Me vs. the Camera Battery

When I purchased a replacement battery for my camera several months ago at Radio Shack, the clerk warned me he didn't have a Kodak battery and the one he was selling me wouldn't hold a charge as long as the original.  It has driven me crazy.  It succumbs just as a really cool photo op comes up unexpectedly.


I'm posting twice today because I'm so excited about these photos I got coming back from Boulder late this afternoon.  I had stopped to take some photos of these low-lying clouds...

I took four shots and started to take a close-up of the aspen foliage, which is such a breathtaking color of spring green, when the camera battery died.  When this occurs, a nice Kodak logo pops up on the viewfinder screen then fades into oblivion.  I think if Kodak were still making cameras I'd recommend they have something else appear when the battery dies so the user didn't equate the camera's uselessness with the Kodak name.  

I groused out loud to myself, "You just see, I'll get up the road and there will be a moose."  Well, I went around the next curve and there, right by the road, were seven elk!  I tried to revive the camera thinking maybe I could squeeze out one more photo, but no dice.  I was spitting mad!  

I've been living up here most of two years and getting that many of any kind of wildlife that close to the road seldom happens.  I drove back to the cabin as fast as I could, fretting under the 25 mph speed limit through Eldora, pulled into the meadow, ran into the cabin, unplugged the camera cord from the computer, plugged it into the electric outlet, plugged in the camera, got a fire started in the wood stove, threw on a warmer coat, unplugged the camera hoping the battery had absorbed enough juice for at least one photo and headed back to the meadow where I had little hope the elk would still be.


At first I didn't think they were there because they were lying down.  I pulled over and they got up and I got about a dozen shots.  Here are some of the best.  What fun!

An uncle once commented, after looking through some of my family's snapshots, that in our effort to sneak up on our subjects to insure we were taking candids, we took a lot of "fanny shots."  At least these guys have kind of cute little derrieres...

Wish they had their antlers this time of year.  I've never seen them with racks, but this one seems to be the leader of the pack...

or maybe this one.  It was heading out...

...and finally got the rest of them to follow...

Speaking of animals heading out, did you get to watch the Preakness?  Having no T.V., I didn't, but if you go to the Daily Racing Form site you can pull up a video.  I'll Have Another won again.  Could be on the way to the Triple Crown.  And that was a horse race.  Photo finish.  I got excited even knowing who won and without having any money on the race.


I've got R&B Jukebox streaming from KUVO and it's really great tonight!  Have a wonderful Saturday evening.  Teddee

Freezing Live Gal

I heard through the grapevine while I was in Boulder today that the Frozen Dead Guy Festival was canceled because of high winds.  I can believe it.  This place has its own micro-climate. 

Last night was probably one of the coldest we've had all winter and here it is March.  I fell asleep reading with the lights on, my favorite jazz station KUVO streaming and the winds pounding.  Woke up about 1:30 p.m. and it was around 5F degrees outside.  The wind blew all night and my forehead and nose got so cold I had to put the covers over my head.  At 6:30 a.m. the outdoor thermometer was still showing 5F degrees so I don't know what the actual low was, but it was exactly 32F degrees inside the cabin.


I took these shots of blowing snow between Nederland and Eldora late this afternoon on my return trip from Boulder.  NOAA predicted winds as high as 50 mph but I think that's conservative:
 

 Sky full of blowing snow.

You can also see blowing snow in the air above and behind this, one of the few remaining, but abandoned, commercial buildings in Eldora. It was still open for business when I was a child.

The snow had really drifted into the cabin while I was gone.

This time my leftover coffee was frozen.  The temperature in the cabin was 27F degrees when I returned, and an hour later, having had the wood stove cranking the whole time, the water in the wash basin was still frozen as well.

NOAA says a low of 20F degrees tonight, but I have only about 17F degrees showing on my outdoor thermometer at 6 p.m.  Hopefully it's going to warm up during the night.

Are you living where coping with the weather is a major part of your life?  Teddee

Snow Country

This is definitely snow country.  I have the photos to prove it.  Snow country inside and out.  This is the situation at the cabin door where layering is the latest vogue in door coverings.  From last to first,  this roll of foam in a black plastic bag, kept for the occasions when there are so many people vacationing here that someone must sleep in a tent. 

Next is the lovely matelasse bedspread, which looks great, but is as stiff as cardboard, so has found a newly important role as a door drape. 

It hangs from two safety pins and two nails.  There is a third pin but the third nail pulled out and since the top of the door is one side that actually has now been made airtight I haven't bothered to replace it.

The next layer is a rug.  Ooops!  You're starting to see the problem.  Yes, that's snow.  Not new snow, just blowing snow.

