Seasonal Adjustment

It's beginning...
the end of winter is in the air, as evidenced by trees.

Especially our Quercus rubra--the Northern Red Oak--one of my favourite trees of all, and on our property since planting it 40+ years ago.

Our grandson loves to pick up fallen acorns at the end of summer.

The oak tree signals its buds are beginning to swell by dropping its brownish leaves on top of snow.

The Q.rubra isn't a particularly pretty tree during winter because it does hold those dead leaves throughout.  However, it's a sure sign of swelling buds when the top of the tree is finally bare.

Quercus rubra, the Northern Red Oak Tree

It's sure been a challenging winter...January was  B R U T A L, with sooooo much snow that we ran out of places to put it.

Compared to St. John's Newfoundland, we really have no complaints at all...

St. John's, Newfoundland Labrador

St. John's, NL

Here in the North Okanagan, the Morning Star in their Wednesday, January 22, 2020 publication stated January was "the fourth snowiest in three decades", with the snowiest since 1990 was in 2015 with 87 cm of snow.  The 2nd snowiest was 2018, with 79 cms, and 1998 placed third at 76.1 cm.

But thank goodness last week's deep freeze is over--unaffectionately termed our new Ice Age--when there were four consecutive days that hit -20C or lower.  The coldest day was Tuesday, January 14th in Vernon, when it was -21.5C.  (We in Coldstream/Lavington get colder weather in winter, due I believe, to the influence of cold outflow winds from the Monashees, just to the east.)

At our house, early in the morning...Brrrrrrr.

So, a big thanks to the Quercus rubra, for showing that winter's hold on us may be fading.

And today's sunshine is welcome indeed!

CO Detector 3 Beeps

We thought it was the nearby smoke detector that went off today.  Three loud beeps, repeated every 30 seconds or so.  So I quickly removed the battery from the smoke detector on the ceiling in the hall by standing on a chair.  Still 3 beeps but not from the smoke detector!

Five feet away, nearer the floor, was the "First Choice" Carbon Monoxide (CO) detector.
I unplugged it and still heard the loud (85 decibel) 3 beeps, but it wasn't coming from that detector.

Several feet away (it's a split level home) there is another CO detector, so I unplugged that.
At least I had the correct detector as it now issued 3 beeps in my hand, so I took both CO detectors out to the garage, pressing Silence on their panels.

My head hurt from hearing the high decibel BEEPS!

Quickly reviewing First Choice's printed instructions on the unit, only 4 Beeps indicated "remove to fresh air, and call 911".  The instruction continued:  3 Beeps:  Trouble. 

Huh?
Trouble with what?  The detector?  Was it malfunctioning?
That could be a very dangerous guess (if the detector was working well), so I read further.
1 Beep meant the battery needed replacing.  5 Beeps meant the unit's end of life (it's guaranteed for a five year life).

But what the heck does 3 Beeps "Trouble" refer to?

Ah...finally found it in the online user's manual:



So, a malfunction of the detector.
Whew...

But we went down to the basement to look at the woodstove...just in case!
No idea what we thought we would find by looking at the stove, but we did nevertheless.


Time to buy a new CO detector, although these units haven't been installed for five years yet.

Potential emergency averted, the cold weather reminds me of a graphic I received via email:

Yes, it's been cold, although we didn't get as cold as those folks above.

I don't recall which morning it was, but BRRRRRR here's our temp last week.  And the temperature had dropped to 17.4 inside early that morning! 

Brrrrrr!

My ears are still ringing from the 85 decibel alarm.

Hibernation...

Lehman Brothers Fraud

Great program on the Documentary Channel the other night!

It indeed is one of the best documentaries produced after the sub-prime fiasco in the USA in 2008...economies all over the world were impacted.

Jail?  Nope...not a day spent in jail.

"On September 15, 2008, the firm filed for Chapter 11

 bankruptcy protection following the massive exodus

 of most of its clients, drastic losses in its stock, and

 devaluation of its assets by credit rating agencies.

