Christmas Star

 We have a history of watching celestial events together.  When our children were young, we would wake them at night to watch an eclipse, comet, or meteor shower.   While they complained, we notice they do the same with their children.  After we both read the novel “Dear John” by Nicholas Sparks, whenever there is a full moon, we watch it, holding hands, saying “I love you” to each other.

 We received an email from the Carolina Preserve Social Director describing the best places to watch the alignment of the planets.  At dusk, we made a two minute drive, expecting to be by ourselves, but there were 20 or more people already there looking at the planets over a small lake.  One even had a telescope set up.  We had a great view of Jupiter with a fainter view of Saturn almost touching Jupiter. 

 On the way back to our house, we both said how glad we were to see such a rare event.  Then I added, “If I were trying to find a manger in Bethlehem, I think I would have better luck using Google Maps rather than follow the Christmas Star.”

 Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Kitchen Cabinets

 

Most of Aloma’s magazines show new kitchens with white cabinets.  Our kitchen cabinets are lightly stained cherry wood.  Months ago, I suggested we paint our cabinets white.  It was just a thought.  After I completed my outdoor projects, I started looking for things to do inside.  I told Aloma that I would be willing to paint our kitchen cabinets.  She agreed.

 I knew that I just couldn’t slap a coat of paint on them, so I checked how-to articles and watched a professional show the process on YouTube.  I could tell it was time-consuming, but I didn’t have anything better to do so I decided to give it a try. 

 I had to remove the doors and the hardware and use a degreaser to clean the wood.  Then I had to sand everything before I could brush and roll on a coat of primer, let it dry, then add a second coat. Since I had to paint the front and back of the cabinets, I had to let them dry overnight before painting the other side.  I lightly sanded after each coat.  Finally, I applied actual paint, two coats, sanding between the coats.  All of this took eight days, working about four hours a day.  During those eight days, I followed the same process for the hanging cabinets.  The day before Thanksgiving, I hung the doors back and, for the first time, appreciated how good they look.  I did a good job.

Aloma loves the new look and told me that I’m her hero. 

 I was exhausted.  I ask my friend, Bill, if I ever mention painting another cabinet, to come over and hit me over the head with a 2x4.  He said he would look forward to it.

Seasoned Man

stevelem@gmain.com

Reading and Writing

 

Since we were grounded in March, I thought this would be a perfect time to finish my last book in the Turkey Grove Series.  Not only have I not finished it, but I’ve also barely worked on it.  I have people contacting me asking when it will be complete.  I should be motivated, but I’m just not writing.

 My goal is to write a blog every seven to ten days, but that’s not happening either.  I’m way behind my goal.

 So what’s the problem?  I tell Aloma that I’m too busy.  I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow; I’m going to Costco the next day and Lowe’s the day after and then have to pay the bills.  Years ago, I left for work at 6:00 a.m., got home at 5:30 p.m., did the yard work, paid bills and still had time to do some Kodak work in the evening.  I wonder what has changed.

 Now I do have time for reading.  I record the title and author of books I’ve read and have completed 62 books so far this year, 90% fiction.  I love to read and visualize the scenes, feeling the emotions of the characters.  For me, a good book is better than a movie.  It’s interesting that my selection of books has changed (topic for another blog).

 I have to stop writing now.  I need to walk to the mailbox and get the mail.  But that would be doing two things today.  The mail will still be there tomorrow.

 Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

More Landscapping

 

Since we are staying at home, I’ve started a new landscaping project for our backyard--an irrigation system.

 We spend a lot of time watering our plants during the summer so I mentioned to Aloma what she thought about an irrigation system.  She encouraged me from the get-go.

 I diagramed our back area to place sprinklers and soak hoses where I thought they should go.  I bought sprinkler heads and valves, tested them, and bought a controller that would control six zones independently.  I built a complicated manifold for them out of PVC pipe, which I had never worked with before.  I finally got everything to work including an App on my phone to program and control each zone, even when we are away.

 When everything worked, I then had to dig trenches and a hole for the valves and manifold.  I had to take the connections and wiring apart to install the final system (and mixed the wires up so now the zones are different than before).  But, it works and I’m Aloma’s hero--again.

