altivo: Blinking Altivo (altivo blink)
...of the rest of my life. Or so the saying goes. The weather is gloomy looking but hummingbirds and woodpeckers are busy outside the window. Classical guitar in my ears, I've been awake for three hours already and have not had any coffee. The horses are becoming restive and must be fed soon, but someone else will have to do the interlibrary shipment and catalog yet another James Patterson.

It is also the 33rd anniversary of my first meeting Gary, who is still asleep in the bedroom. He never sleeps well, so I hate to awaken him. Guess I'll go feed critters and bring in eggs without disturbing him. Maybe the impending rain will hold off until after that's done. I should spend the day reconstructing and reorganizing here to clear up the clutter of books and oddments that came home as I cleared out my desk and shelves at the library. The deep gloom of the sky, however, suggests a day spent reading or perhaps sitting at the piano or organ. We shall see. At least there's no hurry...

Or is there? Another imperious whinny suggests that there is. I may no longer have a schedule, but the children do.
altivo: From a con badge (studious)
Suddenly it's really winter. I guess maybe because it's December, but it seems awfully cold for this month. Down in single digits (F) at night up to teens in the daytime. Dark late, dark early, gloomy in between. Today we had continuous snow flurries.

A bunch of cataloging and some web maintenance at work, all the while glancing occasionally at an IRC screen. (What, chatting at work? No, what made you think so?)

Arranged to take a day off for bird counting, and when I told Gary he handed me my birthday present a week early. It's a large book on North American birds, with watercolor paintings of each species. The information is keyed to a three digit number, and an attached digital device plays back the song or call of that species when you key in the digits. It's a beautiful book, and the sounds are pretty decent too. Much too large to carry around as a guide book, but great for study or for checking up on things later. I have CDs and tapes of bird calls, but this is much more practical for getting right to a particular bird.

We discovered almost immediately that the call of the Cooper's hawk is very similar to that of a pileated woodpecker. I thought we were hearing pileateds last spring, but I know there are Cooper's hawks around. The hawk in that photo I posted last week could have been a Cooper's. I thought it wasn't big enough, but separating the Cooper's from the sharp-shinned hawk at a distance is a job for an expert.

In other news, did I mention that it's cold? It is.

Another crowded week ahead. Heat pump repair guy comes back tomorrow to analyze the underground loop, though it's working OK so far. Wednesday the electric range guy is coming, and probably the farrier in the morning though we may encourage him to cancel if it's still this cold. Thursday we go to Bloomington to meet Red, the dog we hope to adopt. Saturday is spinning guild and then the annual Sagittarius birthday party down in Elgin, assuming that we don't have a new dog who shouldn't be left alone for four hours.

Not much breathing time in there, I say. Hopefully it will slow down, though the Audubon bird count is the next week.

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