Maybe my shortest post ever?

Posted on February 26, 2023 by Linda Schaub

Michigan had its worst ice storm in 50 years … I lost my internet sometime in the early morning hours of Thursday. It came back last night after I went to bed … I am going to try and catch up with comments later today and apologize to each of you. Now, I have to feed the critters because on my last trip to the Park the geese ate their food and the geese kept running after me as the squirrels looked helplessly on – fodder for another post – SMH. It snowed yesterday morning and we have another ice storm coming tomorrow morning … who ticked off Mother Nature? Winter (and creepy crawly things) remain the bane of my existence. ~~Linda

About Linda Schaub

This is my first blog and I enjoy writing each and every post immensely. I started a walking regimen in 2011 and decided to create a blog as a means of memorializing the people, places and things I see on my daily walks. I have always enjoyed people watching, and so my blog is peppered with folks I meet, or reflections of characters I have known through the years. Often something piques my interest, or evokes a pleasant memory from my memory bank, so this becomes a “slice o’ life” blog post that day. I respect and appreciate nature and my interaction with Mother Nature’s gifts is also a common theme. Sometimes the most-ordinary items become fodder for points to ponder over and touch upon. My career has been in the legal field and I have been a legal secretary for four decades, primarily working in downtown Detroit, and now working from my home. I graduated from Wayne State University with a degree in print journalism in 1978, though I’ve never worked in that field. I like to think this blog is the writer in me finally emerging!! Walking and writing have met and shaken hands and the creative juices are flowing once again in Walkin’, Writin’, Wit & Whimsy – hope you think so too. - Linda Schaub
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59 Responses to Maybe my shortest post ever?

  1. Anne says:
    February 26, 2023 at 8:23 am

    Hunker down and keep warm!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Linda Schaub says:
      February 26, 2023 at 4:59 pm

      Thanks Anne – now we pay the price for all those wonderfully sunny and warmish Winter days. The weather sure is wacky worldwide. I’m hoping this freezing rain fizzles – fingers crossed.

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  3. Zazzy says:
    February 26, 2023 at 9:01 am

    Yikes! We’ve had a pretty dry winter here. It can be argued that we need rain but I would just as soon not have that in the form of ice storms! Stay warm, stay safe. I hope this next round does not knock out your internet or electricity.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Linda Schaub says:
      February 26, 2023 at 5:04 pm

      Thanks Zazzy – it was such a nice Winter, warmer and dryer than normal, except for the snowstorm on January 25th – I wondered when the real Winter weather was going to slam us. Now Mother Nature decides to take it out on everyone with Winter Storm Piper. California’s weather is just as amazing. I hope you remain unscathed. We still have people without power and hopefully this next bout of freezing rain is not as bad as last week’s.

      Liked by 1 person

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  4. Shelley@QuaintRevival.com says:
    February 26, 2023 at 9:11 am

    I’m so glad you’re okay and that your generator worked!!! Take your time to reply, I’m sure we all understand!! Enjoy the adventure to see the critters – I hope they encourage some smiles for your day! 🤗

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Linda Schaub says:
      February 26, 2023 at 5:08 pm

      Thank you Shelley – I despise Winter, always have. Worries about loss of heat for people and houses is one thing in Winter and though it wouldn’t kill us to lose power in the Summer, that weather is volatile as to tornadoes, derechos and gustnados, or even gusty winds. Unless my memory is poor, I never remember tornadoes wreaking havoc this time of year? As to here, it used to be we got one ice storm, usually in March, per year. I did enjoy my walk this morning – the geese stuck to themselves and didn’t scam food from the critters. We both were happy:)

      Liked by 1 person

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  5. downriverdem1 says:
    February 26, 2023 at 9:47 am

    Our power went out on Friday at 4 am. Our internet (AT&T) went out too. We’ve been using a generator. The house & internet came back on Saturday night. (Yay!) However the garage and electrical meter are out. Weird. We still have lines down in the yard that has given Wall Street (AP) no power. DTE sent us an email and they think we are totally out still. Strange.

