November. Plus We Got Our Century

Bird news:  we've finally reached the 100 species identified mark.  Friday's walk took me to the area of the river just above the bridge.  As I was walking downstream, I noticed a big white bird.  Egret, I thought, until it started walking.  It was a Snow Goose!  Not the usual critter for around here, and I was able to spend some minutes watching it until it flew downriver.  I ran into some neighbors later as I was walking home - they told me that the bird has been hanging around for a week or so.

I'm on the tail end of taking a week off work - actually I'll have been off a total of 11 days since I was able to capitalize on the long Thanksgiving weekend.  I don't want to sound ungrateful for my good job, but when I checked my most recent lotto ticket and found that I'd lost again, I entertained yet another a micro-second of disappointment.

Dino has been nursing a sore leg.  On one of his walks last week, he stepped over a log and got whapped hard by an unseen branch that landed on the juncture between the bottom of the calf and the top of the Achilles tendon.  He said initially he wondered if it was a snake strike, even though those critters are well underground by now, it all happened so fast. 

In spite of that, he's been busy with getting the rough electric done.  I've done my part there by doing lots of "shopping" on lighting web sites.  Let's say that there are lights and lamps for every taste - thousands upon thousands of combinations. 

We've also worked on getting the work area around the house tidied up to as great an extent as possible.  The other day, Dino put the fork blades on the tractor and moved several piles of stuff away from the front area and re-organized it all near the new carport.  I had lots of fun working the big magnet finding all the nails scattered about - they make a nice "clunk" when they attach to the tool.

Of course, I've squeezed in several excellent walks.  My favorite shot of the past couple weeks is of this big cedar. It lives near the river and is a magnificent big tree.  I've been contemplating the best method of photographing and tried a wide angle shot from directly below.  It smelled lovely there.