Merry one day after Christmas!!! I hope your Christmas is still bringing you joy and smiles. I suspect most people are back to work today unless they took vacation. Others are on the road trying to make it back home. The winter weather has paralyzed parts of the country yet this morning according to the news reports. Here at the backyard buffet we have a dusting of snow. I’ve seen heavier frost. But it is a cold morning (24) and only going up to twenty-six today. It is a good day to stay inside if you can. In fact the rest of the week is not going to be any better.

There is a flock of starlings that keeps flying in and out this morning. hey land and they either eat of of the ground or at the suet feeders. They will be here for maybe three minutes, running around and fighting over each morsel they can get then they fly out en masse. A couple of minutes later, they start coming back in. My other guests this morning include the cardinals, junkos, a wren or two, and some finches. I also have a squirrel.

As you know, I have a couple of bird baths that I keep filled. One of them is electric and is a ready and available source of water at all times. The other one is not electric and is full but also totally frozen over these days. My squirrel guest this morning was obviously thirsty, but — instead of jumping up and drinking from the electric bird bath, it was laying on the ice of the other bird bath and try to either eat the snow or chew through the ice for its hydration. My critters do entertain me for sure. Unfortunately, twenty-four degrees or not, I have birdfeeders to be filled.

We had a nice Christmas weekend. Julie and Jim and the pups did come over on Saturday. Sunday morning I went to church at Zoar by myself. It was Ms. Kate’s 70th birthday and she stayed home with Jim and Jules. She said that one church service would be enough for her and we were planning to go to the evening service at St. Paul’s, which we did along with Julie. It was wonderful to get to see a lot of old friends that we had not seen in the year since I retired. Unfortunately, Ms. Kate slipped on the ice at St. Paul’s and fell, bruising up her knee, her hand, and mostly her ego. She fell right in front of the windows of the church and everyone inside could see her. A couple of the fellows came right out and helped her up but she was totally embarrassed. She’s  still sore and bruised —- and still embarrassed. BUt other than that, she is fine.

Yesterday morning we opened gifts and Ms. Kate made a wonderful baked ham dinner with mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls, broccoli, and corn. Karen came over and had lunch with us so it was a nice gathering. Karen left soon after lunch, the kids packed up and headed home soon after that and Ms, kate and I took a glorious nap! For supper, we re-did lunch leftovers and finished all of them up.

Today I reckon will be laundry day as we get back into the routine. I don’t know if we’ll leave the tree up or not. We generally do through New Years. Other than doing laundry, which in reality does not take a lot of effort, I think we’ll not do much else. I have some writing ideas that I want to at least put notes for on the computer. I hope your day and week go well. Stay safe out there if you are on the highways. Today is probably not a day that I would want to go to the stores for anything. I suspect there will be after-Christmas sales going on and people will be out returning and exchanging items they got for Christmas. IO suggest you stay out of the rat-race aand settle in with a cup of coffee and a book. Peace.