Almost Spring

Today we had a reprieve from winter. It was sunny and the temperature was right around 60 degrees. Absolutely beautiful! I took the opportunity to cut back some of my grasses and to do a little cleaning in the flower beds.

I was deliriously happy to be out in the garden. I couldn't help but smile as I did my work. The trees and shrubs have tiny little buds on them and some of the perennials already had green growth underneath the decayed leaves. Ahh... the promise of spring. It won't be long and I'll have lilacs blooming again.

Welcome to Possum Holler

Our golden retriever, Lilly, has been restless and pacing around more than usual lately. She always wants to go out and is very slow in doing her business because she is too busy sniffing around the yard. Her behavior has been quite annoying, especially when it's freezing and we stand there with the door open trying to coax her back inside. A few nights ago we discovered the reason, and it isn't rabbits as I had assumed.



No, it's a possum!

I've been leaving peanuts for the blue jays in this and I guess he has been coming for the last several nights and eating the leftovers. I tried to get pictures Friday night, but it was too dark. Tonight I changed the patio light bulb to a higher wattage bulb and preset my camera to the night mode and practiced taking a few shots beforehand. Every few minutes I looked outside to see if he was there. Sure enough, he came back tonight.

Last night, before I got home from work, my husband tried to run him off and he hissed very loudly at him. I can't imagine what it would do if Lilly got too close. I think Lilly would probably tuck her tail and run if she actually got hissed at. The thought of an encounter makes me very uncomfortable.

I don't think I had ever seen a possum that was actually alive, and I knew very little about them. Concerned for our safety and Lilly's, I did some research to find out about these strange, ugly creatures.

They are North America's only marsupial. Thankfully they are loners, so hopefully there isn't a little family out there too. They will play dead when threatened and are usually harmless even though they hiss and growl.



They are nocturnal. They are not usually carriers of rabies, (I was very glad to find this out). They are actually beneficial because they eat insects and bugs. I think they will pretty much eat anything they can find, including birdseed, cracked corn and peanuts.

Since he is now making regular nightly trips to the bird feeders, I guess I need to remove them. He may be harmless, but I really don't like having him around. Anyway, I much prefer Robin's Nesting Place to Possum Holler.

Thanks for the Backup Suggestions

Thanks everyone for the comments regarding my post on backing up my picture files.



It seems that multiple locations is the way to go to safely store those images! I'm purging files by necessity. I think maybe I'm overwhelming my system by trying to copy too much at one time. None of the DVD programs that I've tried can handle my file load. I even purchased Simple Save by Memorex and it can only handle a 10 DVD maximum. At least its winter and there is nothing to do outside and it gives me a chance to look at all of the pictures that warm my heart and make me happy.



I did get over 9000 images safely transferred to the laptop from the external drive. Hopefully the rest of the images are stored safely in the drive.

As Sylvia reminded us, sometimes things can happen that can destroy even our external drives and DVDs. My friend just recently lost her family home to a fire, during the recent ice storm in Kentucky. Her family lost everything. So, this has already been on my mind. Once I get the computer issues taken care of, I'll be checking into the other online sources for additional backup.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Back Up and Try Again

My computer has been making some very strange noises off and on for the last couple of months. I get in a near panic mode each time I hear this noise as I think about all of the photos on my computer that have not been backed-up. There are over 30,000 pictures on my computer, most of which I could just delete and never miss, but others that I would be very sad to lose.

Those pictures that I've used on my blog are safely backed up on Picasa, but they are stored at a lower resolution than I would want should I decide to use them for prints. My computer is not letting me use DVDs for copying. It correctly makes one, (out of 14), DVDs and then I get an error message for the next one. I just purchased an external drive and have attempted to use it but when downloading my pictures onto the laptop I get an error message for that as well. This is so frustrating! I have spent hours the last few days just trying to get my things backed up. I'm not 100% certain that I have been successful yet.

I was just wondering if you back up your pictures and if so, what method do you use?

Happy Valentines Day- It's all About Pink