Sunday, January 11

I got our Delaware species tallied and we had  a total of 63 species back there. A lot better than we would have had here. It’s nice being at the junction of several major ecosystem types. Like ocean, bay, estuary, fields, coastal pine forests, and coastal deciduous forests. Here we sit at the junction of malls, subdivisions, and corn fields. And the MSU campus, where we got cedar waxwings on Thursday. Throw in some bitter cold weather and needless to say our daily species count has dropped considerably.

To add to the bitter cold fun, our one of our garage door torsion springs broke. Possibly from old age but the cold temperatures couldn’t have helped. The repairs look easy enough on the youtube videos. You can find just about anything on youtube, including several videos that walk you through replacing a garage door torsion spring. They all emphasize using the right tools. Unfortunately you need to get the car out of the garage to go get the right tools.

The broken spring.

When you don’t use the right tools, some interesting things can happen. I’m pretty sure I didn’t break my thumb, but typing with a cold pack on your hand isn’t easy. At least now we have the cars outside the garage and the door closed until the guy with parts and the right tools can get here. And I know how garage doors work, including how powerful a wound up torsion spring can be.

The broken spirit.

Besides finding interesting ways to hurt myself, I’ve been thinking about some goals for the year. I really do like to have something to shoot for. I wanted to have a goal of not doing anything stupid this year but I already blew that one.

Last year I wanted to visit six new places in the state. Given our crazy schedules last year that did not happen. So I’m going to resurrect that one. I want to get to at least six new places this year. Parks, nature preserves, conservancy properties, whatever. Not necessarily just in Michigan, but six new places that I haven’t been to before.

I need a photography goal to focus on too. Assuming I regain use of my right thumb. So for something completely different, this year I want to enter at least two photography contests. My ego has already been crushed by a garage door spring. A little more humiliation can’t hurt that much.