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Linda Schaub says:
      February 26, 2023 at 5:20 pm

      Glad you are back online and now back to normal as to power Cathy. I was worried about all the downed wires and fires after looking in the Facebook Residents Forum on Wednesday night, especially when I saw the pictures of the arcing wires and trees on fire – deja vu from the downed wire/fire for me back on December 2nd. And people said they could not reach 911 as they had so many calls. I’m worried about the dead tree two doors down dropping another branch.

      I have not heard the stats how DTE is doing today as there has been a basketball game on WWJ for hours. They had 175,000 more customers to restore as of this morning. There were lots of big tree branches at Council Point Park. They had a staging area at the Park on Friday with lots of trucks – likely out-of-town linemen, but I couldn’t see what state; they might have even been Michigan subcontractors. Same thing this morning when I went past Mixter School. Lots of trucks parked there. I imagine they are parking the rigs there and trucking the workers to hotels, etc. for overnight. Comcast had a robo message saying they’d contact me when they had a time frame that service would be restored. I still have not received a message like that and I just checked on my own this morning. I hope tomorrow’s freezing rain event is not as bad as Wednesday’s event.

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  6. Ally Bean says:
    February 26, 2023 at 10:10 am

    I was wondering how you were doing up there? What a wacko winter this has been. Hoping you still have your power today.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Linda Schaub says:
      February 26, 2023 at 5:25 pm

      Michigan really got slammed Ally. We had 500,000 people out of power after Wednesday’s ice storm and as of this morning, 175,000 were still without power and even before the freezing rain for tomorrow morning, some people would not get their power restored until Tuesday. We dipped to 20 degrees Saturday morning, plus had a few inches of snow. It has been wacky – today was absolutely gorgeous out. I know they joke about if you don’t like Michigan weather, stick around a few hours, but this is ridiculous. So far so good for me – fingers crossed for tomorrow.

      Liked by 1 person

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  7. Barbara Rodgers says:
    February 26, 2023 at 11:58 am

    I was wondering how you were doing when I heard so many people in Michigan lost power. Glad to know you’re all right and hoping the next storm won’t pack as much of a punch. Three days is a long time without power but I assume you had your generator working. What a winter you’re having!

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Linda Schaub says:
      February 26, 2023 at 5:31 pm

      I’ll be glad to see this Winter end Barbara and tomorrow morning’s bout of freezing rain hopefully fizzles out before we have another disaster. They were mentioning the massive power outage here in Michigan on the CBS National News on the all-news radio station I listen too. Yes, I was okay, thankfully, but the power was out three days and I was unscathed by that, just losing internet for three days. I was anxious though as they said everyone would not be restored until Monday or Tuesday (and that was before this latest freezing rain prediction). I will be hopelessly behind here for a while.

      Liked by 1 person

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      • Barbara Rodgers says:
        February 27, 2023 at 6:18 am

        Losing the internet for three days would be a major challenge for me! Besides blogging I would have withdrawal from my daily visits to Ancestry.com. Take your time catching up, my friend.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Linda Schaub says:
        February 28, 2023 at 8:37 am

        I feel overwhelmed catching up Barbara. I lost my internet during work hours as a result of yesterday’s freezing rain and high winds. It came back but just one bar on my wireless the whole day and I finally shut down mid-evening as everything was slow or I the spinning icon on three different browsers. I’ve yet to figure out the WP issue and they sent me several solutions. one to cache my WP which I’ve never done. That will be a project for the weekend I guess. I did miss internet and knew it would be days before I caught up everywhere and meanwhile catching up in Reader will be this weekend … we are having an “impactful Winter storm” this Thursday into Friday so that will mess up things for a few days and I’ll hunker down inside. Your storm was the first item on the CBS radio national news – stay safe and I hope your power/internet is not affected.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Barbara Rodgers says:
        March 1, 2023 at 6:28 am

        We were fine — got about 5 inches. Our first real snow of the winter on the last day of February. Your storm is expected here Friday into Saturday. So far they think it will be a wintry mix.

