Happy New Year & Penguin Dipping From Texas

New Year's Eve was a very rough night for me. Horrible hangover this morning. Horrible.

Okay, the sad truth is on New Year's Eve I went to bed 4 hours before the New Year began. I'd been feeling ailing all day long, so, before 8, I decided to end the misery and go to bed.

This morning I woke up to find something irritating my eyes real bad. As in stinging. I've decided I'm a victim of my Chesapeake Energy neighboring Barnett Shale gas well.

I got a comment yesterday from Sedro Woolley. That is a town in the Skagit Valley of Washington state. The commenter was my favorite commenter, Anonymous. I also get comments from Sedro Woolley from Miss CVB. Anonymous was not Miss CVB because she's a girl and Anonymous said, "This Sedro Woolley boy is doing this tomorrow. Can't wait!!"

What is it that Anonymous can't wait for? Well, it's the Clear Lake Penguin Dip. Clear Lake is a clear lake near Sedro Woolley. On New Year's Day a lot of people strip down and run into the lake and then get warm by a big fire. A great time is had by all.

So, this morning, with it being the first morning of the New Year, I decided to show solidarity with the Clear Lake Penguin Dip and be there in spirit, if not in body. It also seemed somehow fitting that my first blogging of the New Year include the information that I went in the pool this morning.

It was below freezing at the time. I almost had a bad slipping incident when stepping on a frozen puddle at the pool's edge. That could have been all kinds of bad had I slipped. Next day's news, "Mysterious Death, Body Found Floating In Pool New Year's Day."

I am not starting the New Year with any unusual resolutions. Just the regulars, like lose weight to lose that awful beer belly I've grown in the past couple months. And to go visit my mom and dad in Phoenix.

A Taste Of Sedro Woolley Post Tandy Hills

Before I forget, Spencer Jack's grandma sent me a link to a video of Spencer Jack driving to Costco while singing the Beach Boy's Barbara Ann. What a cute kid, but he's too young to be driving. And he was not wearing a seatbelt.

I've been up since around 4 this morning. I was in the pool around 5. It was very dark. This made for minimalist swimming attire, which is my preferred mode.

Around noon, after way too many hours spent on the inner workings of the Internet, I took off for the Tandy Hills Natural Sanatorium Sauna Area to get in some HOT HUMID hiking. In the picture we are looking north. The white building is a bit north of Town Talk, which is where I went when done hiking.

As I slowly drove away, with my seatbelt on, one of the Fort Worth Gestapo was driving rapidly south on dead end Ben Street, barely stopping at the intersection with View Street, where I was stopped.

I found some odd stuff at Town Talk today. Jars of soy butter. For 50 cents. I got some more Cascadian Farm Organic Spinach. It seems an odd thing to find in a Fort Worth surplus store.

On the spinach package I read, "Back in 1972, we started growing fine organic fruits and vegetables on a small farm in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State."

The box also invites the spinach eater to stop by Cascadian Farm in Rockport, WA. Or visit their website, www.cascadianfarm.com. I have driven by there many a time. But I've never stopped. Also on the spinach box it says "distributed by Small Planet Food, Inc., Sedro Woolley, WA."

It is a Small Planet. I lived in Sedro Woolley for a short time. It's about 5 miles east of where I grew up, in Burlington, and about 5 miles northeast of Mount Vernon, where I lived before moving to Texas. Yes, I lived in a Metroplex in Washington, cluster of towns on a much, much smaller scale than the D/FW Metroplex. But with a lot more fruits and vegetables, so much so that spinach gets sent to Fort Worth all the way from Sedro Woolley.

I just remembered, I heard from someone in Sedro Woolley this very morning. And the morning before that, now that I'm thinking about it.

A Flower Blooms In Washington, In Texas, Not So Much

That is a Brugmansia busy blooming in the picture. It grows in the home garden of Miss C in the town of Sedro Woolley in Washington. It's a big white flower that grows on a bush that will eventually get as tall as 12 feet. Make note of the big man hand on the left of the Brugmansia to get an idea of how big that flower is.

I've long made note of the summer fact that way fewer flowers bloom here in Texas than I would be seeing up in Washington right now. I don't think this can be explained by the hotter temperatures in Texas, because the town in Washington where you would likely see the most flowers is in Eastern Washington, in Leavenworth. Eastern Washington rivals and often exceeds HOT Texas, temperature-wise, in summer.

Just a couple days ago Tootsie Tonasket was baking at 117 in her town near the Canadian border.

In Washington most towns hang big flower baskets in their downtown zones. And big flower pots on the sidewalks. I've seen an isolated flower pot or two in Texas. And some flowers planted in the ground. I've seen few flowers hanging in pots here. Maybe it's a watering issue. I can see where that would be a bit more difficult here.

But. I am still seeing plenty of wildflowers blooming on the Tandy Hills. So, it's obvious some flowers can handle the water situation here. Texas does get a burst of color from all the wildflowers every year. Those are nice to see.

Those are not yellow Texas wildflowers in the picture. Those are also flowers from Miss C's home garden in Sedro Woolley. I believe they are sunflowers.

I wonder what a Texan thinks, if they are visiting towns in Washington and they see all those flowers. Do they wonder why their Texas town doesn't color itself up in summer? Or do they think that all those flowers must be expensive, I'm glad my town doesn't waste money on such a thing?

It's perplexing.

Early Morning Warbling

In the wee wee hours of the morning, sometime around 3am, something which sounded like a bird began making an otherworldly noise, a rhythmic, pulsing series of melodic tones that repeated without variance over and over and over again. After about 20 minutes of this unwanted alarm clock the melody suddenly changed to a sort of downbeat sound as if signaling the end of the song. And then silence. After about a minute of quiet it started up again from the beginning. The warbling was so not bird-like I began to consider getting out of bed and going in search of the source. But I didn't.

I remember decades ago, up in Washington, in the Skagit Valley, near the town of Sedro Woolley, on a hill named Hoogdal, a strange noise started up at night that sounded metallic and otherworldly. Locals were certain it was a UFO. Media from around the country descended on Hoogdal, not unlike what happened in Stephenville, Texas a month ago with the sighting of a supposed UFO. Eventually government investigators were able to determine, or the cover-up decided to say, that the Hoogdal Otherwordly Noise was caused by an Owl. It became known as the Hoogdal Owl.

So, back to my Texas Hoogdal Owl UFO Sound. As the second round of warbling progressed, the sound gradually faded. Whatever was making the sound, hovering UFO, or bird, was slowly moving away. Eventually the sound faded to silence and I faded back to sleep.

But, I ended up getting up early and I was in the mood for an early morning walk. So I got up and made my morning coffee, skipped my usual morning paper read, filled a thermos and drove to Oakland Lake Park (that is Oakland Lake you see in the photo above). It is a short distance from my abode. The early morning light had the birds all chirping and fellow early birds out walking. Very pleasant. None of the birds were making the noise that I heard in the middle of the night.

So, in regards to explaining what it was that seranaded me in the middle of the night, I lean towards the hovering UFO theory. That, or it was an Owl. A Fort Worth Owl. Not a Hoogdal Owl.