Monday, January 16/2012

It rained off and on through the night and although there are clouds in the sky this morning, the sun is managing to shine through.  Perhaps as the day progresses, the clouds will disappear and we will get uninterrupted sunshine.  Now wouldn't that be nice.  It is still blistering cold back home - they are truly in a deep freeze!!
The birds are busy at the feeder and since I did not fill it yesterday, it is darn near empty so I had to go fill it before I could sit down and enjoy my coffee.  Once that was done, I had my morning's entertainment.  Hogan is currently out chasing some vicious rabbit and I suspect will return with a few thorns sticking in him!!  I guess one can not look, where one is running when in "hot:" pursuit!!  I had better get my thorn removing pliers out - just in case!!
The wind came up a bit today so it wasn't until around 2 o'clock that it was pleasant enough to sit outside.  I started mucking around with the cholla stems Keith and I had harvested several weeks ago and now have several all cleaned up and ready for sanding.  All the little holes have been cleaned out and should show the light through them just fine.  I was thinking about putting a small string of LED lights inside so that the light shines through all the holes.  I will have to try it and see.  Keith and Charlotte have a single solar powered light inside each one of theirs and it looks good so I may have to be on the lookout for a few of those to use with my display.
John was busy tinkering with wires again today and has now declared the job DONE!!  All the solar panels are hooked up and working fine.  They are putting plenty of power to the batteries and I think John is quite proud of himself -  as he should be proud of himself for this job as it is rather complicated and needed to be done properly to get all the benefits from the panels.
We spent a quiet evening as usual and thanked our blessings that we are sitting here in the desert instead of back home where the temperatures are in the -45C (-50C with the windchill) range.  That is way too cold for man or beast - not to mention vehicle!!