        Like

      • Linda Schaub says:
        March 1, 2023 at 9:27 pm

        Glad you were okay with no issues from your snowstorm – five inches on the last day of the usually snowiest month is saying something. The newer weather models suggest we may get a wintry mix on Thursday into Friday and not the 3-6 inches originally predicted. That suits me fine. We had a gorgeous day today, so March came in like a lamb … guess that means we go out like a lion – ugh.

        Liked by 1 person

  8. Laurie says:
    February 26, 2023 at 1:35 pm

    Oh, NO!!! So sorry to hear about how Momma Nature is being so bad to you. And to hear that you were attacked by a GOOSE while you were doing a good deed!!! Stay warm.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Linda Schaub says:
      February 26, 2023 at 5:35 pm

      And we have another bout of freezing rain tomorrow morning – hopefully not as devastating. The geese are really fractious Laurie. I don’t know why as they don’t have their goslings with them yet and there is plenty of grass; it’s even greening up, but yes, they saw my bags and recognized it as food, so when they were done scamming the squirrels and birds’ treats, they started marching toward me. I had to cut my walk short … 32 geese looking at one benefactor was not sitting well with me! They kept to themselves this morning thank goodness!

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  9. trumstravels says:
    February 26, 2023 at 2:20 pm

    It was bad here too ! and now we are supposed to get another bad storm coming in tomorrow evening (Monday) and overnight and all day Tuesday. I was hoping winter was on it’s way out lol but I guess not…..Stay safe Linda

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Linda Schaub says:
      February 26, 2023 at 5:37 pm

      Wow – it sounds worse there than here. I hope this freezing rain event is over quickly. They said it will be plain rain in the afternoon, but the problem is the ice on the trees. And people still don’t have their power back from Wednesday’s ice storm. I’ve never been a fan of Winter. You stay safe too Susan.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  10. Kate Crimmins says:
    February 26, 2023 at 3:33 pm

    Hang in there. Ice storms are the worst. They can do a lot of damage.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Linda Schaub says:
      February 26, 2023 at 5:40 pm

      Thanks Kate. I hope tomorrow morning’s event is short-lived. They say it will be plain rain by afternoon, but some people still don’t have their power back from Wednesday’s storm. This is the 2nd worst storm in DTE, our energy provider’s 120-year history.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  11. Jessica says:
    February 27, 2023 at 10:10 am

    The weather is so strange right now. Here it’s usually icy in February. But, the next 3 days here are 70 degrees!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Linda Schaub says:
      February 28, 2023 at 9:06 am

      We are getting this weather whiplash here too … as miserable as it is today, (cold, wintry mix), we will be near 50 tomorrow. Yesterday’s wintry mix put me so behind here as I had internet issues again.

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  12. Janis @ RetirementallyChallenged.com says:
    February 27, 2023 at 1:28 pm

    Take care and be safe! It’s hard to be subject to Mother Nature’s whimsies.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Linda Schaub says:
      February 28, 2023 at 9:13 am

      Thank you Janis – we had another ice storm yesterday which wreaked havoc with our energy provider restoring power – as of this morning, some 50,000 customers are in day six with no power. Hard to imagine both U.S. coasts enduring snowstorms right now. Hope you are staying safe from this wacky weather.

