Scattered Thoughts . . .

Another new season is upon us and the wildlife around the house is finally starting to come alive again. For the most part, our neighborhood has been devoid of song birds for the past few years. We see the occasional sparrow or robin during periods of migration (like now... it is the season for migrating birds) and we can hear some songbirds (although, not a lot) chirping away as the sun comes up but we really don't have the numbers we should have here around our house.  I know we have a couple of monstrous crows living in a nearby tree. Since these particular crows are quite aggressive, songbirds can consider that enough of a threat to find trees elsewhere. We also have a lot of cats in the area and those are clearly dangerous predators. Additionally, I sometimes see a Red Tailed Hawk in our area. These factors definitely limit the number of songbirds that settle down in our neighborhood so it comes as no surprise to me that seeing them is a bit of a rarity. This morning

The beauty of getting almost all of our Christmas chores out of the way early (by Thanksgiving weekend) means we have far more time to enjoy the Christmas season. And, we are definitely  enjoying a prolonged Christmas! Gifts, one by one, little by little, appear under the tree each day... most of these gifts are for Christmas morning but some of them are to be unwrapped in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas morning... 

I'd really love to find the energy to get up early... just before sunrise... grab my photography gear, including my tripod, and head out to shoot some early morning landscapes of the new spring growth... preferably on a morning with a dewy, misty, foggy, moody atmosphere as the sun begins to appear. Unfortunately, the weather has been rather lousy the past few days so I have no desire to get up early just to be frustrated and disappointed by attempting to shoot photos in the rain, with poor light, and generally lousy conditions. My health has been rather lousy the past few days as well and, when this happens, very little gets accomplished in my little world. I have, however, managed to capture a few photos of our spring season in the past few days. New leaves emerging from buds Now that the springtime rains have started, I don't think I'll be getting out there with my photography gear again until after most of the blooming has occurred. In the meantime, I have managed