Geese Are Not the Least

I’ve got about a dozen fat little squirrels down there, chewing away on the seeds I threw out there this morning.  They are an industrious bunch.  The believe that eating beyond one’s needs is the best insurance against food shortage.  And then, just like that, they all scatter, fast.  It was a false alarm.  Within a minute they return without much ceremony.  Was it a bird call that set them off?  Was it a warning signal from one of the squirrels themselves?  Are there squirrel punishments for “crying wolf?”  Are there some members of the community that no one takes seriously?

The sun still hasn’t yet struck our yard, rising from east behind me.  But nearly all the canopy stretching out for miles to the west is drenched in morning light.  Overhead a dozen geese just went right across our airspace.  Nobody cried-wolf when this took place.  Everyone seems to know that geese are not the least bit threatening.  Neither are the crows.  Those little squirrel eyes can tell the difference, even one hundred yards or more away, if a large soaring object is a goose or a red tailed hawk. 

Sipping coffee, but I probably out to head to bed.  Slept a bit but rose for a call in the middle of the night.  By then I was up.  Did the next call at 2:00AM and another one at 5:00AM.  Just before the 6:30AM call I began to feel it.  This Kenyan coffee I bought yesterday at Starbucks kept the nod at-bay for that call and the send-off of my daughter at the top of the driveway, as the big yellow school bus arrived.  Driving back down The Pidge on the WFMU “Wake and Bake” show was playing sloppy-sexy thrash from Detroit that had me laughing as I drove back down the hill. 

Now I’m sitting here with a second cup.  Tastes good.  But I am at odds with the crisp winter morning that everyone else is presumably stepping out into.  Perhaps I’ll go out on the porch and look around with the binoculars and then come back in for a nap.  There is nothing pressing.  I’d managed a few steps ahead of the curve, working through the night.  

My 6:30AM meeting made me laugh.   He was in Brazil, it's two hours later in the day there, and he reminded me that Carnival would begin this weekend.  I asked him to send me some photos to which he replied that it was probably better if he did not.   

To the porch then.  Off you go.

Wednesday 02/19/20