 This project took three weeks because I didn’t know what I was doing and for every

30 minutes of work, I sat in a chair and looked at it for 45 minutes.  Testing everything before installing it caused a lot of extra work.  I struggled making connections tight because my old hands don’t work so well. 

 In any case, I’m glad that I took the project on and I’m grateful that it works. 

 The last item I'm going to work on is so Aloma can say, “Alexa, turn on Zone 4 for 30 minutes.”

 

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Beach Vacation

 For the last few years, we’ve been taking one-week vacations in July in the mountains and the beach in September.  Our beach vacations have always been active, pool twice a day, and swimming in the ocean, for me, at least once a day and often twice a day.

We have been less active the last couple of years.  This year we didn’t go to the pool once.  Aloma’s hip is bothering her and she didn’t venture out except for lunch at a couple of our favorite restaurants.  I walked the beach a few times and went swimming in the ocean twice.  In past years, I’ve had problems getting out of the ocean after a swim because of the wave action and soft sand.  The surf was moderate this year and I didn’t expect any problems.  Wrong.  I fell and had to scoot back into deeper water so I could stand up again.  I tried again and had the same problem but a man came over, grabbed my arm, and helped me to shore.  I’m embarrassed.

Our main activity was sitting on our balcony, fifth-floor, oceanfront, and watching the ocean and the people.  We saw a group of about 30 people holding hands and swaying to music (not exactly social distancing); a group of about 12 young women drinking and getting sillier and sillier until one couldn’t walk without falling; a tall, blond, female lifeguard with a drop-dead body that fogged my binoculars every time I looked at her; a young couple bringing their eight-month-old baby to the beach for the first time.  Our best ocean scene was a school of fish that darkened the ocean as they swam south and would create ripples in the ocean when a bird would try to pick one off.

Maybe my best moment on our vacation was when a waitress called me a young man while taking my order. Later, when she brought our check, I asked her to repeat two words she said to me earlier.  She said, “I’m glad you enjoyed your meal, young man.”  She got a big tip.

We hope we have a few more years of mountain and beach vacations.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Tomatoes

 I have a long history of growing tomatoes.  I started in Rochester, planting them in mid-April, losing them to frost in late April.  The next year, I waited until mid-June to plant them, losing them to frost in September just as beautiful tomatoes were ripening.  Then, I asked for advice and planted them on Memorial Day and had beautiful tomatoes in late summer.

My tomatoes in Mooresville (Lake Norman) were beautiful until my neighbor’s Crepe Myrtle trees blocked the sun.  They were still worth planting.

My first attempts in Cary didn’t work out.  Two years in a row, the deer ate the plants before the first bloom.  In the third year, I planted tomatoes in pots on the patio.  The deer came on the patio and ate them.  I finally learned to keep deer away by using a spray, Liquid Fence.  We had tomatoes, but they were mediocre, worth eating, but not as good as tomatoes from the supermarket.

Last year, I bought a special container that came with fertilizer and instructions.  I planted two tomato plants in the special grow system and two outside of it in the ground as a control.  We got some fair tomatoes, but most came from the ones outside the grow box.

This year, I developed my own soil mix and fertilizer.  I planted some healthy plants in early May that were guaranteed to produce large and juicy tomatoes and waited to be delighted and to be the envy of the neighborhood.  See photograph below. The tomatoes on the right are from Publix.  The other two are mine.

I’m already thinking about how to get it right next year.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmal.com

Dog House

 I’m in the dog house--Big Time.

I was on my way to an early doctor’s appointment when I spotted Aloma on the patio.  She was barefoot, dressed in her nightgown, and checking her I-phone.  I went out to tell her goodbye, left, and without thinking, locked the door to the patio.

She sat on the patio for about 30 minutes, checking her messages, enjoying looking at our plants.  Then she got up to go inside and found the door locked.  She called me, not happy with me.  I was already in the doctor’s office so I told her to go to the front of the house and use the code for our garage door.

My next call came from our neighbor across the street.  “Steve, Aloma is in our house.  You locked her out and the garage door won’t open.”

My appointment was over, so I said, “I’m on my way home.”

