The Robins Lie

Those robins are such liars. Yesterday there were four robins hanging out at the bottom of the bird feeder. Today, we have this. I confess, those robins looked like they were fleeing the territory--they seem to be solitary whenever I see them pecking in the lawn in the spring and summer, only grouping together when they have travelling plans. Sometimes in the fall there will be twenty of them all feasting in our driveway before heading south (north? Who knows where they go?) One year we followed them home from Florida and there were multitudes of them along the grassy edges of the parkways when we got home. Then we had more snow.

Maybe the trick is to look for the singleton who has staked out your yard for the season. If they are in a flock, don't let them suck you in to thoughts of spring. It's all a scam. The bonus for today is that there are four pairs of cardinals all desperate for seeds out at the feeder. The white snow magnifies their color, and they are so pretty going back and forth from the feeder to the lilac trees. What I'm hoping is that their desperation is not signalling more stinky weather...

Tulip Time

It's tulip time again! That's the time of year when we are so desperate for some sign of spring that we will pay anything they ask for a little bunch of tulips to put on our table and pretend that spring is on the way.

This winter has been particularly stinky for those of us in the Northeast. We have had at least one snow storm a week, and on some lucky weeks, two. Even though things warmed up a bit last week, melting off most of the nasty icy patches, mounds of snow are still piled up high at the edges of the curbs, and big hills in parking lots threaten to persist for weeks to come. The tv weathermen are promising a warm up, but they caught me this morning and tricked me into wearing stockings and a skirt to church, and I paid for it with freezing legs.

Oh well. Off to the breakfast room to admire my tulips!