Andy sent this picture of the Melbourne (Australia) Harbor. They were loading supplies before heading to an oil rig fifty miles offshore.

January 25, 2020 - Friday morning

30 degrees/snow/calm winds

Pentoga Road

This snow-thing is getting old. Hey, I'm from Alaska and I'm tired of it. We're on our third day of nonstop snow with at least one, possibly two more before it's to move on. 

Thankfully, the temperatures are running above average (which will delight all the global warming enthusiasts) but not high enough to make this snow go away. I checked the fuel oil level last night and we still have over half a tank. I think the last time we purchased fuel oil was two years ago. By burning wood, we simply don't need that much. I'll have the tank filled before our trip in early March.

On a more serious note, my bride and I are in the midst of the Tea Bag Wars. What's that all about?

I'm back on the green tea kick. Why? I don't know. I think it could be hormones, manopause if you will. 

Maybe I'm just bored with drinking coffee. It's certainly not for all the antioxidants. I get all those from foods like fried potatoes and popcorn. 

Who knows?

While living in the arctic, it took some real effort to make a pot of coffee so I opted for green tea, one cup at a time. I sipped the stuff for years and found that when I did have coffee, I greatly enjoyed it.

For whatever reason, green tea became my drink of choice a couple of weeks ago. I fill my large mug with water, stick in a tea bag, then put it in the microwave for two minutes. 

Nothing to it. 

After, I swirl the tea bag around and dip it up and down a few times before taking it out. Finally, the string is wrapped around the bag sitting on a spoon to wring anything good back into the mug before placing the spoon, with the tea bag still wrapped, on the counter. When it's time for another cup, I use the old bag plus a new one and repeat the process.

No big deal, right?

Sargie doesn't like tea bags on her counter. In all fairness to her, I may have forgotten to throw away the old bags once or twenty times and they sat there all day, causing just a little bitty, hardly noticeable stain, but hey, I'm only human.

As one of my all time favorite singers, Tammy Wynette, once warbled, "After all, he's just a man." 

With that in mind, I don't think Sargie should let her expectations get too high. 

Now my girl (Sargie, not Tammy) says that if she finds any more dried up, wrapped, tea bags, on her sink or counter, she's going to throw them away, even if there's still a bit of goodness and those all-important antioxidants left in them.

And so the tea bag wars are raging. So far, I'm winning. I leave the bag on the sink as long as I want, well, unless Sargie's around, then I immediately throw it away before she sees it.

So there.

Guess I'm showing her who's boss around here.

I took Sargie to work early Thursday morning. Several inches of wet snow had fallen during the night and the roads were slippery. We saw one car in the ditch on our way to Crystal Falls and another on my return trip home.

The biggest news on Pentoga Road is that I ordered my giant pumpkin seed yesterday from Ron Wallace.

Who's Ron Wallace you ask? 

Well, obviously you didn't pay attention to the origins of giant pumpkins while in high school American history class.

Ol' Ron has broken several world records by growing pumpkins weighing nearly two thousand pounds.

You may remember that I grew a pumpkin several years ago that weighed in excess of 600 pounds. With this superior seed, I'm hoping to top that this coming summer. 

Ron and I emailed back and forth a bit yesterday and his last words were, "If you need any help or advice, be sure to let me know."

Oh, I will Ron. You can count on that.

Ron and one of his pumpkins

More snow had fallen from the roof onto the deck the night before last so I spent a while shoveling. The same chore was repeated two more times yesterday as the snow continued to fall.

I was in the middle of plowing when the four wheeler quit running. I towed it to the barn and noticed gas was leaking from underneath.



I'm suspecting the fuel line from the tank to the carburetor has cracked from age. Where's Andy when I need him. Oh, that's right, he's in Australia.

Needing to finish the drive and plow Jambo's, I trekked up his lane and finished both jobs using his super ATV, the Jambotron.  

My walk to Pentoga Village was a yawner. With several inches lying on the unplowed road, it took no small amount of effort to shuffle through the snow. I look on those conditions as good training and an efficient way to burn more calories.



It was once again a slippery drive to Crystal Falls Thursday afternoon to pick Sargie up from work. Hard to believe that next Thursday will be her last day before joining the ranks of the retired.

I'm going to take my morning walk as soon as the sun comes up. Since it's only 5 AM now, I have a bit of a wait. 

We're meeting our friends, Cosmo and Mike, this evening for dinner in Iron Mountain and looking forward to getting caught up with life.

Meanwhile, I'm going to peruse through the newest batch of seed catalogues and dream of growing giant vegetables, twenty foot tall sunflowers, and a thousand pound pumpkin.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

I got tired of looking at the color white, so thought I'd throw in something different to remind me of seasons to come.