February 2009 – Page 7

Fish alive

Posted on February 16, 2009February 22, 2017 by Ian C.

Since returning from Florida and finding the bubbler detached from the pond, I’ve been worried that the fish might not survive this year – the bubbler normally keeps air flowing in to the pond water, and an opening in the ice; but detached this year, ice was solid to at least 10″, with no fresh air 😦

Now, with no snow for a few days, and sun doing melting, the ice on the pond has thinned, enough that we can see orange patches under the ice:
February 16 - Fish Alive.jpg

Happily, these orange patches move around too! So at least some of the fish have survived so far.

We installed a second bubbler today, which hopefully will assist the fish in continuing to survive through the rest of this long cold winter.

Taxes

Posted on February 15, 2009February 21, 2017 by Ian C.

April 15th is the deadline date for filing taxes in USA, but Margaret & I always try to stay well ahead of it (so many Americans do not – post offices have to stay open late that day!)
On the other hand, you can’t file too early, because it takes banks a while to get their paperwork out to you (unlike England, at least when we lived there, US banks do not withhold taxes, or do “MIRAS” type activities – you have to factor it all into the tax return).
When we came to America, we had little clue how US taxes worked, so purchased TurboTax to do them for us – and that’s how we’ve done it ever, since! You’re almost “locked in” because TurboTax simplifies basic data entry by importing the previous years data.
The US government has been trying to persuade people to “e-file”, eliminating mailed-in paperwork, for years – but we’ve always refused since we have to pay to e-file; why should we pay to benefit the government! But this year, TurboTax rolled the cost in to the program price, so we have no choice but to pay – and so we decided to do it:
February 15 - Taxes.jpg