It definitely hit the 20s around here and the wind chill was single digits. Hopefully the fleas paid the price, because even with my electric heaters, my house was not comfortable. It is fine down to 50 degrees, but I lose comfort below that.

The new pattern for this winter seems to be a cold front coming through about every 5 days. Just before it gets here the temperature rises as warm air is sucked it from the Gulf, but when the winds shift to out of the North the temperature drops 40+ degrees.

The old pattern was three cold snaps per winter beginning around Christmas with the last one around Easter. That is no longer the case.

This is in contrast with Fairbanks, Alaska which might have a high near freezing this week.

I went shopping today and the sale of fireworks so people can blow things up for the New Year is in full swing. I don’t understand why they do it, or why they don’t buy decent watches so they can do it at the right time, but, this is South Fundistan and they just have ‘to believe’ that they are doing the right thing to make it right.

It is going to freeze overnight so I spent the day covering things and making areas for the cats to hole up in some warmth. That is the bad part.

The good part is that we haven’t had a freeze in several years and several insect pests like fleas and fireants are getting out of hand. As we had the rain before the freeze, the pests will definitely be affected. This is Nature’s way of controlling these pests, and it is a good deal more effective than anything from a chemical company.

Steve Bates made it through his surgery well and now comes the hard part – dealing with the insurance company to get the services that are supposed to be covered by his policy. It doesn’t take long to understand why Franz Kafka wrote what he did, as he was an employee of insurance companies for much of his life.

It is beginning to look like we are on our way over the cliff, which will be very bad news for people who have been receiving extended unemployment insurance payments. There will also be a major jump in the price of milk, because Congress hasn’t passed a Farm Bill either. Next will be the latest fight over the debt ceiling. Since Congress isn’t doing its job, why are we paying them?