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Friday, November 7, 2014

Fire up the Furnace Day

Waiting on line
What chore did I have waiting for me upon our return?--changing over from our cooling system to our heating system.  I had to get on the roof to disconnect our evaporative cooler and drain the water reservoir, then ready the furnace for firing up.  Before doing the latter I had to run out to buy a furnace filter because the extra one I "thought" I'd bought last year was nowhere to be found.  It's a good time to have the furnace ready; we were 39 F this morning, and I hear a real doozy of a polar vortex is set to descend from Alaska.
Heading out of the driveway

Early-morning hot-air ballooning

On the trail at last

Cactus Wren in a Yucca

Purple mountains' majesty

Tracks of a large Mule Deer

Heading east to Tortugas

Why it's called "Ladderback Woodpecker"

3 comments:

Dr. K said...

I appreciate you turning on the furnace for us, Packrat.

Scott said...

I've had the furnace on for several weeks, now, Packrat. If I didn't, the house would be around 55 degrees--and Kali (and honestly, I) would not tolerate that!

Different topic: I don't know if you've been following the exploits of Dorian Anderson, a birder from Boston who has crossed the country doing a Big Year on his bicycle. He's documenting his exploits with daily blog posts on bikingforbirds.blogspot.com. In any case, in an effort to save money on lodging, he's been staying with local hosts whenever he can. I found him a place with other bloggers in Arcata, CA and I tried to get him to stay with my brother-in-law in San Diego, but he had better accommodations closer to the coast than where my brother-in-law lives. Dorian's in eastern Arizona now, headed toward Texas (finishing on the Texas Gulf Coast at the end of the year. He wants to spend a lot of time birding the Lower Rio Grande Valley in the next two weeks and could use a place to stay--not necessarily one place for the whole time in the LRGV. If you and Dr. K would be interested in putting up (and putting up with) this interesting character, check out his blog or email him at bikingforbirds@gmail.com.

packrat said...

Thanks for the tip about Dorian Anderson. I'll check out his website. Not sure we'd be able to accommodate him, though, as we'll be up and back from High Rolls several times and then heading to Arizona ourselves.

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