SQUINTING

I don't mind these snowy days.
In February they are the bride's flowing cumbersome veil.
It's lovely, but we don't have to trip around in it much longer.



Neighbor Rick is shoveling again this morning.



Our mailman,Dave, has to slog through virgin snow, again.




It's all about texture and light..



The Cardinal warily watches for the hawk.



None of his fellows have hit my windows since the silk forsythia boughs went up.



It looks wintry, but the real forsythia will soon be in bloom.



The light on the kitchen counter yesterday, told the real story.



I'm all aglow.

You call this a snowstorm? It's white. It came from the sky. But . . . it's late February.

'Light'-ness of Heart

From bed this morning, I watched the moon slip through outstretched arms.



It was briefly captured by a crystal ocean breeze.



We had a rosy dawn courtesy of the Red-bellied tummy.

I recorded fossil creatures emerging from snow banks.



A rat. C'mon, now. Believe.



You do see the rodent, here?




An Alligator . . . ? (his head is on the right -angled away)




This is the mailman's winter path. Farewell!

I yahooed Spring! to the man with the two dogs whom I've seen walk by for a few seasons but never met. He dropped off his dogs and returned to sit on the porch and visit. I shared my large blanket - it was 25'. After an hour my husband came out to see what was going on. Russ teaches American literature at UT. We covered so many topics I was giddy.
Ah. Spring. . . .

Made It!

I'm sitting on the front porch to post this announcement. From my thawing heart to yours - a message of Cardinal song, Snow Drops pushing up through the receding patches of snow, neighbors peering uncertainly from their windows, resisting hope for fear the sense of light and song may be an illusion.

It's real. Come out! Come out! The tree roots are sending life upward. The creatures herald it with stirrings and rustlings.

My fingers are numb, but this old heart knows that winter is over.

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I Think My Son Will Be Pleased For Me

It was cold and my camera skills suck. Oh, yeah, I can point and shoot and Bev from Burning Silo helped me learn the macro feature. During his Christmas vacation my son tried to give me some pointers on other features of my year old camera. In one ear and out the other.

So I stood in the 13' frigid air spinning that dial wishing I could call him, but too proud to let him remind me that I'd been distracted by a Raymond rerun during his tutorial.

I got lucky. The wheel stopped on the ISO setting (Insomniac Sleep Over?) and I got it! My very own eclipse. Well - I guess I shared it with many thousands of other glitter seekers. Kind of nice to think we were all looking at the same glowing orb at the same time.

Jody tells me that our forays under night skies steered him into astrophysics. He has mixed feelings about his career choice, but he's sifted some mighty fine light from the ends of telescopes and with serendipity and hard work discovered the sodium tail of our moon and defined and modeled the sodium taurus cloud of Jupiter's moon Io. He now is working on Mercury and our moon, trying to tease apart the mystery of the why-fores and where-fores of sodium emanations from their surfaces.

I'M SO PROUD OF HIM. Here is some of the media coverage of his and his team's findings. CNN. Discover Magazine. BBC.

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Watch The Birdy

Inspired by Mary of 'Mary's View' who has to be one of the nicest and funniest people in the blogisphere - I submit my gallery of funny bird visages. Thanks for the smiles, Mary . . . I hope these give you a few.



To swallow or not to swallow.




Lift Off. (Wood Stork toes)





He was singing his heart out atop old Baldy.




Coy. (She knows she's gorgeous)




Bad hair day.




Happy as a puppy with two peckers?




Daytime Night Heron. (Trying to ignore this idiot photographer)




White pelican in a rare awkward moment.


Grace.


Circle of life. Or . . . an unwilling dinner guest.




Leverage




Well . . . not exactly poetry in motion, but when you're a white morph of the Reddish Egret - you're special and you know it.




Check out his balletic 'plie'.




Check out his 'attitude'.




I dunno. It's that wild-eyed look and the pompadour that makes me see Jerry Lee Lewis.