My local carpenter has devoted an inordinate amount of time trying to get this door airtight, but it just isn't working.  We've got so much weather stripping around the door that I can't get that bottom barrel bolt fastened without putting my knee into it.  But you can still see daylight.

The obvious solution would seem to be a storm door, but the eave over the door is too low to accommodate a door that opens out.  That's why I'm considering installing a new door on the south side, which will necessitate moving the electrical conduit, which is necessitating the budget crunch.  One thing always leads to another.

In the meantime, I'm staying warm with KUVO.  Wow, they are just scorching this weekend.  I've been listening to All Blues, hosted by Ron Lee tonight.  I've got to see about getting that last one, the Lionel Young Band playing "Blues & Boogie Woogie" on the On Our Way to Memphis CD.  I think this public-supported station is getting us primed for something like 14 days of fund raising starting next week.  What music warms you up?  Teddee

Success!

"If we did all the things we are capable of doing we would truly astound ourselves."--Thomas Edison

This quote is from a wonderful little book, The Complete Pocket Positives, my cousin and his wife gave me for Christmas.  I thought it appropriate for celebrating the completion of my bakers rack project today.  First, it fits!  And I can still access the wood box and pull out the wood stove ash box.  And, and this is the real miracle, the microwave fit in under the wine rack on the first shelf, but within a hair's breadth!  And that was just luck.  I could have put it on the bottom shelf, but it would have really been too low.  I can deal with it at this height since I usually am just heating water for my coffee of a morning, maybe making oatmeal or reheating leftovers or making cocoa at night.  I haven't had time to load it up, but will look forward to doing that tomorrow. 

This was kind of a crazy day.  Somehow, the powers that be arranged for everyone in Nederland and Eldora to get free RTD bus passes.  With the price of gasoline, which I expect will only go higher from what I read, I decided this was free money, so went to the library today, along with every able-bodied person within a 30-mile radius from what I could determine, with proof of property ownership and signed up and had my photo taken for my pass.  While I was there, I turned in one of the books I had checked out yesterday when I realized I had already read it and picked up two more.  I almost finished the second book I had checked out yesterday last night and I get almost panicky when I think I might run out of something to read, especially when the weather is bad.  No TV.

We had four or five inches of really light powder snow overnight, but it was calm until just about the time I was ready to leave for Nederland.  Then the winds started picking up and they've increased all afternoon.  I had to sweep out, but this was the first time in two winters that my front wheel drive and studless snow tires could not pull me out onto the road even after I cleared the snow.  We had had just enough sun and wind that the snow that was on the ground before this last snowfall had been turned into solid ice.  I tried twice, didn't want to start spinning the tires and making it worse, so walked back to the house, got a bucket and scooped some ashes into it from my ash pile and sprinkled those in front of my front tires.  Pulled right out.  Sometimes I think when you grow up on a farm in snow country you've learned everything you really ever need to know by the time you're five.  OK, eight.  After I left the library, I drove over to the spring up Caribou Canyon and filled my jugs with water.

When I got back from Nederland I sanded down the Spackled areas of the wall where the shelving had been removed yesterday.  Wore a glove because I had run a pretty good sized piece of very old rotten wood into one of my fingertips yesterday (how long are tetanus shots good?).  It bled freely and I encouraged it, washed with very hot water and antibacterial soap, and it isn't even sore, so I hope I'm OK.

Very smooth.  

Oh, boy!  Now's when you wish you had a vacuum.  It looks like the snow that comes in around my front door, but it's Spackle.

A whisk broom and some tack cloth I found the other day, had to serve the purpose.

Then I painted.  I can't believe this paint brush is still OK.  It's been in this plastic bag for weeks!

I also painted the wood box while I was at it and was taking a real chance because I didn't want to change clothes, and this paint with the primer in it, albeit acrylic, does not come out of fabric, even with Goof Off.  I think my clothes came through unscathed this time.

While the paint was drying, I drafted a letter in response to one, forwarded to me yesterday from an incorrect address, from Mr. Paul Bernardy of Sedgwick CMS on behalf of Sears in which he suggests he just learned about my claim regarding the failed auto repairs made at the Sears auto center in Longmont last October and suggests we've never talked!  Do they train these people in obstructionism?  Well, I've got some fine tuning to do on the letter, but it's almost ready. 

Right now, it's just about 11F degrees, the winds are cranking, but so are the blues.  I've got KUVO radio, Denver, streaming.  They have fantastic jazz most of the time, but Friday night at 6 p.m. it's blues.  If you like jazz or the blues, tune them in.  I just type in kuvo denver jazz and then find I get best reception on Listen Online.  Someone's substituting for the regular dj tonight and he's really got some toe tappers going.  I've fed the fox, got the rug, quilt and roll of foam up against the front door, have a good fire going and I'm a happy woman.  What makes you happy:?  Teddee