Moot Witness

I have been badgering the boy in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways for many months about using our tax returns for a large, flat TV. Perhaps what I look most forward to is watching things like this: I vow to get my hands on every David-Attenborough-narrated thingie involving birds and bugs and plants and strange sea creatures I can and have a friggin' party . For one, most likely. In other news, it hit 50 degrees today, which made the chickens very happy. I hadn't seen them dustbathing in seemingly aeons...partly because the run has been covered in snow and/or mud for months. The sight of chickens dustbathing in the sun is one of the most pure expressions of Joy you will see....perhaps akin to pigs wallowing or dogs rolling in something dead. The girls have, over time, created dips in the ground of the run doing this...which makes walking around in there an exercise in maintaining good balance. They hunker down in these depressions and lay on one side of their breast, kicking ...

This morning, there were closer to one or two hundred Red-winged Blackbirds flocked in the tall trees behind our barn. In the 4 1/2 years we've been in this quirky little house, I've only seen singles at my feeders less times than I can count on one hand... though I have periodically heard their liquid, bubbling call in the swampy area just beyond our yard. The sound reminds me so much of blissful afternoons as a kid at my grandparents' 1960s era, suburban house back home in Florida. This morning, exactly 1,202 miles North and half a lifetime away from there, dozens gathered in my trees and gurbled at the coming Spring. Aside from small bunch of stay-behinds, they all vanished within the hour.

This month is historically, after 13 New England winters, not the best time for me, outlook-wise. Too much indoor sloth and near-unlimited opportunities for ponderous brooding, exacerbated by my semi-recent departure from four rollercoasty years of animal sheltering, euthanasia and involvement in cruelty investigations doesn't lend one towards a Pollyanna attitude. Thankfully, a great new career opportunity is on the horizon, the spring peepers will start their nightly swamp ruckus in a matter of weeks and it's no longer entirely premature to allow the 2010 Garden Visions to get percolating in the brain. It's also helpful to take stock in the good things. Like...my kooky, little, three-legged sidekick, Sveta. It's trite to say, but she is my best friend....and the first thing and last thing I see every day. One of my biggest points of pride, my natural history/curiosites collection. 18 years as a veterinary technician plus many thoughtful friends and relatives over t...

And so it begins.