Frozen

I went out yesterday morning to feed the various wild things that get fed, and came across a curious site while doing so; that being a frozen stream coming from the shed downspout.
 

We've had plenty of cold and snow during the almost 8 years that I've been here, but this is the first time that this has happened.

It had gotten above freezing the day before for the first time since the storm rolled in last week, but got back down into the teens during the night, so I'm assuming that the stuff on the roof started to melt and then refroze; thus causing this neat effect.

You can sort of see too that there were actually two icicles/ice streams going all the way to the ground.

Anyway, I thought it was kind of neat, and am glad that I got to see it before it melted. 

Last night was supposedly the last time that we'll be under the freezing mark for at least the next week, and as I mentioned the other day, we're gonna be getting some 60's in a few days, with rain, so that'll be a lot nicer, even with the rain, than the -24° and snow that we had last week.

Joy of a Completed Puzzle: Antique Barn

It's been a while since I've put together a puzzle, maybe six months, possibly longer. The last one I did wound up missing a piece, which is always the shits, and usually puts me off puzzles for a bit; hence my going so long in-between puzzles.

I don't usually do puzzles that contain cutesy animals, but the ones on this particular puzzle were negated by all of the wonderful stuff that's been set out for sale.

This was a fun puzzle, thanks mostly to the subject matter, and all of the colors.

Here's a few more photos where you can see what's what a little better:

Sell sheet

Box cover

Puzzle Details:

Maker: Buffalo Games & Puzzles

Series: Country Life

Title: Antique Barn

Size: 1000 pieces

Price paid: $1

Ugh

That's what I woke up to yesterday. And we never even got our 5°, as it couldn't get past the 0° (real feel -18°). It's hard to believe that that it had been 43° less than twelve hours earlier.

And we've had some minus degree days during the almost eight years that I've been here, but I don't recall the real feel ever getting down to -24°. It's funny too, because I went outside during the afternoon to take a few photos, and make sure that nothing was amiss. And while doing so, I was thinking it was cold, but that it wasn't too bad -- that is until I turned to head back to the house and got blasted in the face by the wind.

I hadn't been dreaming of a white Christmas, but seeing as how it's not gonna get above freezing until Tuesday, I guess we're gonna have one.

And I know that some places were/are colder, and some places got a lot more snow, so I know that things could be worse, but still, for someone who's allergic to the cold, this is not fun. Thankfully it's supposed to be in the low 60's by the end of the week, so that's something to look forward to.

Oh, and I see that we're naming winter storms now. I don't know who decided that that needs to be a thing, but whoever you are, quit it, that's dumb. It's just a storm, that's it. It doesn't need a name.

Holly Jolly Finds

It was exactly two weeks ago that I covered my October trip to McKay's (a paradise for lovers of all things physical media), and now I'm here today covering my trip from earlier this month.

There's not much for me to build up this time. After striking out in the music department the last couple of times, I was really hoping to get some new (to me) music this time, but despite that being my primary goal (spoiler alert), I struck out again. I did alright in other areas though, so I guess it worked out okay in the end. I don't know why, but I seem to be having zero luck finding music (on any format) lately, no matter where I go. The same goes for toys as well, although that's more of a matter of me not willing to pay the current stupid-high prices for everything. With the music, I'm just not finding anything of interest, even amongst the overpriced stuff. But you didn't come here to hear about the stuff I didn't (or couldn't) find, so...

Nothing says Christmas quite like Dracula, eh? This was an impulse by from the middle grade bargain section. I had never heard of it, and it's got plenty of wear, but for 10¢, I couldn't leave it behind.

I just recently started seeing these Omnibus' for the Aliens and Predator series', and am kind of surprised that it took them so long to do these. This is only one that I'll be able to get, because I already have too many of the other books to justify anymore. I hadn't come across any decent copies of these three books, which is the only reason I didn't already own any of them. This will save time, and money, as just two of the individual books usually cost more than this did.

Going back to my last McKay's post, Cocoon is another title that I enjoyed more in book form than I did on film. It was able to breathe a lot more as a novel. And after reading the first one a couple of years ago, I was hoping that I'd come across the sequel at some point. This copy is a little rough, but it was cheap, and I didn't want to risk waiting a few more years before finding another.

