I spent the day at my niece’s, as planned, cutting the last maple tree down, and cutting up everything we cut down yesterday. This is the ‘after’ shot: Tonight, I’m sore, particularly my arms, but happy we got that done! The willow stump will remain as is, get sealed, and we’ll see if it tries to grow back. Willows, apparently, are...

My niece finally realized she better get the damaged trees and limbs removed from her backyard before the city calls itself done picking up all the debris residents pile up on their curbs. So, she put out a call for help and Second Son and I, the most experienced with a chainsaw and cutting down trees, were elected as the main labor crew. Here’s what we had to...

Ironically, we are celebrating Oklahoma’s Centennial this year. To wind up a year of celebration with a bang, Mother Nature delivers the worst ice storm on record for our state. A cool 45% of the state lost power in this storm, and over 6,000 linemen and other utility people came running to our rescue, some arriving as early as last Monday night. Our power...

Just a quick post to let everyone know our power was restored last night at 10:30pm! We have lights and heat! Phone and Internet access will be restored on Wednesday, so I’m still hangin’ out at my favorite Barnes and Noble store ’til then. But that’s ok – they’ve got good coffee here.

This is a picture of my neighbor’s front yard. Lovely, huh? It was gorgeous Sunday night. See that street light at the right edge of the picture? The light from it shining through the ice-covered branches of what once was pretty tree made it sparkle like a crystal Christmas tree ornament. Now…not so much. The saddest part of all of this – even...

No sooner than I get that last post posted, but our power went out. Not all that surprising – irritating, yes, surprising? No. Second Son and I called it a night and went to bed. I saw and heard the power try to come back on somewhere just before dawn, so I went back to sleep figuring it would all be back on when I woke. But, God had other plans for us. At...

Normally, pink is pretty. But in the winter in Oklahoma, it’s the last thing you want to see on a weather map. Unless, of course, you’re a school age kid – then it depends on just how much pink you see. On a weather map, pink means ice. Pink is good because schools tend to close when the map turns pink like tonight’s has. Here at our house,...

Aside from being culturally advanced, Oklahoma also has another unique characteristic: it’s volatile weather. For example, we had a high of 80 degrees yesterday afternoon, and the temperature has done nothing but drop since. Our low tonight is predicted to be 28 degrees. We have many days during the winter when we wake up to the high for the day. Why? Well,...

…which is a colloquial way of saying, “Kiss my ass.” (Intimating that the ass you’re invited to kiss is either very large, or you’re welcome to kiss as much of it as you like.) Yes, I actually had someone say it to me in just that fashion today. But then, I do live in the culturally advanced state of Oklahoma. (Go ahead and take a...

Finally, after over a week of triple-digit temperatures, we had some rain last night. Today’s high is only in the 90′s (only…ha!) but it’s amazing the difference. I guess everything’s relative, because when the temps first hit the 90′s after the 2 months of rain we had, we all thought we were going to suffocate…but now...