A Wintry Mix

Dear Maria,

Ouch! I hoped you forgot my prediction regarding Trump’s blood sugar level. Unlike him apparently, I can drive by a Krispy Kreme and my A1C goes up 2 points. These days, a handful of sweet potato tots and I think I’ve summited the Everest of desserts.

Your robin story made me laugh out loud—with you, not at—and I am very sorry about your new car. But 100 robins, wow! I rarely see more than half-a-dozen robins at a time here.

A number of our local birds out back have settled the winter fling, or at least the mallards and eider ducks have. The geese, not quite. A few weeks ago the males regularly were thrashing about at each other, and yesterday an interloper was given a hostile reception down by the dam. I suspect rapprochement will reign soon as we tick away days until spring.

As for the predators, the pair of Red-shouldered hawks are back on the scene after seeming to vacate during the bad cold spell at the beginning of the year. I’ve seen them together half a dozen times during the past few weeks. Day before yesterday they were sitting together in the grandfather tree I sent you a picture of last summer. Truth be told, I misidentified them as Cooper’s hawks until taking a look with my glasses on. Just let that reality go without comment, please.

Oh, did I tell you about seeing one of these hawks sitting in a birch behind a house two blocks away? Yep, about 10 feet high—here’s the kicker, someone there is a pigeon fancier and has a kit of birds—7 to 12—that I often see circling the neighborhood in the morning when I walk Max. Conjures up gruesome buffet perhaps, but a hawk’s gotta do….

We’ve had another light snow and then yesterday a wintry mix of sleet and ice and rain that now is long gone. May touch 60 degrees a few times in the next two weeks. Still too early to post the days-to-spring or days-to-last-frost countdowns. Yet.

So I content myself with paging through seed and plant catalogs, and some days slipping out and snipping a few small interior branches off the elms and crape myrtles. Or just standing out in the nursery and thinking about when the plants and trees will break leaf after over-wintering in pots.

I suspect you will be at the roses in a few weeks. Lucky girl. Hugs to the family. May send along a story next week. We’ll see.

As for my dream last week that ended with one of those dramatic movie voiceovers proclaiming “Your next president, Jeff Sessions”, ‘nuff said.

Yours, of course,

srk