I have owned Daniel Cohen's "Encyclopedia of Monsters" since I was about ten years old. It was a very important book to young me, an as such, is one of my more cherished possessions. The appearance of this book is exactly the same as "Monsters", save for the different title and subject matter, and it's kind of trippy to see the "same" book, but different, after all these years

More Daniel Cohen! I've read way too much about Atlantis, Stonehenge, and Easter Island, over the years, and subsequently don't really have a lot of interest in them anymore, but there are some other less trod topics in here as well, and those were enough for me to add it to my basket.

Someone had obviously picked this book up, walked around for a bit, then changed their mind about it. And as people are prone to doing, they couldn't be bothered to go put it back where they found it, instead sticking it on the nearest shelf at hand. Lazy people annoy the shit out of me, but this is one instance where I'm glad that at least one was wandering around the store, for I've been meaning to read this for the longest time, but always forget to look for it. I've seen all of the pre-2000 film adaptions, so I'm looking forward to finally reading the original source material.

Here's another book that I've been trying to find for a while now. It was printed in multiple editions, which altogether had to total at least a million copies, and yet for some reason, I have not been able to find a copy in the wild. There were actually there this time, one from before the film, and one from after the film. I wanted the pre-film copy, but it was in worse shape than the post-film copy, for the same price, so I ended up going with the one in better shape. I've been avoiding the film for years because everyone always talks about how different it is from the book, and how much better the book was; so I wanted to make sure that I read the book before seeing the film. I'm about 3/4 of the way through it right now. And I gotta be honest, it's a little disappointing. It was really good until about the halfway point, and now it's just dragging. I actually got to where I'm at about a week ago, and decided to take a break before I make the final push to get through the rest of it -- which I'll do after I finish the book that I've since started.

Only one Bobby Stine this time, and one that I wasn't familiar with to boot!

My heart really wasn't in looking through the bazillion bargain ($1.95 or less) DVD/Blu-Ray's this time, but after finding two things of interest during a cursory search of just one section, I figured that that was a sign that I needed to power through the whole enchilada; so I did.

I went through a "mob phase" during my early teens. Don't ask me why though, as I have no idea, it was just a thing that I was really into for a year or two. Even after all of these years, I still have some minor interest in the subject, just not enough to override any of the other things that I have more interest in; meaning that there just isn't enough hours in the day for me to squeeze in the mafia. Sorry boys, I just don't have enough time for you! That being said, 10 hours of entertainment for only $1.95 seemed like too god of a deal to pass up.

I've had Stargate on video for many, many years. I hadn't really ever thought about upgrading it, but decided to do so after finding this fancy-pants edition for 95¢. Now I can get a rid of the video, and have a smidgeon of extra space.

I still had cable back in '05, and distinctly remember all of the television spots leading up to the premiere of this miniseries, but for whatever reason, never saw it. I can't figure for the life of me why I didn't, it was my kind of subject matter, and it had a solid cast. It's almost like I temporarily disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle, and have zero recollection of my time there (kind of like Uncle Fester 😄).

Despite the many offerings in the bargain section, there usually isn't a lot of old stuff to be found, so I was pretty surprised to come across this one. I mentioned on my 'Penny Sleeve' blog a long time ago that I'm a big fan of old musicals, and will pick up just about any that I don't own, or haven't seen. I don't keep them all though, as there were plenty of stinkers, but I do own my fair share of them, including Gold Diggers of 1933 and 1935. 

This is the first time that I've found a 70's martial arts flick in the bargain stuff, and there's no way that I wasn't gonna take it home with me. Just like with the old musicals, I'll give pretty much any 70's or 80's picture from this genre a chance.

Like I said at the beginning, no new music, but I feel like I did pretty good otherwise. 

And as is often the case, I hit a few spots in Crossville on the way home, only one of which yielded any goodies, that being the Book Cellar...

Few things remind me of childhood more than giant Reader's Digest and Time Life books. Someday I really need to sit down and figure out how many more are out there that I don't have, because I would've bet at least a dollar that I had all of the woo-woo books from Reader's Digest, and yet, here's one that I didn't have. It's always nice when you can find them with their dust jackets too, as they are often missing.