When I got back, Mickey and Janet had left for an appointment.  I knocked on their door, and Aloma came out sputtering, “The garage door didn’t work, and I was wandering around the neighborhood, barefoot and in a flimsy nightgown.  I thought the police would show up and take me away.”

The garage keypad didn’t work for me either.  I used the remote to let us in.  Aloma didn’t yell at me about her experience, and she handled it well.

But she said, “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Nailed It

When we’re traveling to a location looking for better weather, it makes no sense at all to check back to learn what the weather is like back home.  But we do it.  When we vacation in Florida in the winter, I often check the weather in Cary, and, if it’s cold, I mention it to Aloma, and we talk about how lucky we are to be in Florida.  We just returned from a week in Cashiers, North Carolina (elevation 4,000 ft.).  The low temperatures in the mornings were in the mid-60s and the highs for the day were in the mid-70s.  Every evening, a shower or thunderstorm would move through while we were enjoying a drink on our covered deck.  It was perfect.  Meanwhile, back in Cary. temperatures were in the mid-90’s with a comfort index in the mid-100’s.  A heat advisory was issued on most days.

Fortunately, we’re not the kind of people who pester their friends back home with reports of our beautiful weather.  Well, that’s not exactly true.  We did send a photo to Jennifer of her mother wearing a heavy sweater on the deck overlooking mountain woods.  And maybe we mentioned it to a few friends.  But not that many.

Boy, we sure nailed this vacation.

Seasoned man

stevelem117@gmail.com

RC Flying and a Dumb Thing

I’ve written several times about my hobby of flying radio-controlled model airplanes.  I belong to a club and enjoy new friends almost as much as flying.  I last flew in November 2019 and because of the weather and getting ready for two-and-a-months in Florida, I didn’t fly again.  Soon after we returned to North Carolina, the flying field was closed due to COVID-19.  When the field re-opened, I had surgery and couldn’t fly with a cast on my hand.  Last week, I tried to fly but had mechanical problems.  Yesterday, my plane worked great and I flew perfectly and enjoyed being with the other flyers.

So, what’s the dumb thing?  I had an MRI this morning to check if my hearing problem is affected by my brain.  I was in a hospital gown, wired for en EKG, and had a blood pressure cuff attached.  Before putting me in the machine, the nurse noticed that I was chewing gum.  She asked me to spit it out and handed me a Kleenex.  I took the Kleenex and reached into my mouth for the gum--but I forgot that I was wearing a facemask.  Of course, the gum attached itself to the facemask.  Did I feel stupid!  The nurse, trying to keep me from feeling bad, said others have done the same thing.  I doubt it.

After 35 minutes of loud noises and trouble breathing because of a hard mask pressed against my face, I was released.  I won’t know for a week whether or not I have the brainpower to process human speech.

Flying my airplane is much better than having an MRI.

Seasoned Man                       

Stevelem117@gmail.com

Landscaping in Place

My right hand is out of a cast and in a brace so I can type again--slowly.  Before my hand surgery, I decided to build a stone border in front of our bank and our plantings.  Aloma had been suggesting one, so I thought this would be a good time since I had nothing else to do and nowhere to go.

I figured a two-man landscaping crew could do the job in half-a-day costing about $200 in labor.  I decided to do it myself. 

After three weeks of back-breaking labor, we now have a stone border, 84 stones picked up 12 at a time from Home Depot, 30 hours of work (most of it sitting in a chair looking at my progress), taking 28 extra-strength Tylenol tablets. Roots from an oak tree that we included in our border were the main problem.  A couple of roots were five inches in diameter and a couple more were slightly smaller.  I used an ax and a reciprocating saw.  We’ll know next year whether or not I killed the tree.

So the job is done.  Aloma says I’m her hero, so it was worth the effort.  See photo below of the Great Wall of 201 Callum Place.

Boink

I began having pain in the knuckle on my right index finger about 6 years ago.  My doctor diagnosed the problem as arthritis and recommended a steroid shot, not to cure it but to relieve the pain.  The injection worked great, completely relieving my pain for eight months.  Over the years, the time between steroid injections grew shorter and shorter and my knuckle grew to twice the size of the other knuckles.  My doctor said it was time for surgery to freeze the joint to stop the pain.

