Happy 3-Bird Day

I don't know if I mentioned it, but I've been doing a 20-minute yoga routine almost every morning for the last month, since I got to The Clearing on Sept. 27th and realized how good it made me feel.  (sometimes you just have to take your brain away from home to kind of reset it, don't you?)  Anyway, I've started to take my mat into the dinette where the carpet is firmer (so I'm a little less tippy in tree pose [balance on one leg]) and the view is of the birdfeeders and the early morning rush hour there instead of the houses across the street.  I don't interrupt my practice to snap pictures but I do notice which birds come and how they behave.  Today was a banner day.  First the female Red-bellied Woodpecker came back again and again, each time extracting one perfect peanut in the shell.  Then the male Cardinal came to perch on the platform feeder, looking like he was examining each seed to choose the right one.  The gang of Bluejays scrabbled and squabbled in the apple tree before, one by one, coming down to snag a peanut in the shell.  I was surprised to see that the Red-bellied's arrival sent the Bluejay packing, so I guess Bluejays are like all bullies, pushing the smaller birds around but not willing to stand up to a bird its own size.  Tsk.  Happily they all came back for a photo op once I was done yog-ing and had my mat rolled up and put away.  The only bird I missed was a Ruby-throated Hummingbird and they're all gone for the season.  I took down the last nectar feeder this morning when I saw that instead of the stragglers sipping the nectar, the rising sun heating the birdie juice was making it drip out to make a bug-attracting splotch on the patio.  Time for that to stop.

It's very windy and fairly clear today.  I see that the rest of the neighborhood trees have joined in the color party and there are a few last leaves holding onto our maple tree.  Now the street and the lawns are carpeted with beautiful red, orange, and yellow leaves.  Someone should weave rugs with grass green edges and center designs like fallen autumn maple leaves, they'd be beautiful.

October 19--Bette S. Garber, Highway Images.  Gordy tapped his fingertips on his steering wheel and stared at the traffic ahead.  He could have gotten out of his car and stood between lanes to see what the hold-up was.  He hadn't moved a hundred yards in the last fifteen minutes.  He'd been staring at the shiny silver back of the semi four cars ahead since he'd turned onto I-64 off I-80 an hour ago.  He refused to look in his rear view mirror because he was sure he'd still see the highway interchange back there and it'd just make him mad.

Now I'm off to take myself out into the sunny, windy day because it's Monday and that means it's payday.  Yay!  Payday!  Two hundred thirty-three dollars and eighty-four cents, and it's all mine.  Sometimes I feel like that silly dog in the cartoons that rose up in ecstasy and floated back down when he was happy.  Do you remember his name?  I can't think of it.  Now I have something to research between customers.  Au revoir, mes amis.
--Barbara