1) We sat out on the deck and enjoyed the sunshine:

Although we've taken him outside the new place before, this was the first time we took Harley out to the deck, which is pretty close to the road. Interestingly, Harley wasn't bothered by the traffic going by. Considering how startled he can get by the garbage truck when he's sitting in his window, we were pretty pleased. You will probably note the glass of sangria on the deck wall — not exactly a typical drink for the 4th of July, but we did have two barbecues.

2) We installed a lovely new gift of a hummingbird feeder. We thought about putting it in the garden, but decided we'd have a much better chance of seeing birds out on the deck.

You can't tell in this photo, but the glass nectar holders are actually purple, with red "flower" inserts on top; they look red because the nectar was dyed red. I've never had a hummingbird feeder before, but I wonder if I could use clear sugar water, so you can see the pretty purple glass.

No birds yet, but we also got a new seed feeder, so we should have some wild feathered friends soon. We might set up the web cams to snap the wild bird action. And wild squirrel action. We've already had squirrels knocking at our doors. Seriously.

We installed the seed feeder on a hook you screw into the deck, but the hummingbird feeder holder was meant to be stuck into the ground. Not a problem when you have a cordless drill, and the carpenter bees have already made you one hole. The bees' hole is the bigger one on the left.

3) We lost electricity for a little over 24 hours. We don't know exactly how long the outage lasted, since we were asleep when it came back on. As it turns out, I am a wimp when I don't have electricity available. Call me an "Ugly American" if you want — I deserve it. But let's just say I was pretty darned cranky when the lights went out, and it wasn't even "my time of the month."

The ugliness gets even uglier when you realize we have a generator. We went to bed Wednesday night figuring the lights would probably come back on by morning. But when Mr. Battery-Powered Radio told us Thursday morning that the electric company was warning everyone it might take all weekend for the power to come back on, Bruce got working on the generator, with the gas, and the backfeed cord, and the plug into the wall next to the refrigerator.

You see, apart from the crankiness over no TV and no internets and only certain lights (the poor Finsters just didn't know when to get up on Thursday because it was overcast and their lights never went on), Peanut is still in the freezer. So keeping the refrigerator going was actually much more important than keeping me from getting too cranky.

Maybe I should spend part of my Electronic Stimulation check on finally getting him cremated. But then I'd miss that flash of green peeking out from the freezer.