Sloths And Birds

It's a rainy day, and the last of the leaves are falling. Soaked, they stick flatly to the deck and patio, waiting for drier days to be gathered into piles.

I was feeling a bit under the weather today, so I stayed home wrapped in a blanket and sitting on the couch watching Enterprise reruns on DVD (thanks PJW!). Probably just two long workweeks catching up with me, along with a music project that has been taking up my late nights. (More on that in the next few weeks.)

Normally my workaholic nature is hesitant to see any benefit to laziness and couch sitting, much less extol its virtues. But this morning I was rewarded for my aforementioned slothfulness, with a third visit from my mammoth-winged friend. Fortunately, my camera happened to be within arm's length this time.


Near as I can tell, this is either a Sharp-shinned Hawk or Cooper's Hawk

I guess this is as good an opportunity as ever to share another photo as well. While it's a more frequent resident, the elusive Cardinal rarely provides photo ops, so this shot from a couple weeks ago is as good as I've gotten so far:



Yeah, I know it's starting to sound like my once-eventful life has been reduced to backyard ornithological pursuits, but there just hasn't been much to report. The obligation to update readers does exist, however, as evidenced in a recent email:

"Hey Ron, you’re not like dead or anything are you? ...you haven’t been updating your blog and that is a little unsettling. I just don’t want it to be one of those things where the old lady dies on her couch and nobody finds her for a year, only in this case you would be the old lady."

Nope, not dead, just that life is busy yet uneventful... which is fine. I think the most out of the ordinary thing so far was discovering that the heat in my new house hadn't been working. I just assumed that some of the rooms didn't have the same efficiency of circulation that the others did. But the other night when I got home and the interior temperature was in the 50's, I figured I'd better check the furnace. Everything seemed to work fine, but no fire. One day and eighty dollars later, the heating guy told me I had a dirty pilot. I remember thinking he needed a bath the last time I flew into Denver International Airport, but didn't think it was any of my business. With hindsight, I should have intervened.

Like I said, not all that interesting. Heck, my parents' lives have more to report. My mom moved to Denver, my dad's teaching a Bible study... definitely more first-hand activity in their lives than mine. I could probably wow you with my adventures of getting ZZ Top some new hard drives or Will Smith some software for his studio, but yeah, it's hard to spice that stuff up.

So there you have it. I'm not dead, but have been pretty cold. And if you searched for me today, you would probably find me motionless on the couch. Don't worry... I'm just trying to keep from scaring away the birds.