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  13. Michael says:
    March 1, 2023 at 8:35 am

    That must he truly wild!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Linda Schaub says:
      March 1, 2023 at 10:09 pm

      We have had two ice storms on two successive Wednesdays in February Michael! There are people, as I write this, that still do not have their power on from the original storm a week ago. Their homes are 46F/7C. Local hotels are price gouging up to double their usual price – people saying they paid $400.00/$333.00 pounds just to get a good night’s sleep. We have another snowstorm coming this Friday … it HAD been a nice Winter until the last two weeks.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  14. singlikewildflowers says:
    March 3, 2023 at 9:18 pm

    This winter has been awful for you! How scary to have power outage and I don’t even know what an ice storm is. Stay safe Linda and careful on your walks. Warm hugs from CA!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Linda Schaub says:
      March 4, 2023 at 6:03 pm

      We had another storm yesterday … in the course of an hour, we went from rain to snow, to blizzard-like conditions and a few hours later it was freezing rain. I held my breath to see if I’d lose power/internet again. The snow was very wet – will have to shovel tomorrow, but amazingly we got to 43 and I just looked and where the sun hit was melted already – the street was a slushy mess this morning, but is all melted too. I guess I should have waited. We have another snow event the end of the week. I appreciate warm hugs – I am so done with Winter!

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      • singlikewildflowers says:
        March 5, 2023 at 3:32 am

        Oh my gosh, that’s just wild! I’d be holding my breath too with the weather news and not knowing if the power will go out. That’s a lot of weather anxiety and the inconvenience it causes. My goodness. You are so done with this winter. Yes, we trios send you sunshine hugs. 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

      • Linda Schaub says:
        March 5, 2023 at 8:01 pm

        Esther, I think since we had such an easy Winter (snow wise) is why it seems like a deluge of wintry weather. We were not in sync with the “real” Winter, so now everyone has an attitude about it. I feel for the people who still have no power after nearly two weeks. That’s just horrible in this cold weather. Thank you for the warm hugs and sunshine from all of you.

        Like

      • singlikewildflowers says:
        March 7, 2023 at 1:53 am

        Without power for 2 weeks? My goodness, that’s horrible, frightening, and a major inconvenience. Thankful you are not experiencing that.
        This has been the rainiest winter for us in like 10 years, and it’s still very cold. Our weather would be considered mild for you, so I say “chilly” with hesitation. But seriously, it gets cold!!

        Liked by 1 person

      • Linda Schaub says:
        March 7, 2023 at 7:00 pm

        Sometimes here in the Spring, we will have days that start out with the furnace on and end with A/C on … not running it more than a few hours, but just enough to cool things off a little. The rain has to be a drag now that it has worn out its welcome. I did not hear anything about the power outages today, for the first time in nearly two weeks, so they must have everyone on line. Yesterday they said “Tuesday for sure!” We are having more snow the end of the week and again next week sometime. It makes up for the mild Winter we had.

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  15. Joni says:
    March 4, 2023 at 12:13 am

    I’m reading this on Friday night, late, six inches of snow out there already – I’m more than ready for spring! We are fortunate though, no hydro outages so far. Hope your generator is working tonight if needed.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Linda Schaub says:
      March 4, 2023 at 6:12 pm

      Hi Joni – I was lucky and had no issues with power and/or internet this round … last night, in the course of an hour we went from dry to rain to light snow and soon white-out/blizzard conditions. Unbelievable! Then we had thunder snow and lightning, so I decided to shut down as it was freezing rain by then. I thought I’d read, but then then I couldn’t concentrate as I kept thinking about the tree and the power line as the trees were covered with ice. We have 200,000 without power (some have been without power since last Wednesday) which is horrible. There were lots of accidents. I went out this morning and tried to shovel a little, but it was wet and heavy, so I shoveled the City property and a path to the garage. I looked out a short time ago and the street, which was full of slush and ice this morning, has completely melted. Amazing! Most of my driveway (the part that gets the sun) was melted, but I will go out later tomorrow to walk in the neighborhood and shovel the rest … it will be warmer tomorrow. I hope you had no issues and I wish this was the end of Winter, but they are already mentioning another bad wintry precip event the end of this week.

