Thankfully, I'm no expert on hell freezing over, but I can say with certainty that despite over 5,400 gallons of water per hour surging through the circulating pump, the garden pond did.

February 8, 2021 - Monday morning
-19 degrees/cloudy skies/calm winds
Pentoga Road

At least it's not so cold this morning. Yesterday's low of -27 just before sunrise was a bit much and made this morning's -19 seem almost balmy. The mercury on Sunday peaked at a big fat 0.

Today's forecasted high?

Four above zero.

Compare our -19 to the current temperature in my old arctic village of Kotzebue, Alaska, at -18 and so far, we're winning.

Hey, those Inupiaq Eskimos have nothing on us.

Sunday morning's walk was a good one. The three light weight layers, a long sleeved tshirt, a down mid layer, and a down puffy coat, kept me warm.

Poor Sargie, she just knows I'm going to keel over and become a frozen block of ice. Try as I may, I can't convince her that I'll be fine. Still she watches as I leave the house to make sure I at least make it to the edge of the road.

Rose and Tim were heading out to see their grandchildren and stopped on the road to talk a bit. It was good to see our friends and play catch up.

Back home, I waded through knee deep snow out to the pond and poked a hole in the thin skim of ice that had formed over the circulating pump.

I pause long enough to think how much has been done to keep those goldfish alive over the past several years and all I can do is shake my head. 

The whole pond/goldfish process began with a shallow plastic pre-made pond and a handful of seventeen cent goldfish for Hambone. They grew one summer and when he learned I was going to pitch them and start over with new fish the following spring, Grady's tears convinced me to buy a ten gallon aquarium and bring them inside for the winter months.

The next summer saw our finned friends grow so rapidly that by fall, they would no longer fit in an aquarium. It took a water-filled fifty gallon tote in the basement to house them.

The next winter required two fifty gallon totes. 

Needless to say, the excavation of the pond began the following spring. 

Not counting the goldfish Cos and Mike gave us last summer, I've calculated that Hambone's original pets that are still swimming under the ice have cost me somewhere around $400 each and a whole lot of labor. 

On the plus side, we swam in the pond almost every day last summer and it provided countless hours of entertainment for Hambone and Pawpaw. No doubt, Cheeks, will be joining us at some point in the future along with any other grandchild or young 'un who visits.

The cost of the goldfish and pond? 

Thousands.

What's it worth?

I don't think you can put a price tag on happiness.

We took a quick ride to town for Sargie's Coke later Sunday morning. I was amazed at the size of icicles hanging from the roof at McDonalds. 

Other than haul in a bit of firewood, the rest of the day was spent watching hiking videos.

Our internet is almost worthless so we depend on using my iPhone as a hotspot and streaming from there. Unfortunately, our smart tv that is several years old, isn't so smart, and won't read the hotspot, but we could mirror the screen on a Chromebook to the television.

In the end, the picture quality was excellent and I spent the afternoon watching hiking videos of the Appalachian Trail. Yesterday's series was of RTK (his trail name) a sixty year old retiree who left Georgia bound for Maine in February of 2017. 

I was especially interested in the weather conditions along the first part of his hike in 2017.

Only three words can describe them.

COLD, RAINY, SNOWY.

I'll be ready.

Though she "supports" my upcoming trek, Sargie spent much of the afternoon shaking her head and could be heard muttering,  "That looks like fun."

I'm not feeling her sincerity.

Eileen sent along a picture of fog on the Danube taken by Stef in Budapest where she and her husband, Rob, are teaching. The kids spent the past several years in Lebanon and migrated this past summer to Hungary.

Originally bound for China, the Covid put a rapid halt to those plans, but Hungary was more than happy to welcome the young educators.

In posting pictures of all our grandchildren, nieces, and nephews, who are exceptional and beautiful in every way, the next one is of great niece, Aria.

(If you don't believe your grandbabies and other related little ones are the brightest and best looking in the entire world, you'd better head back to the University of Grandma/Grandpa and take some refresher courses.)

Not only is Aria reading the Daily News, I'm fairly certain she's memorizing the content as well.

I don't know what's on today's agenda. I'm heading out the door for my morning stroll and really, should build a fire to warm up the shop and play out there today. With the frigid weather, my get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went. 

Ah, heck, we'll play it by ear. Watching videos yesterday of the AT, I mentally hiked at least four hundred miles. It's not like I wasn't intellectually active.

Doesn't that count?

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

Captain Luke, out on a fire call.

Since we have the same last name (I had mine first) I wonder if I could get one of those jackets? I could walk up and down Pentoga Road and after reading Captain Pennington, people could salute as I ambled by.

No?

It was worth a try.