The filing marked the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The following day, the British bank Barclays announced

 its agreement to purchase, subject to regulatory approval,

 Lehman's North American investment-banking and

 trading divisions along with its New York headquarters building.

On September 20, 2008, a revised version

 of that agreement was approved by Judge James Peck."

An entirely different "movie", 76 minutes long, was featured on the Documentary channel, which is the one I watched.  Its link is provided at the bottom of the blog, a 3-minute YouTube trailer.

It dealt with the five or six whistleblowers--Lehman Bros employees, one of whom was a Senior Vice President--who were treated abysmally by the company.  Slowly but surely their jobs disappeared after they had sought to warn officials of the company that "something was wrong".  Slowly but surely their lives were destroyed.

The following relates to the documentary, prefaced: 

"Stockton, California. September 2007. I came to investigate the subprime crisis in this dormitory town that owes them everything — its hopes, and its downfall.
Every morning at the hotel, I scanned the record for legal announcements of court-ordered evictions.

I still remember that pencil stroke around the ad.

Arriving in front of the house, the cameraman and I discover a scene that we have seen a hundred times in the cinema: bathed in Californian sun, a little black girl plays on the steps. "Yes, mommy's here. "

The door opens. I introduce myself. "I'm a French journalist. I saw the expulsion notice in the newspaper.” The woman collapses. She had not read the newspaper yet.

I have never forgotten the faces of those who have lost everything through the fault of banks, greedy to the point of reversing the basic rules of credit.

Inside Lehman Brothers is the autopsy of this crime, by those who tried to prevent it from within.

As mortgage brokers for Lehman’s subsidiary BNC, Linda Weekes and her Californian colleagues were at the forefront of the subprime crisis. Matthew Lee, then headquartered in New York, was the first leader to have refused to validate the accounts tainted by fraudulent transactions.

At the time, nobody listened to these whistleblowers.

In 2007 and 2008, other banks, lost by the same greed and were saved by the Fed. On Wall Street, they say Lehman Brothers was "sacrificed.”

It was necessary to make an example, to punish the cowboys of Lehman, to promise that this would not happen again.

Today, banks have recovered their health, and with it, their bad habits. Toxic assets, derivatives — the labels have changed but the mechanisms remain, unlocked by Donald Trump, who hastens to tear down frail safeguards erected by the Dodd-Frank Act.  (Also here.)

Worse still, many of the cabinet of advisors around the current President were the ones who drove the system into bankruptcy back in 2008.

The fight of our characters has not aged. But, even today nobody hears them. Inside Lehman Brothers is the result of an investigative survey, conducted by the team for over two years."

The CEO of Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld, who apparently lost "$2 billion of HIS OWN money".  Ahem

Here's the 3-minute YouTube trailer clip. 

This Orca-Sound article details the gist of the 76-minute film I watched.
It first aired on August 25th.

Crooks.
Crooks who actually had the Securities and Exchange Commission complicit in their "dealings".
Crooks who bankrupted everyday, ordinary people...

Crooks who still haven't gone to jail.
And never will.

Pity.  

12-Degree Temp Drop in a Couple of Hours!

Well, it WAS forecasted to do that...

But the snow just won't quit! 
Running out of places to put it, especially with our little tractor.

Oh man...snow's still coming down

Forecast low tonight of -22C and -24 tomorrow night, with a HIGH of only -13C tomorrow.

If the above short video actually loaded, it shows the beginning of the storm that is dropping temperatures to dangerously low...(I can't test it on Preview--before posting).

Husband got back from town mid-afternoon and said that Highway 6 was a "blizzard, a whiteout due to the wind".

And on a more pleasant note,  my friend up the street has a Bird of Paradise that just started its bloom in her kitchen!

Strelitzia in Kathy's kitchen beginning to bloom...

She and her husband have a novel way of feeding birds...

Hoping the two short videos worked...

Brutal Cold 2020

Brutal cold coming this week.

 Thank goodness we have a woodstove.
And lots of seasoned birch.