Nada, nothing, zilch, zippo, goose eggs...a Big Fat Zero! I could not give it away. Not even a "Be back". The weather stayed cold all day, and it is suppose to fall into the record lows tonight!

Raw. Wet. Cold. The only way to describe the weather here in Dunedin, Florida this morning. I could barely drag myself out of bed this morning to set-up at 3AM. It was sleeting and the wind was blowing at 15 to 20mph. Sherry called at 3:30AM to say that she was up all night. Apparently, at about 1AM a man showed up in the front yard, screaming for "Help". According to Sherry, he was in distress. Sherry wisely locked herself in the bathroom while talking to the 911 operator. The police came and collected the victim, and hauled him off the the lock-up in Moore Haven. Apparently, he was at a Bachelor Party on 4th Street, became inebriated, got hell kicked out of him, and had his wallet taken. It could have been much worse, as Sherry is packing a 9 shot 22mag. revolver, a 25cal.Colt auto, a Ruger 357mag. revolver, a double barrel 12ga. with "000" buck, and a 12ga. Bolt action, again with "000" Buck. She is (as they say) loaded for bear. Had the perp attempted to get into the house, much damage could have been done. Sherry is an Able Woman!

After cutting, grinding and fitting another Starry Night in Pink Ice, I moved all of my equipment into Sherry's Studio and packed for my trip to Dunedin. We did manage to get the Bees fed today, as well as getting some really good sunflower seed (shelled) out for the birds. The American Goldfinch and the Painted Bunting, as well as the Titmouse were all feeding heavily today. The Bees were going bersek over the sugar water we put out. It was a feeding frenzy! First at the feeder out by the road, and than in a small bowl of sugar water that I placed at my work station. The little girls really need it this time of year. It is amazing the numbers of wild bees we have in Palmdale. Every year we feed them when it gets cold. We had literally thousands around my work station. So many in fact, Sherry wondered if we might not be in the middle of a swarm I did not think so, given the time of year, but it certainly was a big mess of bees! At 3PM I departed for Dunedin. All of the groves I passed were in full harvest mode, with full tractor trailers lined along the highway. East of Arcadia I passed a tomato farm with acres and acres of burnt, brown tomato plants. Very Sad. Road side stands were opened along the road everywhere, trying to unload these frost damaged veggies. Tonight we will have cold rain here, but tomorrow they are talking about another big freeze. The ride into Dunedin was uneventful. I ate a big bowl of brown rice and chicken with peas that Sherry fixed me. I miss her greatly when she is not around. There is so much that she does that I never see, until I have to do it myself. I have to remember to tell her just how thankful I am to have her in my life.

Mild last night. Low of 40F. so we did not freeze. First time we did not go to freezing in 5 days. The weatherman said Palmdale hit a low of 24F. two nights ago (I showed 33F.). This weekend it is to freeze hard again on Saturday Night into Sunday Morning, and again Sunday Night into Monday Morning. By Tuesday this is suppose to break. Yesterday, Sherry picked up the Crawley Insurance claim check, so we have that panel going to construction. We have several other commissions that we can complete, so we will have some cash flow through this "dry" spell. I don't think that we will do much in the way of direct sales this weekend in Dunedin. I do hope to be able to sell some commissions though. It is doubtful that anyone will come out in this weather! It is predicted that daytime temps. only reach into the low 40's F. with night time temps. in the upper 20's F.

Only into the Low 40'sF tonight, they say. Let's hope they are right. Sherry worked on completing her small "Peace Sigh" panels (3), and started fitting and foiling the Papa commission S100B clear baroque 1921 transom. I spent most of the afternoon cutting and grinding and fitting the Crawley's Starry Night in Blue Ice. Sherry will finish this panel this weekend while I am at the Dunedin show. We decided that she would stay here and I would go and work the show. The weather is to turn fowl, so there is no reason for both of us to be subjected to the weather and no sales. I will work the show in hopes of selling some commission work. Sherry will stay in Studio and complete some commissions and replacement panels damaged during shipping. By the by. Sherry called the post office today regarding the Paul Swartz panel. The USPS sent the insurance rejection letter to Paul instead of us. Therefore we had no means of appealing the rejection. When Sherry tried to talk to customer service at USPS she was on hold for 24 mins. until someone picked her up. When the USPS agreed to send off a copy of the rejection letter, they would not send it to Palmdale, only Abell. In the course of talking to Paul to update him, he said he talked to his Postmaster and the Postmaster said that the decision to reject was not his, but some bureaucrat in St.Louis. We ship a perfectly good piece of art glass and the USPS breaks it. We report the breakage and they provide us with a form to fill out to make the claim. They do not process the claim because we were given the wrong form. We fill out another form. A bureaucrat that has never seen the damage denies the claim. They send the art glass they broke back to our client. They send the letter of claim denial to the client. They do not notify us of any of this. After we receive verbal confirmation of this from our client, I call my postmistress. I get nothing but a phone number from her, and some sadness in her voice. I call the customer service number. They will not give me the name of the bureaucrat that denied the claim, or the name of the person I am talking to, or the name of that person's supervisor. So here we are. My client has a piece of broken glass that they paid $500 for. I can't get the glass back without spending more money. The post office is as uncooperative as I have ever seen. My only recourse is to appeal. I hope the USPS can at least get the denial of claim letter to me. The incompetence of the USPS is monumental. You would think that after 200+ years delivering mail, they could maybe get it right.

Not as cold as yesterday morning, but still record cold. It appears it did not reach freezing last night. This morning it is 33F. They have lifted the freeze warning for tonight. The next freeze warning is for Sunday night into Monday morning. That means that after I drive 3 hours Sunday night from the show in Dunedin, I will be covering up in the dark. Oh well. It is what it is. Today I continue on Nan Merrick's Egret. It is predicted to go into the low 60's. That would be wonderful.

So Sherry's Papaya's didn't make it. She started these from seed way back in late 07' early 08'. Her friend Linda gave her a fruit while we were visiting on Big Pine Key. Sherry germinated the seeds, and transported the seedlings to Maryland that first summer. All fall we stepped around them while they overtook our living room. We transported them back to Florida, and planted them in late 08'. Sherry tried to save them during the Big Freeze in January 09', and nursed them back to health. When we came down in July they were doing gang busters. By October they set fruit. This morning, they were burnt and wilting. The fruit was falling off and all the blossoms were on the ground. Sad this. So much work. And not just the Papayas. Fruit and ornamentals. Franzapani, all of the Palms, Century plant, Yuccas, Philodendron, the Giant Lilly and so on and so on and so on. Sherry talked about it while we went on our evening walk, and decided that we have got to stop planting these cold sensitive plantings. Tonight, we get the same as last night. High 20'sF Low 30sF. We have covered all of the plants again this afternoon. I doubt that it will help. What is not already burnt, probably will be.