RE The Weather: so this happened last month

April 20, 202414 Comments

Most of us, though not all, have had our share of lots of rain, storms and or tornadoes. One or the other and combinations too. We have been fortunate this season in that we have not had tornadoes in our area. We did, however, have a couple of serious thunderstorms! One which blew through at about 2:30 AM.

Like the earthquakes in California, I have also become conditioned to harsh, booming thunder, that shakes the house and makes the windows rattle. Upon occasion, I have even witnessed it hit the ground or fire huge snapping thunder bolts into the pine woods behind our house.

This particular storm was different in that I was awake and bumbling about in the kitchen and dining area at that wee hour of the morning. I heard the storm, but wasn’t concerned until it BOOMED right outside our dinning room windows! On the tail of the boom, there was an almost immediate explosion over the kitchen sink! One of the overhead sink lights was gone out. Just one, but it sounded like an M80 when it went, and right as I was walking by the sink. I shrieked of course, and then quickly ran to the dining room door to turn on the backyard flood lights. Nothing happened. I tried the dinning room lights. Nothing.

Bob came in and checked the breaker box and found the thrown breaker. Resetting it fixed the problem. Crisis averted I thought, but no…

Later that day we tried to turn on the television in the dinning room and it wouldn’t turn on. Bob checked the breaker box and nothing else had been tripped. “Strange”, he said.

Further investigation revealed that the signal booster, television, cables into the TV and out of the TV and into the computer that provided the feed to the TV, and ultimately the computer itself, were all fried! Later we would find out that the standing TV antenna out by the corner of the house had been hit.

That is what acted as a lightning rod and fed the electricity into the house via the coaxial and into all our equipment. And, most thankfully, not our house.

Just like this

The bold black line is the path of the coaxial from the TV antenna to the computer

I also discovered in the morning, that a monster oak in the neighbors pasture had taken a direct hit too!

LOL! I never noticed until this moment how much of an accent I have picked up after 16 years in Alabama. No doubt some of my Cali friends will get a big laugh out of this.

And then this week we have discovered that one of the flood lights was toasted at the base as well. Only one, not both, though both are in the same fixture.

What else may we find as time goes by? Hopefully that was all of it.

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Over then next few weeks I would like to catch you up on what other things have been going on here. Some within the last year and some even longer into the past. Title form will look something like this: RE (whatever): so this is what happened (some time frame from the past).

BUT FIRST, I want to tell you about my vacation, and That’s in my next post!

See you soon.

A little thing that happened yesterday

January 21, 2024January 26, 202418 Comments

It has been unbearably cold for us all week. Temperature was down to zero one night and hasn’t gone above freezing for days.

All this cold weather meant that we never opened the curtains and insulating blinds. We also had to drape the windows in the dinning room (previous owner’s sun room) with blankets. It worked by the way, which tells me I have a big project ahead of me for all those windows!

We’ve had very low fuel, because the propane guy couldn’t get out here to deliver to us, or anyone. You see, the snow and sleet froze solid and all the roads were closed. All of them. To further conserve fuel we turned the heat way down to 62, closed the doors to unused rooms (big house) placed a space heater in the living room, and when it got down in the teens during the day we even turned on the electric oven to help warm things up a bit. The oven has a cast iron lining and holds onto its heat for hours helping to heat the living/kitchen area.

So yesterday afternoon we were buried under blankets in the living room and trying to stay warm. When we heard a loud smack on the front room window, Bob jumped and said, “What was that?” I told him I thought it might be a bird and then got up to look out on the porch.

It was a bird, a Yellow Bellied Sapsucker to be exact. It had crashed into the window so hard it was laying crumpled on the bench and not moving. I went over to check and see if it was alive. It was, although it had knocked itself silly.

Leaning down I gently picked it up and brought it into the house. I found a small box, lined it with a hand towel and placed him inside. Then I covered the top loosely with another small towel, and put him in the bathroom where it was quiet and a bit warmer. About 20 minutes later I thought I heard some scratching noises and went in to check on him. He was sitting up and giving me a wary look. Putting the cover back over the top I took the box out to the porch and set it on the bench. I uncovered it and told him I hoped his headache didn’t last too long and that he would be more careful when flying about windows.

He wasted no time listening to my admonitions. He just flew out of the box and headed towards the setting sun.

I have been in awe of these birds since we moved here. Holding one in my hands was a gift and I am glad that he was able to fly. Maybe he will come back to visit? And though I probably won’t know the difference between him and the others, it will be fun to imagine that it is him.

We have hope that tomorrow will actually give us the 36 degree high the weatherman promised and that our propane will be delivered on Monday.