Strangely enough, after finding this book, an old memory came back of me reading at this school way back when. I can't remember when that was exactly, but I do know that book didn't come from the school library itself, it was one of those books that was on a shelf in the classroom. I don't know if that's still a thing that is done, but I can recall books in the classroom at least until sixth grade. In fact, the last book that I can recall reading from a class shelf, was in sixth grade, and has been one of my most sought after books for many years now. Unfortunately, it's been out of print for decades, and is stupid expensive on the secondary market (I've never seen it for less than a $100).

I'm not sure if I remember this film coming out or not. It's not the most original of plots, so I may've seen the trailer and forgot about it, or I never saw the trailer and therefor never knew of it's existence. Either way, I'm more interested now in this novelization than I am in the actual film.

It wasn't from this particular day, but since I'm talking books and stuff, I'm gonna shoehorn one more thing here at the end...

My mom was volunteering at sale recently, and one of the benefits of doing so, aside from helping people out with a sale whose earnings went to a very good cause, was that she had access to, and the ability to purchase, stuff before the general public. There was a smattering of just about everything there, kind of like a giant estate sale. As is often the case, when she's around a bunch of stuff like this, I got sent a bunch of photos to see if I was interested in anything. Despite all of the stuff, aside from this book, which I think is gonna be really good, there wasn't much for me. Lots of neat things, but most of it I can easily live without.

Okay, I'm done now. And I promise, no more of these posts for at least a month, I'm serious!

Christmas miracle?

                                                                              

The Bristol Herald Courier 12/26/33

I think Miss Putthoff may've forgot to "put off" the gas when she took the bread out of the oven.

Watch those digits!

There are a LOT of ponds and lakes in my general area. So many in fact that a lot of folks have them on their properties, myself included. And when I say pond, I'm not talking about some fancy coy pond, no, these are just holes in the rock shelf that runs not too far below the topsoil for many miles in all directions. Obviously, said holes fill up with water, and you got yourself a pond. Or, if they're big enough, a lake. 

And since I live in a still relatively undeveloped area, it should come as no surprise to hear that a lot of wild things live in said ponds and lakes.

I'd say that at least half the properties in my "neighborhood" have a pond, so it's especially common to have one right around here. I've never measured it, but mine is probably around 20' x 10', and 4-5' at it's deepest point. It can vary quite wildly in size though. Three of the seven summers that I've been here, it's dried up completely, and pretty much every fall or winter it swells to half a size bigger with all of the rain that we get. 

Last week was one of those swelling weeks, as we had many, many inches of rain that ultimately led to some minor flooding. I thought it was gonna be much worse, so no complaints from me, well, aside from it being all dreary out for most of the week. 

On he second day of  rain, I happened to look out at the pond just in time to catch a bit of movement behind it, and even though I was pretty sure of what I had seen, I ran and grabbed the binoculars to confirm my suspicion -- which they did. It was only misting at that point, so I put my rubber boots on real quick, and made my way over to the source of movement.

That my friends is a snapping turtle, and at close to 18" across the back, a nearly full size snapper at that. As per usual, I took a few photos, most of which didn't come out very well thanks to the mist that was falling. This one turned out pretty well though, note the tail on the right.

Tempted as I always am, I resisted the urge to pick him or her up, so there's not a lot for scale here. An addition to the already stated measurements, I'd hazard a guess that this one was in the 25-30 pound range.

This is zoomed in a little too much, but at least I got semi-decent shot of that little dinosaur tail.

I think that this the fourth or fifth snapper that I've been fortunate enough to encounter since moving here, although this was the first one that has been over at the pond. Usually the pond only houses frogs and dragonflies (with the occasional sandhill crane stopping by as well) during the spring and summer, so it was pretty neat to find that this big cutie is most likely wintering in their this year.

EXTREME CLOSEUP!

I realize too that I should be including a picture of the pond itself in here, but it's really dreary over there during the winter what with everything being dead and all, and I don't have a good picture of it during the spring, so I'll try to get one in a few months when everything starts greening up again and stick it in a post then.

I've been putting aside some money to get a couple of decent trail cams next year, one of which will be going over by the pond, so hopefully in the future I won't have to be looking outside at just the right moment to see who's stopping by.