Shelly

Brown dog stretched out flat on his side, on a concrete patio.

Very best boy totally ignoring the bouncy shenanigans of the Pit Bull next door and the screaming of the Corgi in the end apartment.

Image of a deer deep in a thicket, looking back at me through an opening in the honeysuckle and black raspberry bushes. The raspberries are in bloom.

Doe

Image of a planter with tiny seedlings just starting to pop up out of the dirt.

Baby flowers on day 5

Image of a page from my journal, including a small photo of an empty parking lot on campus with the caption “the official start of townie summer” and a list of today’s birds: American crow, turkey vulture, northern cardinal, Carolina wren, house finch, song sparrow, house sparrow, American robin, mourning dove, eastern meadowlark, great horned owl ! AGAIN !, red-eyed vireo, rock pigeon, Swainson’s thrush, red-winged blackbird, eastern towhee, downy woodpecker, European starling, northern flicker, cedar waxwing, yellow-breasted chat, common loon, gray catbird, American goldfinch, white- throated sparrow, Tennessee warbler, Carolina chickadee, red-bellied woodpecker, blue-gray gnat catcher, blackpoll warbler, northern mockingbird, wood thrush, tufted titmouse, warbling vireo, brown-headed cowbird, chipping sparrow, orchard oriole, eastern kingbird, chimney swift, yellow warbler, common grackle, pileated woodpecker, Baltimore oriole, red-shouldered hawk, great-crested flycatcher, white-breasted nuthatch, indigo bunting

Today’s complete bird list. The great horned owl is a repeat visitor, which is exciting. The turkey vulture was alongside the road, having a snack, on my way home from work.

The chipping sparrows sound like itty bitty jackhammers.

Screenshot from the Merlin Bird ID app with list of birds: American robin, great crested flycatcher, chipping sparrow, house finch, northern cardinal, and Carolina wren.

It was so quiet walking in to work this morning, that you could actually hear the birds. Usually there’s too much ambient noise from traffic to pick up bird songs.

Empty parking lot in pre dawn hours, illuminated by street lights.

Townie summer has begun!

And now I’m envisioning Elon training his AI using bad OCR of scanned books. Though now that I think about it, maybe that’s why Google’s AI is so terrible?

Nope. Many US publishers send books to LoC, but not all of them do so.

Not to be pedantic, but Library of Congress does NOT have a copy of every book published in the US.

Always!

My five year old self realizing that Barbieland is a real place.

Dog standing on concrete, viewed from the back, with his head turned in profile and tilted upward.

Creeping on the upstairs neighbors. Pretty sure he’s also judging them.

More of this, please.

Hard same.

PSA

A NEW POPE HAS BEEN CHOSEN

A drawing on copier paper of two people sitting on a porch swing. One person has dark hair in long braids and is wearing a shirt that says “Girls Inc” backwards. The other person has blond hair and and is wearing glasses. There is a single away of party lights above the swing. Along the bottom is written “Happy Birthday.”

Found in a used book I bought.

A journal page with a list of today’s observed birds and a photo of a dog trancing under a pile of dead tree branches.

Today’s BÖRBS

Columbine plant with one fully open flower and multiple buds, covered in raindrops.

Raindrops on columbine

A collage of three images. The first two are from The Little Prince, depicting a solid brown, lumpy shape similar to a squashed cowboy hat, and the second depicting the same shape, but as an outline with an elephant standing inside. The third image is a sandwich, viewed from above. The bread is shaped similarly to the first image.

Lunch and The Little Prince

A handwritten list of bird species that visited my “backyard” today, and a very crappy phone photo I took of a red-shouldered hawk circling overhead in a bright, clear sky.

Today’s birds. The red-shouldered hawk was circling above. Two of them, actually. It was a warm, sunny day, so I sat out on the patio and read my book. Then the hawks showed up, hollering at each other. They stuck around long enough for me to get a crappy phone photo of one of them.

Photo depicts a tuxedo cat rolling on his back on the carpet with a small stuffed dog toy in his front paws.

Piglet getting his cooties all over the dog’s stuffy.

Image depicts a page from my journal with a list of birds that visited my backyard on Tuesday.

I’ve been keeping daily lists in my journal of the birds that visit my backyard. Spring is coming!

Image depicts a hammer and sickle carved into concrete pavement.

Found on the loading dock this morning.

Penelope needs to read womenʼs diaries and maybe do a little research in old newspapers. The stories are literally right there. Oh, and I would strongly recommend she trawl through old death certificates. Absolutely heartbreaking.

Winter landscape of a snow covered field ringed by trees with a bright blue sky above. The field is striped with shadows and sunlight.

Screenshot from the Merlin bird identification app, showing the bird sounds it identified from my patio this morning: northern cardinal, downy woodpecker, American crow, blue jay, dark-eyed junco, and house finch.

It’s cold af and everything is covered in ice and snow, but the sun is shining, and the birds have a lot to say this morning. I’m especially happy to hear our resident woodpecker.

Ope!