And garden rebuilding decisions have been made. More soon.
We'd done our research on various places to get a quarter cow, and this one seemed very reasonable and reputable so when the time came we had no reservations. Wisconsin River Meats is the place, in the middle of nowhere outside of Mauston, WI. And while we were there we stocked up on various sausages, jerky and bacon as well. And while less than half the people we saw wore a mask, both customers and employees, everyone was very nice and helpful. We, of course, wore ours.
So, we're feeling pretty good about ourselves now with a freezer full of meat that will last us at least a year. In fact, while I have a ticket for another livestream concert later tonight, I just might have a fire this evening!
I made several trips in my big snow boots out to the compost bin so far this year, and one side trip over to the woodpile to re-fasten the velcro on the right side. I retraced my steps back through the deep snow to my path to the compost bin, so only one set of tracks and you can still see them here, barely hanging on. Pretty dramatic difference from where the sun hits and where it doesn't.
The forecast calls for it to get cooler, day by day, until next week when there is (so far) a chance for snow again on Monday, but we'll see. Do you have spring fever yet?
P.S. Happy Birthday to my sister, Kelly!
There's always usually some reason for people to put signs in their yards in our neighborhood. Whether it's the latest cause or election to things that are just artistic or fun. I've just been noticing again and thought to capture them on our walk today. This isn't even all of them, I spotted several more, especially for Black Lives Matter, and some were the same so not repeated here. This near east side of Madison can be very expressive, not only in the signs in the yards but the yards and houses themselves. I love that about this area.
I got a picture from the top of the street, similar to one of my favorite pictures from last year that I still have as my desktop background. A stark difference with the bare trees, overcast skies and dirty, melting snow, but I like the difference. I wish I would have gotten a picture like this when everything was covered in pretty, white snow. March may still provide that opportunity.
Another difference in this picture is that a couple weeks ago the city removed 3 large trees on the street. You can see the sawdust on the right side of the street, and just a bit further down on the left. The third is further down on the right, out of sight here. I hate to lose big trees on the street, they're one of my favorite things about living in an older neighborhood. They might have been Ash trees, not sure, but the city has been eliminating those due to the Emerald Ash Borer, a beetle that kills Ash trees that has been spreading across the country. And the red house on the left used to be yellow.
It was nice getting out of the house and getting some exercise. Hopefully we keep it up and get out for more walks, and soon my attention will need to turn to rebuilding the raised garden beds. I've been looking at materials, and I'll likely end up using treated lumber again and hope to get 10 years out of it. It will be a lot of work and, while I'm sure I'll enjoy the process, I'll be very happy once it's done.
Curious, I looked at the Blogger stats and it showed 288 pageviews yesterday. That's only a few dozen less than I normally get a month! Oh, and notice almost all are from the UK? What's going on over there, guys? Could it possibly be Wargasm UK fans? Or - probably more likely - just some 'bot checking me out? What would you make of this?
They are Sam Matlock and Milkie Way, from London, and while they call themselves Wargasm I see them referred to as Wargasm UK in several places. I'm pretty sure that's because there's already been a band named Wargasm for a few decades now, but they're kids so I'm sure they didn't know. If you're into genres they call themselves Nu-Metal, but call it what you will, I only know that I like what I like and that's as it should be. While I've not been able to get their music out of my head recently, they need to do a bit more over longer to justify me writing a full LLP post, I think. Wargasm UK has no albums and only 7 singles released since they started a couple years ago. That's all I found of them, aside from remixes, and I bought them all digitally the only place I could find them - Amazon. I thought it was well worth it to encourage their behavior and I hope I hear much more of them, and sooner than later. (I also hope it's even better!)
I'm not sure I have a favorite song they do, but this one is real good. And while they have some good live videos out there, here's the official video for their song Spit. Enjoy!
I liked the reaction to the first snow removal time lapse video, so I did it again. It had been snowing since the early morning hours, light and fluffy with it being so very cold out. I went out to clear it a little after 2:30 this afternoon and the sun had come out nicely after the snow had passed. Too bad that didn't warm more than my soul - it was only 1ºF (-17ºC) when the video was shot. And sorry, the video's a little crooked, and I stopped recording before shoveling the front walk and stoop and cleaning off the car, so it's less than 75 seconds long.
We have a three day weekend due to President's Day on Monday and, while we'll have plenty of time for rest and relaxation, we do have a few things we want get done. First off is to get a load over to Goodwill, and we need to order a new clothes washer as the bearings are going in ours. Not unusual for bearings after almost 12 years, but the problem is they make it so to replace them is to replace most of the machine so it's just cheaper to buy a new one. The repairman said it could last another year like this but it sounds dreadful and now is the time of year those things are cheapest. Third, we want to get another quarter cow ordered. It will be at least a month until it will be ready and our beef supply is practically down to nothing.
The current forecast says salt won't melt ice until maybe Wednesday, and we might even get up to the freezing point in just over a week. Shorts and t-shirt weather! That's all for this weekend's weather report - other than one kind of funny thing to mention is that I had to buy ice yesterday. Our ice maker is on the fritz and that repairman won't be out for over two weeks yet, but I thought it was just odd to be buying ice in the middle of such a cold spell like I was going on a picnic or something.
We got several inches of snow last night and this morning, and there is still a little more coming yet today. The mounds along the walks and especially the streets are getting bigger, and it would be nice if we had a stretch of nice weather to knock them down some. If I was a kid, though, this would be a lot of fun, especially if there was a sled hill nearby. But at my age, well, let's just say it's not as much fun. At least we don't have to go anywhere today.
