Boredom---No Need

I was bent out of shape in boredom this afternoon, after I spent all morning in chores, and lots of extra ones.   I accomplished a lot and wanted to relax a bit.  So I flopped on my bed in debauchery, with cats all around me and on top of me and sun warm through the window.  There could be nothing better!

After which I felt some guilt for such happiness.

And determined to feel rotten and bored.  Which didn't last long.

I went out with a cup of tea to my garage chair, in the sun beneath the under eaves cat run, with my camera and snapped photos of the yard birds and tried to tell them apart.

Forest in the sun

Forest with Teddy

The cats were making the most of the sun drenched cat yard, finding their spots, relaxing without apology.

Mona Lisa Stretches

Smolder, Son of Sage, relaxes at the top of the cat yard

The birds sang and tweeted happily, fought and mated and gathered nesting materials.

Small bird, maximum zoom

Fluffed out Scrub Jay in neighbor's maple

The Scrub Jays are not the nicest of birds.  They eat other birds' eggs and young and are very mean.  They are dominant in my backyard world of birds.  That is, until the Coopers' Hawk arrives.  Scrub Jays are smart, they store food in caches for harder times, and pairs remain together.  They also have loud funerals when one of their kind dies.  Here's a video showing jays in someone's backyard.  They then put a dead jay they've found near the feeder.

Junco looking for my seed

Free Building Materials--it is that time of year

The old crow sat in the neighbor's maple rattling out hammer like cackles mixed periodically with cawing protests.  I don't speak the language.  I wish I did because sounded interesting.

Cherry Budding

Potato volunteers, probably with small spuds on the roots by now

My maple, bark splitting for girth growth

Spring!

The damaged branch trunk.  The winter did not take out that branch, as I thought it would, but we had almost no storms this winter.  Now it will bear leaves and the leaves themselves will be a severe drag.  While it has leaves, it is far more likely to come down.

My maple rises from the ashes of winter.

New Life Evident

Well, I hope I don't get a neighbor in dead Jack's house.  I don't want to take down most of the Cherry Tree.  The birds like the tree. He and I used to share it and the cherries, but some new neighbor will not likely be as nice.   The Scrub Jays are putting together a nest in dead Jack's arborvita too, as are the sparrows and hummingbirds.  Oh I how I hope nobody buys dead Jack's house and kicks all the birds from their homes when the yard gets trimmed up.

Let's all hope dead Jack's house stays dead Jack's for a very long time---haunted by his accepting spirit and the birds of all kinds along with a couple of stray cats who sleep there when they need a place to rest.  Let's cross our fingers!!!

I like Jack even better now that he's dead.  Isn't that funny?

Now that he's dead I don't wake up hearing his devil voice, when he was heavily drunk and yelling curses at his cats, in the middle of the night.  At first I'd hover nervously out by the garage, worried for his cats' safety, thinking first it was people back there, breaking into his house or something.   Now that he's dead, I can alter that memory about him into something much nicer.

The latest neighbors down the block are car worship people and always there are tons of cars there, and engines being revved and oh my gosh it would be so dreadful to get a neighbor like that in dead Jack's place.  I don't know how I'd survive that.

I want a neighbor who likes the birds and will be nice to stray cats, someone who doesn't spray everything to hell. Those kinds of neighbors are really tough to find, I've discovered.   Crossing my fingers, crossing my fingers!

Well, it's time to start the soup.  I eat soup everyday usually twice a day.  I make it myself of whatever I happen to have, so its always slightly different.  Time to make the soup!

I don't eat out, except every now and then a coupon comes in the mail for this fast food place or that and I might indulge a coupon and go the drive through.  But otherwise, it's a steady diet of soup, mostly potato, barley and carrot soup I make on the stove.  I suppose its making me fat, the reliance on potatoes in my diet, but I haven't the money for more expensive fare right now.