i get it. you're cold. really cold. as cold as you've been in your entire life. snow is blowing; sleet is flying; wind chill is, like, minus seventeen and dropping. and you are still really crabby about the fact that there were, literally, no acorns this year. seriously. with all the oak trees in your neighborhood, you are coming up empty and having to make-do with whatever the birds drop around the pesky
squirrel-buster feeders. speaking of birds, you've managed to use intermittent negative reinforcers on your way up and down one particular oak tree so that no bird has taken up residence in the bright red birdhouse. oh, they've thought about it. but each time it seems you might have some new (and noisy) neighbors, you casually paused at the house, maybe even placed a front paw lightly on the roof (to give it just a little nudge), and
voila', the house remained unclaimed. oh, there was a flying squirrel in there, briefly. but both it and you were scared off when a couple of slightly deranged humans scaled the tree with spikes and ropes. only you were brave enough to return. to missing branches and sawdust. so, i guess it's only fair that, as the wind chill dropped, you had a go at the house. gnawed your way right into it, in fact. pale yellow gashes in the red-painted wood, widening the door so that you could squeeze your whole body into the shelter. only to discover a birdhouse is too small for a squirrel. and feels slightly precarious, hanging there against the tree on that one little nail as the wind howls around you and the snow blows and the sleet flies. so, by morning, you'd abandoned the idea and returned to a nest in the tall branches of the oak tree. never giving the birdhouse a second thought.
so, yeah. i get it. but i don't have to like it. at first, i thought there was an odd ring of icy snow around the birdhouse's door. until i walked outside for a closer look. sadly, i think this squirrel renovation (i blame a squirrel; what other animal could have or would have done this?) has rendered this house completely unusable by all potential tenants. when the roads are passable again (and i have time on my hands), i may see if there's an insert i can fabricate to narrow the hole back to bird-size again . . . .
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we humans engaged in much less destructive activities in response to the winter weather. the foot of snow did not materialize; instead, we got about half of it in sleet with a few heavy showers of freezing rain just for fun. luckily, i think we are in the clear with our power. (we had enough time without that last year, as far as i'm concerned.) my weather-watcher was vigilant in contributing to the local forecast, even getting his name in lights when they used his data for the noon weather update!
not to be deterred by the winter temperatures (and desperate for a change of scenery), he decided to take a book out to the back porch swing while on a break from data-gathering. not my, personal, go-to winter activity, so i was impressed by his fortitude and out-of-the-box thinking.
but most of the day and into the night, he did this....
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
why am i filming my cookbooks? you might posit.
well, because the pianist
wants no record of music played without perfection.
but the pianist's mother thinks
he's just grand.
a super-short snippet as he learns Pachelbel's Canon in D.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
my own activities primarily revolved around measured rotations of
1. sitting and
2. eating.
here i am preparing to do both simultaneously!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
i'm also getting a little caught-up on my professional literature.
only to get completely side-tracked and all fun-in-the-sun day-dreamy
when i ran across THIS advertisement.
(i said that with a british accent, by the way. just because.)
i've google-mapped, visited the website,
considered what i would do with all that time off.
life is short.
'yes' is a really powerful word.
but so is 'no.'
it's so hard, sometimes, to figure out which one to use.
i'm snowbored & should probably just clean out a closet.
