Friday, February 8, 2008

It's For the Birds!


The weather outside is frightful (again!) but the fire is so delightful…sigh. It’s only delightful if you aren’t the one who has to chop and carry the firewood every damned day!!

The Bag Lady is getting just a wee bit tired of winter. Oh, what a liar she is!! She’s totally and completely fed up with this freakin’ cold weather and wishes it would just go the hell away!! Sheesh.

She has used up all her coping methods for this type of weather – one can only stay inside and not look out the windows for so long! There are things that absolutely must be attended to that require bundling up and actually leaving the house. And when the Bag Lady says bundling up, she means it. Long johns, jeans, heavy socks, T-shirt, shirt, heavy jacket, boots, gloves, ear-muffs and scarf.

One good thing about the cold weather is that she gets to see a lot of birds. She has 3 birdfeeders in her yard that attract all kinds of birds. Yesterday she had Pine Grosbeaks, Common Redpolls (as opposed to the unusual ones…who named them, anyway? Is that common as in ‘trashy’, or what? They seem like perfectly nice little birds – well, okay, a wee bit competitive, but hey…), Nuthatches, Chickadees, and Downy Woodpeckers.

She had to rescue a chickadee from her sunporch yesterday. She’s guessing one of the cats caught it, took it into the sunporch through the hole in the screen door, then lost hold of it. She has no idea how long the poor little thing was stuck in there, but it must have been awhile, because he really wasn’t all that difficult to catch. She tried opening the door and guiding him out, but he must have been very confused by all the windows. He finally just gave up after crashing into the glass several times, and allowed her to pick him up and carry him outside.

She doesn’t want all of you to think she is a total whiner. (She casts her mind about, desperately trying to think of something positive to say about the cold weather…)
Oh, she heard somewhere that if it stays cold long enough, it will kill off the Pine Beetles that have been decimating our forests. Unfortunately, that “long enough” part is something like “below -40 for three weeks”. Tough little bastards. Tougher than the Bag Lady, ‘cause if it stays that cold for that long, well…

Don’t get the wrong idea. The Bag Lady doesn’t mind winter, it’s the extreme cold that she hates. And the bad roads. And the snow. And the…you get the idea. She doesn’t like extreme heat, either though. She liked it when she was younger, but now that she has her own little tropical vacations (every damned day, several times a day!!), she prefers the temperate zone.

Goodness, this has certainly turned into a bitch session. Sorry folks. What about the rest of you? Tell the Bag Lady about something good happening to take her mind off her troubles!

17 comments:

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

Uh...temps in the 70s here today?

Sorry. Probably not what you were wanting to hear.

I can't handle cold at all. You're a lot tougher than you give yourself credit for!

Emily said...

You need to come live down here in the south...it was 70 early this week but then it froze last night. Hmmmm...the weather here is bipolar!! The saying in GA is "If you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes." We don't ever have totally extreme weather either- doesn't usually get over 100 or close to 0 : )

JavaChick said...

Bag Lady - Glad the flower pictures on my blog today gave you a little cheer.

It's not as cold here in Saint John right now, but I'm still ready for winter to be over. I don't have to chop firewood, but I carry it in from the garage every day and light the fire every day and it makes such a mess on the floor around the fireplace. Sigh.

Spring is coming. Really. It is.

the Bag Lady said...

BG - the Bag Lady is starting to get wimpy in her old age - the cold bothers her more and more. Temps in the 70's sounds lovely.

Emily - they say that about Alberta, too - the weather can change very quickly here.
Are there snakes in Georgia? Or those really big spiders that can carry away small animals? *shudder*

the Bag Lady said...

javachick - the mess is a pain in the butt, isn't it? We use our stove constantly because of the screwy way we built the house - the living room where the stove is was built first, and only had the stove for heat originally. There are a couple heat ducts from the furnace in there now, but it's a huge space and they are inadequate. If we don't keep the stove going, the living room gets really cold, and cools off the rest of the house. Sigh.
They are forecasting warmer weather for Monday - perhaps just to keep us hopeful.

Leah J. Utas said...

Lousy weather is really good for writing. Sorry, that's all I've got.
We've got snow and blowing snow right now and I'm glad I don't have to go outside.

Emily said...

Yes, we do have snakes but I've never been bitten by one and the only ones I've seen were dead on the road. As for spiders, we don't have too many but I have come across the occasionally big harry SOB that probably eats babies. Now didn't that just paint a lovely picture of Georgia?!?

the Bag Lady said...

dfLeah - glad you don't have to go out in the poor weather. The Bag Lady does have to do some stuff, unfortunately. But it can wait until later in the day when there's a possibility it will be slightly warmer.

Emily: Okay, staying here.
The Bag Lady has an irrational fear of snakes and spiders. She judges spiders on a sliding Kleenex scale - the size of the spider determines how many Kleenex it takes to kill it! And she can't touch any spider parts, even after it is dead. Might get some kind of spider-goo-induced disease...

Carpe Diem said...

Hi Bag Lady, Glad to have found your blog - it's awesome! Our northern temps have dropped today too. Down to -18c, but much warmer than last week's -33c! I can handle that cold, as long as we don't have the wind.
Keep warm!

the Bag Lady said...

Hi, Carpe Diem! Glad to have you visit. And thanks for the compliment about my blog...that's very kind. Hope you come back and comment again - I'll slip over and visit you, too, since we're practically neighbours!

Reb said...

Lovely picture Sis! The sun is coming up earlier!

the Bag Lady said...

Reb - yes, yes it is. Doesn't seem to be making it any warmer yet, but it is up earlier.

Anonymous said...

It's FRIDAY!! :-)

the Bag Lady said...

Yes, missicat, it is!
And the Cowboy might even have the weekend off...maybe. Which would be good because, among other things, the wood supply is dwindling to the stuff that the Bag Lady has a hard time splitting.

Mamacita Chilena said...

I'm not thinking you're a total whiner, I'm thinking that you're telling the truth. You should definitely move to the South, that's why I went to school in Florida. I absolutely could not stand the cold weather in the North. It depressed me (and yes, I complained all the time too).

I feel your pain.

Hilary said...

It's snowing here.. again. We had about 20 cm (8 inches) which got rained away early in the week. On Wednesday we got 30 cm (12 inches). The good news.. May is less than 3 months away. :)

the Bag Lady said...

Mamacita - the Cowboy called me from work a little while ago and told me to look for a ranch in Argentina...he must be feeling the same way about the cold! (what language do they speak there?)

Hilary - you're back! It snowed here too, a very little bit - just enough to blow around in the wind! The wind is still making it feel like -40 something.
Sounds like you are definitely getting your share of moisture!