It got cold here this week. Wednesday morning it was 17 degrees, and the wind was swirling around at near 20 knots...it was COLD! On Thursday AM, it was 13 degrees, but the wind had died down. Friday was a little warmer at 22 degrees, and this AM it was 30. We're expecting it to moderate somewhat today and tonight, with early AM temps in the low 40's. Good thing, as BD and I and Petey are heading to Red Top Mountain for an early AM hike...we do the 3.5 mile hike, and Petey never slows down. He loves it. Before I get to the sofa table, take a look at the ice in the rain barrels. We put two 30-gallon garbage cans out back of the porch and behing the camelia to capture rain since we are on a 100% watering ban due to the drought. You can see how deep the freeze was...the ice was nearly 4 inches thick. When the barrels are full, the birds like to come and roost on the edges and drink...it looked like they were ice skating on the tops the past few days...poor little guys were trying to find a spot to drink. We went out and broke it all up each day so they could get to the water...

The sofa table you see is one of 2 things we bought with gifts given to us by our Moms. When we visit BDs Mom in Long Beach, we like to visit a furniture store that is full of wonderful Mission and Amish style hardwood furniture. Last visit there we saw this sofa table...solid oak with a darker finish, and with 2 Tiffany style stained glass inserts under clear glass. It caught our eye immediately, but of course, Long Beach is a long way from Emerson, Georgia, and we couldn't just pack it in our suitcases and check the baggage...and last time we asked about shipping something it was very, very expensive. But as luck would have it, the table actually came unassembled in 2 boxes, so when we checked into shipping it was reasonable and we pulled the trigger. It came in this week and we assembled it this AM (BD and I worked together, and truth be told that nary a cuss word was uttered...by me of course. BD is the calm, patient one...I am certainly not). It's beautiful, fits into the Great Room perfectly, and adds a little "cool and neat" factor to the open area behind the love seat.

Another event that was cool this first week of the new year, on Wednesday about Noon, I headed out the back door and down the steps off of the deck to the East side of the garage (the back of the garage) with Petey. We were finishing up lunch and were headed back up to the office to do some bill paying stuff. Before he had come down the steps behind me, and in a silence unbelieveable until I experienced it, two deer came bounding around the North side of the garage, right by me (2 or 3 feet only), down the steep slope and across the street into the woods...they were absolutely silent until they hit the street, and of course I could hear them running through the underbrush in the woods...it was very exciting to be so near them. A couple of times lately, when I take Petey out for his last bathroom trip before bedtime, I hear an animal of some sort rushing away. On one occassion I know it was a raccoon as I saw him coming down from the bird feeder pole and heading up a tree. But antother time I could have sworn I saw something "standing" a ways off from me, seemingly waiting for me to make a move of some kind before it took off or ran for cover. It was big enough for me to see the outline above the brush height, so I thought initially it might be a deer...guess this proves it. Others in the community have had a time with deer eating their plants, but we live up so steeply on this hill that we have never had any trouble...or so we thought. It has been only a couple weeks that BD mentioned something had come up and eaten the pansies we had planted, so I guess it is deer after all...seems like an awful steep hill and a lot of work for just a mouthful of little bitty pansies...

Oh yah...I went back to work Thursday at Noon...had nearly 3 weeks off...don't think I'll mind being retired one of these days..;-)!