      Liked by 1 person

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      • Joni says:
        March 5, 2023 at 12:07 am

        We had about 6 inches of heavy snow overnight. Neighbour did the driveway with his snowblower, but I never saw a snowplow all day. Some of it melted on the street, so I was able to walk in between the ruts, but there’s still a lot of snow on the road. If it freezes tonight it will be a mess to drive on. I think the snowplows were hoping it would all melt, plus it was a weekend so people didn’t have to go to work? Usually they are quite good and prompt.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Linda Schaub says:
        March 5, 2023 at 7:56 pm

        I was amazed it melted so quickly, but still didn’t melt about ten feet in front of the house and the width of the driveway. I purposely went out for a walk late today and then home to shovel, but it was still icy. I scraped it the best I could. I was surprised it all melted at the Park, just one side bad. Geese were everywhere as I went later than usual, but we’re getting more icy precip overnight. Some people have still not gotten their power back (including a few from the original ice storm).

        Liked by 1 person

      • Joni says:
        March 5, 2023 at 11:25 pm

        I was surprised to see it all melted off the street this morning, so many the snow plow people had a more accurate forecast than what was on the news. It was a nice day, sunny, but rain tomorrow, and then cold for a few days and then more snow next weekend. I read somewhere that we will have a cold March. I cooked a meatloaf today, and it turned out good, and scalloped potatoes (Betty Crocker from a box as I’m lazy), and green beans, so we have leftovers for a few days. Cooking takes too much work. I’m 3 or 4 days behind but its 11:30 so it will have to wait. I admire you for even trying to read 2 weeks behind. Will reply to your email tomorrow.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Linda Schaub says:
        March 6, 2023 at 9:51 am

        I was surprised it all melted too and I was also surprised that when I went out at almost 2:00 p.m., it was still icy. I should have shoveled then, but there was no sun beating down there, so I figured I’d wait ’til I got home. Still icy. This morning when I ran out to run the car and take out the garbage, despite the rain and mild conditions, the ice was still there over this big area of the driveway. Another stormy day – we are having thunderstorms later today, so i thought I’d get here before I started work and try to catch up some more in case I shut down the computer like I did Friday night when we had the thundersnow and lightning.

        As to Reader, I got to the beginning of March 1st last night, so now technically only five days behind and I did a short post today to make it easier to catch up over the weekend. I have heard about that storm the end of the week too … similar to last Friday’s storm (I hope not).

        I agree with the cooking taking too much work. I should have appreciated my mom’s home cooking more than I did. She was all about a hot dinner every night … me, not so much. Only in later years could I convince her it wasn’t necessary and when Little Caesar’s $5.00 Pepperoni/Cheese pizza was a big thing, I convinced her that once a week she could take a break. There are not enough hours in the days for everything. I like the Betty Crocker box scalloped potatoes or potatoes au gratin. My mom used to make them with sliced smoked sausage or she would cut up ham and put it in with the potatoes. We used to buy the ham steaks, so it was lean ham and really tasty. Take your time Joni and I still owe you a reply from your last e-mail.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Joni says:
        March 6, 2023 at 12:35 pm

        Oh, we eat pizza once in a while, but a baby pizza from the authentic Italian pizzeria in town is $18 – six slices – but so good it’s worth it. We also have a Chinese restaurant close by, but for anything else I have to drive 30 minutes, so that limits our takeout options unless I’m in town running errands. We have not eaten inside a restaurant since pre-pandemic, and have no plans to, unless it’s summer and we can sit outside and even that has some risk. I do miss eating in a restaurant once in a while.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Linda Schaub says:
        March 6, 2023 at 8:58 pm

