Struttin' yer stuff

Why has this image become associated with Thanksgiving? Turkeys breed in the spring!

This lovely fellow is in my dooryard. They (he and the females) are very skittish. If I move past a window they cluck/pop off and run for cover. I had to shoot this very surreptitiously.

I can hear him right now, gobbling out in the field behind the house. A Ruffed Grouse was drumming across the road this morning. The thrush are back, and a Northern Parula warbler has been gleaning bugs from my wood pile for several days.

I wish I never had to go back to work. And I am sure no one has ever wished that before.

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

I am on vacation. Yea!

I was supposed to go to Provincetown. Yea!

I wasn't able to go. Boo.

Still, I'm having a pleasant time. I am enjoying my home as it was intended. Nature. Views. Sounds. Breezes. Lovely.

I have had energy. Something lacking for a long time. I have been doing projects I've been wanting to do for a long time.

Here is my favorite project so far:
For years I have been frustrated with the one bar towel rack I've had. I've always felt it an imposition to have to fold towels to hang them on a towel rack. I did it because it was "what one did." Well, it takes too much time for something so unimportant.

I realized recently that I don't like to use rods (and hangers) for hanging things. Not for my coats, not for my towels!





I replaced the closet rod for my coats and jackets with this:
A beautiful hook system. Now my stuff is almost always hung up instead of tossed on the couch or table. Same idea with the towels. Of course I never used hangers for the towels but it was the folding thing that I never did.

I love this new system! I love how it looks. I love that I made it. I love that it is far easier for me to use.

Why the heck not be as comfortable as one can be in one's own house?

Spring, Poding

It is a foggy spring morning. Slim is poding in her nest. I am sipping tea and marveling at the shining yellow the American Goldfinches on my feeder are wearing.

Poding is a word that doesn't exist in dictionaries. At least none that I've been able to find. It means that kneading thing that cats do with their front paws. Everyone says they do it cause it's what they did as kittens during nursing. OK. But. All mammals nursed and I've never seen another mammal do this. Why cats?