COVID-19 delayed the surgery, but it was finally scheduled for last Monday.  After a COVID-19 test (I was surprised that the nurse pushed the swab so far up my nose that she must have gotten brain tissue), I checked in for about a four-hour procedure.  After a nerve block, I was put to sleep and woke with my hand and lower arm in a cast.  Aloma drove me home and got me settled in a recliner.

My arm and hand were completely numb, no pain and no movement.  With my other hand, I lifted the cast by bending my elbow.  Then the cast crashed into my face.  BOINK.  I saw stars and Aloma said, “Why did you hit yourself?”

“I didn't do it.  My arm did it by itself.”

A few minutes later, I moved my arm and got boinked again.  I was surprised again.  This time Aloma laughed.  “That is so funny.”

Over the next hour my poor face received three more hits.  It was really weird.  By 10:00 p.m. I could move my fingers and control my arm.  Then the pain from the operation started.  A few pills dulled the pain, and I slept pretty well.

After a week, I have little pain and am healing normally.  Actually, the pain is less than before the surgery.  My main issue is that doing everything with my left-hand takes twice as long.

I wish I had a video of the boinking.  It would have gone viral.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Robin

I’ve written before about how much we enjoy sitting on our patio watching our plants and wildlife.  Sheltering-in-place makes this activity even more enjoyable since we don’t do anything else, although we did eat out for the first time last week.

We put out a suet feeder for the birds every evening.  I whistle the song, Mockingbird Hill, and the birds swoop in within minutes.  Aloma says the birds come because they see us on the deck and watch me put out the suet.

We get the usual backyard birds: mockingbirds, brown thrashers, robins, sparrow/wrens (I don’t know which), bluebirds and sometimes starlings.  Hummingbirds enjoy our flowers and cardinals sing for us and use our bird bath.

Last year a pair of bluebirds were feeding their family from the feeder, but a robin chased them away every time he saw them.  Aloma was angry at the robin and told it that it was a bad bird and chased it away every time she saw it. 

This year a robin (who knows if it’s the same robin) comes to the feeder and looks around.  If Aloma is there, it will just pick up crumbs underneath the suet feeder.  If she is not out, it will fly up to get some fresh suet.  Our chairs are only about six feet from the feeders.  When she goes inside, the robin will watch her go in, look at me, then fly up to the feeder.  I warn it when I hear Aloma returning with a fresh drink.  It quickly flies down to the ground and pecks the dirt, looking innocent, waiting for her to go inside again.

We look forward to when social distancing ends.  Maybe we’ll be normal again--or maybe not.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Shame On You

Aloma was checking out of the garden center at Home Depot, with her mask and gloves, when a man came into the store through the exit gate, despite rules that everyone should come into the store through the main entrance so they can monitor the number of people in the store.  The man, not wearing a mask, bumped into a woman almost knocking her over as he entered.

Aloma yelled at him, "Shame on you."  He kept coming and she yelled again.  Other people waiting patiently, six feet apart, wearing masks also yelled at him.  He cursed them and gave a finger.

After he was in the store, people in line thanked Aloma for standing up to him.  Two cashiers, tears running down their cheeks, also thanked Aloma and told her that no customers ever helped them.

Aloma told me this story after she got home.  I told her I was proud of her for standing up for what is right.  I also reminded her there are crazy people out there and some of them can get violent.  I also told her that I trust her judgment, and she will always know when to confront and when to be silent.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

82 Years Old

82 Years Old

I started this blog to document for my family what it was like for a man to go through his seventies (and eighties, if lucky).  I turned 82 a few weeks ago and I'm still here.

While I have more aches and pains, my stamina is lower, and my memory is not as sharp as it was a few years ago, I'm lucky that I have a wonderful marriage and am basically in good health, have a positive attitude, and appreciate each day.

I enjoy following Aloma's instructions in planting and caring for our many flowers, trees, and shrubs.  My flying club is closed because of COVID-19 so I fly a new, small drone at home and take a lot of photos with it.  I’ve only played a couple of rounds of golf since my accident two-plus years ago, but I haven't given up on the idea of playing again.  I read a lot and still write, but my final book of the Turkey Grove series is progressing very slowly.