        The pizza sounds wonderful Joni. There is a fellow blogger who is a foodie and among the things she writes about is food she makes, or where she eats out, etc. She has this pizza-making device, which looks like a cake plate on a pedestal and it slowly rotates while baking the crust, so the crust bakes evenly. Her pizza creations used to leave me salivating. Since her firstborn arrive last May, she’s been blogging more about the baby, less about food. I have not gone to a restaurant in a really long time and when we had the hepatitis outbreak I decided no fast food anymore. We had 22 or 32 deaths one year, maybe six or so years ago, with most attributed to food handlers not practicing sanitary practices before handling food in restaurant settings. When I started at the diner in 1973, I had to get a TB test and a food handler’s card and all employees displayed their cards on a board. I wonder if things will ever be normal again and you will write about events like the Harvest Dinner you went to or the Woodstock party.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Joni says:
        March 6, 2023 at 9:24 pm

        I don’t know if normal will ever exist again, but if it does and I ever decide to travel again, I plan on getting the Hepatitis A vaccine. (Havrix) I already have the Hep. B from when I worked at the hospital, but when I asked my doctor about it, the Hep B was so long ago, that she suggested I get the combo Hep A&B (Twinrix). I didn’t do it last year, as I had so many other vaccines when I turned 65 that was enough. I also need to get my Tetanus (Td) updated this spring for gardening. Gardening…..we can only dream.. I would just like to go to a restaurant and be waited on! And not have to do dishes! Friends went on a cruise and she said that was the best part, although they came home with bad colds and flu. You wouldn’t catch me on a cruise ship with 3000 other people.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Linda Schaub says:
        March 6, 2023 at 9:44 pm

        I want to get the Hepatitis shot(s) too Joni. This year, seniors can get all shots that we had to formerly pay for, at no cost. So I’m going to do that this year before that changes. I had to pay $43.00 out of pocket for each of the Shingrix shots.

        I have to look at my shot record. I had to go to CVS for Obamacare and for Medicare and I created an account so now I can see not only what I’ve gotten there, but other shots through the years as well. I was looking at the chart one day and saw when I had the Swine Flu shot, which was mandatory at that time. We had to go to the Health Department to get it and queue up – I remember going with my parents. You can go to the Wayne County Board of Health to do get a copy of your record too, but I think you have to go in person. I think I got my Tetanus/Pertussis shot before Obamacare so it is about eight years ago. I will get the Hepatitis shots since they say the Covid shot will be yearly now. I didn’t want too many shots last year either.

        Do you see the photos of these modern cruise ships – they look like a floating hotel. Too large in my opinion. I was never on one even half that size. I like the long, flat boats for the Norwegian Cruise Line that was advertised on PBS. That seemed nice but norovirus issues all the time with cruises would worry me. I don’t recall even hearing of the norovirus back when I was on a cruise ship. Too much to worry about now.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Joni says:
        March 6, 2023 at 9:27 pm

        PS. You can get some pretty fancy pizza stones/ovens for home use – I’ve seen them in the stores. There’s also a food produce store here where I buy lasagna and they have a stone oven with an open fire, and you can see them making the pizza, but every time I go in there for fresh fruits and veggies all I smell is burnt smoke! Not very appetizing, although I hear the pizza is good.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Linda Schaub says:
        March 6, 2023 at 9:46 pm

        I would like to try that little machine – it’s the only food I crave, but I have to have an electrician in here first to check the wiring. I have a few little issues that I need for an electrician to check out but it will wait until I’m retired and don’t lose a day off for it or have to move a bunch of furniture or declutter for him to come to the house.

        Liked by 1 person

  16. J P says:
    March 11, 2023 at 10:12 am

    We were fortunate that this one missed us. Glad you got through OK. Miserable geese.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Linda Schaub says:
      March 11, 2023 at 8:27 pm

      This was particularly bad JP- it set all kinds of records and the rest of the folks with no power finally got it restored just a few days ago. We had three ice storms in about ten days’ time. Luckily this past Friday’s storm was not icy, just snowy. The geese do this periodically – I got some great photos a few years ago as the squirrels and birds watched them, clearly upset and looking to me for guidance (and more peanuts). 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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