Thank you so much. The flowers are beautiful!

Happy Valentine's Day.

XXVI

I lived with visions for my company
Instead of men and women, years ago,
And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
A sweeter music than they played to me.
But soon their trailing purple was not free
Of this world's dust, their lutes did silent grow,
And I myself grew faint and blind below
Their vanishing eyes. Then THOU didst come--to be,
Belovèd, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,
Their songs, their splendours (better, yet the same,
As river-water hallowed into fonts),
Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
My soul with satisfaction of all wants
Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

From Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese"

"Savage Chickens" by Doug Savage

I apologize if today's blog has a few typos in it. The problem is that I was typing along when suddenly my right index finger and left thumb simply snapped off due to the extreme cold. That makes typing difficult. So I'm typing slowly. You can help me out by reading slowly. That way it won't be as noticeable.

The weatherman says it's going to get to a high of 3-degrees today, but the windchill will make it feel like it's 31-degrees below zero. That makes no sense to me. If it's 3-degrees with a windchill of 31-below, it's 31-BELOW. Period.

And really, once you reach 20-below, does it matter what the temperature is outside? If you step out the door to get the mail and your foot instantly freezes to the welcome mat, do you still need the windchill factor?

Can thermometers even exist at 31-degrees below zero? I'd think the mercury would simply shrivel away to nothing and the thermometer would implode due to the sudden loss of pressure.

We should all be out with aerosol cans pointed towards the sky doing anything we can to bring on global warming.