Cellphone Made Me Feel Like a Fool TWICE!

The screen went blank on Bond's third phone in a year. I'd run his first through the wash. The second one we found at the bottom of the pallet wood-scrap barrel was unreliable, probably why it wound up in the barrel without a Sim card, but with a charged battery (so we knew it worked). We found it a charger at Amazon for 3 cents plus shipping. #2 was also out-dated so we replaced it.

A blank screen made phone #3 almost useless; he could use speed dial or answer it. But If Bond missed a call he couldn't see who'd called and couldn't call them back. And forget about texts. But he'd never been able to turn off predictive text and refused to use that anyway. Most annoying was that he couldn't turn off the daily 6 AM alarm! He'd leave phone #3 in a far away room when he wanted to sleep in.

Phone #4 arrived via UPS on Friday. I unpacked it and put the battery in to charge the necessary (but very short) 4 1/2 hours. The other phone was still at work so I couldn't install the Sim card until later.

While Bond cooked our chicken dinner I read him the instructions and moved the Sim card. After a short break for a cocktail and chicken livers on toast, I returned to the instructions to learn how to turn the phone on. Instructions said to press and hold the "soft key". As I studied them, I noticed that the keys looked suspiciously smudged. I couldn't find one that looked like the picture so I pressed and held down the "disconnect" key and it started up, greeted me with "Hell-o Moto" and then told me there was no Sim card. At first I thought I'd installed the card wrong. Then I realized I'd picked up phone #3, FOOLISH ME! I changed to the other phone and continued the set up, including calling it with my phone and, later, calling my mom on speakerphone for a lovely family chat.

It wasn't until the next day I realized THE SCREEN WORKED! Bond had tried everything to make the phone work, EXCEPT taking out the battery.

I can predict the future.

I woke up this morning at 5:30. Thought it was too early to get up until I calculated (because I fell asleep on the new PBS Brit-drama) that I'd had about 7 hours of sleep. Worried a bit about the winds from the predicted ice storm bringing down the dead pine next to the house and then dragged myself out of bed because "this may be my only chance to get a hot cup of coffee before the power goes out." As I counted to five, filling the electric pot with just the minimum 2 cups of cold water, the power went out. RATS! too late!
SO DARK! Not even one tiny l.e.d. to guide me back to bed where we stayed comfortably snoozing until noon, too lazy to get up and start a fire in the wood stove in the next room. It probably helped us sleep to know we have 2 wood stoves and plenty of fuel to keep us warm in case the power stays out for days.

Pollywog Update

 

6 weeks later and a bit bigger.  I’ve been adding about 4 gallons of water a day when it doesn’t rain.  I let the water sit 24 hours to evaporate the chlorine, so it won’t kill whatever the little guys eat.

Too many choices?

Is this an example of why we need clear rules, or just dinner time in a tiny Southern town?

Change of Plans; pollywog sighted!

I'd talked myself in to believing the spring frogs' eggs laid in winter, and tadpoles could not have possibly survived the snow and freezing weather and had given the "OK" to drain the low spot in the driveway.

In fact I'd even started to lower the ground and had sent some water down hill yesterday.

This afternoon I spotted a pollywog!

8 more weeks of impassable driveway until they leave the water. AND I'd better set up the MegaCatch mosquito trap so we don't get eaten up by any skeeters that the pollywogs don't get.

Pollywog is just to the right of the floating blossom. I could tell what it is by how it swam away to hide under the leaves. That may be another one at the top and center on the sweetgum leaf.

I believe these are Copes Grey tree frogs because their parents sound sorta like this
http://www.uga.edu/srelherp/anurans/hylchr.AU

camouflage

We took apart an old wood pile mostly filled with cast off twigs, anywhere from 1 to 3 inches in diameter and up to 6 feet long. Moved some to our wood rack on the porch to see us through this winter and burned the rest which were rotten and bug eaten.
Following our habit when working around any old structure in the woods, with cell phones in our pockets, we moved slowly, watched for movement, watched our feet and stepped away now and then to let any hidden reptiles make a calm exit. As is usual with any spot that 'looks like a good place for a snake' we found none. Not sure if that's disappointing or not; some critters are really beautiful.

However, about half way down, I found evidence that it HAD been a good place for a snake to shed its skin.

When I took this photo I put a ruler next to the skin to show the size. Snake skin stretches as it peels off, so this really wasn't very large for a timber rattler. Perhaps this was the snake that lost it's life in the showdown with Copper, the cat. (Truthfully, the one Copper cornered and our good neighbor, Paul, shot.)

Later in the day I spied this stick which is obviously the inspiration for the the timber rattler camouflage.

So cold the frogs stopped singing!

I still am not used to hearing frog songs in winter. The last one I remember hearing this year was down at the corner on Christmas day. Erin and I were digging out little dams in the road side ditch to give the surface water somewhere to go so that our septic system's drain field would drain and stop backing up into the ground floor showers. (I guess I'd filled the tank up washing linens and dishes in preparation for his return.) At the other end we were amazed to see the water coming UP out of the end of the French drain in to the ditch whose bottom now has eight inches or more of good Georgia silt above the opening; there was that much pressure from the saturated soil uphill from the house.

The frog was at the low end hoping his croaking would attract a lady frog to the temporary pond where their eggs would be safe from water born predators. Our efforts supplied more water but I do not know if he was successful.

I do know it got so cold this week I need a nose warmer.