Aloma wants a stone wall around the tree in our backyard so I started it a couple of days ago.  I knew there was a major root to come out, so I began work with my shovel, full-size ax with a double blade, and a small hatchet.  Not only did the root turn out to be twice the size that I thought, but there were also four more even bigger.  I swung the big ax for four hours.  I didn't make a clean cut because I couldn't hit the same spot twice in a row so it took twice as long as it should.  I thought I would be a cripple the next day, but I felt fine except for pain in both shoulders, left elbow, hamstrings, big toe, thighs, hamstrings, and knuckle on the right hand.  I still have two roots to go, and then I'll start positioning the stones.

Bragging to Aloma, I said, "My dad couldn't have done that at 82 years old." 

Aloma gave my ego a boost by saying, "Your dad couldn't have done that at 50 years old."

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Life Without Sports

From as far back as I can remember, I’ve loved sports.  When I was a young boy, I usually had a ball in my hand, a football, a baseball, or a basketball.  I played all sports available when I was in school.  My dad and I listened to Florida Gators football games on the radio in our living room for years.  He took me to see football, basketball and baseball games in Gainesville.  After I was married, I seldom missed an important game on TV.  After I retired, I watched more games than ever-- football, basketball, some baseball, track meets, volleyball, golf, tennis, boxing, swimming.  I plan my TV watching around sports.

I know that Aloma and I are fortunate to be healthy while so many people are critically ill with COVID-19, so I shouldn’t complain about not having sports to watch.  So I watch news, updates on the stock market and the science channel during the day and watch movies at night.  I have watched so many Hallmark movies that I can predict when a snowball fight is about to begin between two lovers and when a kiss is going to be interrupted and is not the final kiss that will seal the relationship.  For some reason, I’m not interested in vampire movies and movies with a dark theme.

Our lives are so boring that last week we planned to go together to get money from the ATM.  I was really excited.  Aloma washed and dried her hair and took 30 minutes to decide what outfit to wear.  I have a big week coming up.  I get to go to the doctor for a blood test.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

SW Florida Eagle--Part II

On January 15, I posted a blog that the SW Florida eagle streaming camera showed the three-week-old baby eagle had died.  I’ve been watching this nest since I discovered it two years ago and watched it during the recovery from my accident.  I loved watching the eaglets develop and finally fledge.  I watched them again last year and enjoyed them just as much.

After the baby died this year, I, and most others, thought the season was over.  Not so.  Harriett and M-15 (her mate) kept bonding (mating), and she laid two more eggs a month ago.  E-15 is now three days old and the second egg, E-16, hatched yesterday.  I am so excited.

I understand how difficult it for the young to survive in the wild, but I hope E-15 and E-16 grow to be healthy adults.

If you care to visit the site, it is:  https://dickpritchettrealestate.com/eagle-feed.html

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Coronavirus Part II

Many parts of the world are almost shut down, including many areas of the United States, because of the threat of Coronavirus/COVID-19.  While it’s clear that Coronavirus spreads rapidly and is more serious than the seasonal flu, I sometimes wonder if the media had called it another strain of the flu,  would we be closing much of the country and disrupting so many lives.

According to the World Health Organization:

World Wide deaths                                                             US deaths

Seasonal Flu  290,000 to 650,000/ Yr                               24,000 - 62,000 (thru 3/24)

Spanish Flu  50,000,000 in 1918

Coronavirus  36,800  (as of 3/30)                                      2,800                                          

A projection yesterday predicted 100,000 to 200,000 deaths from Coronavirus in the US.  That would be worse than seasonal flu this year.  Coronavirus is an unknown, and we all fear the unknown. 

I take a daily dose of Warfarin and must have a blood test every two or three weeks.  I drove up to the UNC Family Medicine Clinic and a person asked my name.  I parked and within five minutes, a technician rolled a cart to my car, took my blood and gave me the results in one minute.  I loved that service.

What’s ahead for our country and the world?  We’ll  wait and see.

