there for another month or two, painting, tractoring, cutting down trees..... fun stuff! I'm supposed to be keeping up with the chores here in Oregon, but the weather isn't "conducive" . . . though my little weather station says "sun" it's misting right now, and it's all of 41 degrees (we're expecting a high of 50, while San Marcos is expecting 61 - cold for them!)

I've got a nice fire going out in the shop to warm it up and will be working on storing all the Christmas lights I took down yesterday. It was a very modest display compared to past years, due to the fact that it was just me putting it up, but I did come up with a new display for one of the flower beds.... a tomato cage turned into a tree surrounded by silk poinsettias. The "tree" was so thick with lights that it looked green during the day and my neighbor actually thought I had planted a small tree in the tub!

One of my hobbies while in TX is trying to outwit the squirrels. I thought I had it this time, with a very clever Rube Goldberg type of pulley arrangement for hanging the feeder. Steve said two days after I left they had it figured out.... apparently launching from the tree and flying over to grab the feeder, somewhat like the Flying Wilendas!

I'm proceeding with packing and tossing preparatory to an eventual move. How did we ever accumulate so much STUFF! I don't think I could have ever managed to put my life into a covered wagon and head west. It would have taken several wagons!