crows like deer food

we noticed that while we have not seen our deer much since the weather has warmed up, the deer food was disappearing anyway - turns out crows like the deer pellets, too!!!

speaking of crows, they sure seem to be getting bigger all the time! One of our cats, Buddy, was facing off against a couple of crows last week and he wasn't intimidating them in the least. In fact, Rick went out and brought Buddy in the house before the crows decided they could probably take him!

Been out and about quite a bit lately - now that it is getting milder we have a few sign posts left in over the winter that we have to retrieve. In our travels, we have noticed a LOT of solar panels springing up all over the place. Not large solar farms, but lots of small home-owner panels in back yards. Looks like a lot of people are taking advantage of the government's offer to buy power that is put BACK into the grid. Not a bad idea - but not sure I like the amount they are going to be paid - that money has to come from somewhere, right?

and I can tell you, that if I was a hydro worker, I'd be concerned that when lines are shut down for maintenance, that someone SOMEWHERE isn't putting electricty BACK into the grid that could catch the worker by....huh....surprise? I'm sure this has been looked into....but might be a problem.

the cynical part of me (a very LARGE, cynical part of me, btw) suspects that a couple of large corporations (wind farm and solar) lobbied for this "green" program whereby they produce and sell "green" electricity and get paid whopping amounts of money for it and the government looks like it is trying to be green. I think the powers that be that "thunk" up this program figured they would be dealing with a few large companies only. Instead they had so many unanticipated applications from home-owners, the applications process was running 18 months behind. Not to well thought out if you ask me.... (nobody asks me, of course)

Personally, I think that it would make more sense to encourage people (by way of some rebates perhaps?) to replace their conventional hot water heaters with tankless ones. This would save most people a ton on their electrical bill (I see mostly electrical HWT's although some are gas), it would put much more water on tap instead of sitting in tanks AND would reduce our over-all energy consumption. Anyone I know with a tankless system is happy with it. Tankless systems are pretty well all the rage in Europe - with all the to-do about going green, why not promote something simple like this???? Picture all the hot water tanks in a city being emptied - hey, we might have sooooooooooo much water we could once again return to real flush toilets instead of the low flush ones!!! imagine!!!!

okay, that's my rant for the day - thanks for watching. hahaha

today's picture - crows eating deer food - large, scary crows!