Seasoned Man

stevelem@gmail.com

Coronavirus

After we returned home from Florida, we needed to pick up some food and supplies so yesterday we headed to Costco.  We needed gas and had to wait in line for 15 minutes before a pump was available.  We filled up ($1.97 a gallon) and then looked for a parking place.  The lot was full.  I drove around for 10 minutes hoping I could catch someone pulling out.  No luck.  I let Aloma out and continued driving around.  Finally, someone left and I grabbed her parking space.

Inside was chaos.  People were loading up their carts with food and supplies.  Aloma bought some grocery items and then went to buy some toilet tissue.  They only had one brand left, Kirkland (their own brand), and as we passed by an employee asked us how many bundles we wanted.  He took a package directly from a pallet and put it in our cart.  Even though everyone was rushed, customers were friendly and apologized when they ran over us with their carts.  It was actually kind of fun.

Now for checkout.  Customers were queued into many lines that reached all the way to the back of the store.  Every cash register was manned by two employees and they worked quickly.

I personally believe the fear of Coronavirus is worse than the disease.  Sure, it’ll spread, but for most people, I hear it won’t be much worse than a common cold.  For seniors, like me, it sounds pretty serious.  We’ll wash our hands a lot and hope Coronavirus passes us by.

But I really hate that March Madness is canceled.  That is one of my favorite sports events of the year.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Wiggins Lake

We ended our two months stay in Naples, Florida a few days ago and said goodbye to
Wiggins Lake.  Our condo had a lanai, with glass doors that could be pulled back
depending on the weather, and we spent hours each day sitting on the lanai watching
the plants grow, sort of like watching paint dry, but more exciting.

Wiggins Lake is small, about the size of two football fields, one of five lakes in the
development, a fountain in the middle creating pleasant sounds, wildlife always around
the lake.  We saw egrets, osprey, kingfishers, herons (baby blues and great), multiple
kinds of ducks, anhingas fishing underwater, turtles swimming in the lake and basking
in the sun on the shore.  Lake otters played in the water and Aloma saw one going
through our backyard toward the water. One raccoon skirted our lanai. Every morning
a flock of Ibises with their beaks curved down would fly in and aerate the lawn while
pecking for bugs and seeds.  It was great fun watching the wildlife.

In a previous blog, I wrote that a panther was spotted by two different residents.  No
further sightings. The snake I mentioned that battled me in the garage was a corn snake,
according to Rowland, the maintenance man.  I looked them up and I agree with the
identification, but the article said they are very docile and some people keep them as
pets. Why did my corn snake want to battle me over control of the garage?

Now we are on our way back to North Carolina to watch our own flowers and shrubs
bloom and watch the many species of birds prepare for nesting.

Not many people could endure the excitement of our lives, but, I’m proud to say, we
are up to it.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Motivated Reasoning Repeat

I posted this blog in November 2016.  I thought it might be time to revisit it.  I have
never seen people so entrenched in their political position as they are now.  Not
only do they believe strongly in their position, they get angry if anyone disagrees
with them.  I broach the subject of Motivated Reasoning with friends, and they
get angry at me even suggestings our minds are already made up before we
see the information.

Motivated Reasoning  November 2, 2016

Most of us have tried to explain our rationale for political or religious beliefs to
others and have experienced frustration when our thoughtful logic was
rejected.  How could anyone with half-a-brain not agree with our position?

Have you wondered when an important vote occurs on the Supreme Court,
we know the results before the decision is announced;  four to four (while
there was a vacancy on the court). All eight justices have Ivy League law
degrees, have impressive careers in lower courts and have been vetted
by Congress.  Each justice has a well thought out reason for his/her
position, but the position on the issue seems to come before the analysis.
Are half of the justices smarter than the other half?  What is going on?

After the presidential debates, I switched between Fox News and

CNN News.  I have doubts they watched the same debates.

I know you understand what is going on as well as I do. We develop
deep-seated beliefs and values and then filter information so that it either
fits our beliefs/values or we question the validity of the information.  I
recently heard a term that describes this - Motivated Reasoning.

My question is how can we put aside our beliefs/values to listen critically
to new information - without feeling our gut twist?

