Saturday Sharing With Coffee! #7

Good morning to each and every one of you and Happy Saturday! Time to grab some coffee and chat a while! It is not too cold this morning, starting with a temperature of 8F (-13C) and it has already risen to 12F (-10C) and should end up at 28F (-2C) by this afternoon. That is not so bad for us in February! However, it is short lived, with a cold north wind beginning tomorrow and pushing the temp downward throughout the day. That cold is coming back a day early. Oh well.

And it will be staying with us until at least next weekend. There was quite a bit of bird activity yesterday, with Pine grosbeak numbers getting up to 12, 7 males and 5 females. Not bad at all. They start heading north again by the end of the month, but this blast of cold might keep them around here for another week, which would be nice. I tried spending a bit of time outside with the birds yesterday, but that wind was just too cold for bare hands, so I gave up quickly.

Common Redpoll on my hand. This one had a copper colored spot instead of the usual red. It did not show up too well in the pic though. Showed nicest in the sun.

Terrible really. I could do things like that before, but the arthritis in my hands is getting worse, so they are more sensitive to the cold now. Terrible really. Another good reason to like warm weather. Not that I really needed another reason. I am already convinced. Warm weather is better. Much better. No comparison really. I am looking forward to spring. I know it is coming. It is just far off still. But coming. Last year we kind of missed spring.

Winter was here until the end of April. Then May was very cold and rainy. Then summer began in June. I am looking forward to walking down to the river again. Without snow. But I am going back down soon too. Even with snow. It is just more fun without snow. More things to see. The first new growth. The first wildflowers. The first butterflies. The first birds returning from the south.

Female Pine Grosbeak.

Speaking of turkeys. Theodora is still around, in the neighborhood. She does not come here anymore. That is because the dog keeps chasing her and she does not like that. I miss having her come for visits. She liked to stop and chat while I sat out on the deck with my coffee. In the spring, not in the winter. I do not sit on the deck with my coffee in the winter. The coffee freezes too quickly. Then it is hard to get it out of the cup. But I digress.

Anyway, I miss having Theodora coming to visit. She still is the largest bird I have had on my bird feeder in all my years of feeding birds. That will never change. I had a weird dream last night. I dreamt it was spring already. It went from cold and snow one day, to no snow and warm the next day. That does not actually happen, not around here anyway.

Theodora, the wild turkey, last winter.

It was terrible to wake up and find out it was a dream. Muffin jumped on me, that woke me up. She wanted me to get up and play. I wanted to sleep. So we played a bit. Then she came to bed and we both slept. I knew I could win that argument. Must be time for more coffee, don’t you agree? I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2023 Steve McLeod.