For more information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning. 
t’s not an easy read.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Weather Alert

Aloma and I both received a weather alert a couple of days ago.  It wasn’t for tornados,
thunderstorms or hail. It was for falling iguanas. Iguanas are cold-blooded and when the
temperature gets low (under 50), they get lethargic and when the temperature drops
below 40, they become comatose, can’t move and often fall out of trees.  TV news
warned residents not to pick them up or take them inside because when the
temperature warms up, they become active again.

TV news the next day had videos of iguanas lying still on lawns and on roads.  We
didn’t see any in Naples. TV news reported the only people happy about the falling
iguanas were butchers who sell the meat.

A story not related to the iguanas--I rolled out a grill from the garage in our condo in
Naples, cooked some burgers and then went inside to eat.  After eating, I went back
out to put the grill away. A snake, about 3 ½ feet long, followed me into the garage. I
tried to herd it out by getting in its way and stomping my feet.  Instead of retreating,
the snake reared up and struck at me. I got a shovel and convinced him to leave
the garage. If we were in North Carolina, I would say it was a Copperhead. I’ve
read that they are rare south of Orlando, so I don’t know what it was.

After we moved into our condo we were warned that a panther had been spotted
coming out of some deep woods near the next building.  The HOA president said it
probably wouldn’t attack a person, but you shouldn’t walk your dog in that area. The
sighting was verified by another person the next day.

South Florida sure has some interesting wildlife.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

E-14 R.I.P.

While I was recovering from my accident in Naples, Florida two years ago, I learned
about a website that streamed a video 24/7 of a nest of two Bald Eagles within a few
miles of the hospital in Fort Myers.  Mom and Dad eagles had hatched two eggs
and for 24 days in the hospital and in a rehab facility, I watched the babies eat, grow,
fledge and finally leave home,

Last year, I started watching again in December and watched two eggs hatch and
continued watching the eaglets until they left the nest area in April.  I would check in
with them at least a couple of times a day.

This year, I watched in fascination as cracks appeared in one egg, and a cute little
eagle emerged, so tiny, barely able to hold his head up.  Mom and Dad brought tons
of food and fed him every hour or so. But the second egg never hatched. This year,
they only had one baby to take care of.  It was named E-14 and thrived, consuming
enormous quantities of food, growing rapidly.

Yesterday evening, a report on the eagle blog said that blood was seen on the
baby's foot, on his left-wing, and on his left side.  The blog didn’t make it sound that serious.

This morning I checked in and Mom was standing next to E-14, looking down at it.  The
images are so clear that normally I see the baby breathing. Not this morning.  Mom
pecked at its foot and the baby didn’t move. Dad came and stood next to her, looking
down at their baby.

An announcement a few minutes later confirmed that baby E-14 had passed.

I am so sad.  Goodbye, little eagle.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Fast Forward

On vacation, we’re staying in a condo, the same size as our home, layout about the
same, comfortable bed, comfortable furniture.  The kitchen is more than
adequate--important to me because I do most of the cooking when we are on vacation.

But there is a downside.  We watch a fair amount of television.  We mostly watch
separately. I watch a lot of sports, movies and science/history programs.  Aloma
has her special programs. While we watch different programs, we do have
something in common.  Ninety percent of the programs we watch have been
recorded. We are both masters at fast-forwarding through commercials, always
stopping at just the right time.  I can start a recorded football game thirty minutes
after it has started and watch it and a two-hour movie and finish both as the football
game ends.

Our vacation condo doesn’t have a DVR.  Everything we watch is live with
commercials that take forever.  Aloma mutes the TV during commercials.
My strategy is to have a book or writing pad so I’ll have something to do during
commercials.  Another issue is we have to watch the shows that are broadcast
live. I’m okay after lunch when I watch CNBC or Fox Business. But in the evening,
nothing is ever scheduled that I want to watch.  After all, watching the Weather
Channel for four hours is kinda boring.

We have a Netflix account but we discovered the wi-fi here doesn’t support it.

I read this blog to Aloma before I posted it. She said, “Stop whining and go
watch the Weather Channel.”

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com