There’s a snowstorm headed this way, and the finches and chickadees are very busy at the feeders and heated bath. I’m grateful for my warm home and wish I could open it to my feathered friends tonight.
Then again, it’s probably not very cool to invite birds into a household that includes two cats.
.
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Three years ago Zippy and I finally faced reality and replaced the shake shingles on top of our house. Our former neighbors, the ones higher on the hill than us and with a view of our roof from their kitchen, were thrilled.
We were tired of retrieving shingles from the yard every time the wind blew. Also, we were concerned the roof might start leaking.
The main reason we’d delayed action was that we couldn’t decide on the type of roof we wanted. Actually, that’s not true. We knew we wanted a steel roof because it was a more sustainable and environmentally benign material than asphalt shingles. But our budget finally pushed us toward asphalt and we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that the house had had the same roof for many, many years and that the new roof would last another many years.
Wrong.
A while back, my neighborhood was hit by a hail storm that ruined every single roof. (Except for the steel roof two streets over). Every day there’s hammering somewhere in the neighborhood. Today, that hammering is close to home.
Not my roof, but the same scenario.
Right now there’s a roll-off dumpster in my driveway filled with three-year-old shingles torn from the roof. Tomorrow the roofers will install a new asphalt shingle roof.
While I’m grateful for my home and the literal roof over our heads, I also feel a great sadness. We’re sending another load of waste to the landfill.
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In the fall of 2006, I was a mentee at the Rutgers One-On-One Conference where Laurie Halse Anderson was the keynote speaker. In addition to offering smart and funny insights into her writing journey, she offered us daffodil bulbs. True story.
Last Friday, I took this photo of my LHA flowers that keep on blooming, year after year:
The next day, it started snowing. And over the next twenty-four hours, more than two feet of snow fell on those daffodils.
Me several feet away from the buried daffodils.
If I’d been thinking, I would’ve covered the flowers with a bucket to protect them from the elements. Alas, I didn’t think that far ahead. So now they’re beneath the rapidly melting snow where they may or may not recover from the shock of an April blizzard in Colorado.
I share a kinship with those flowers that goes beyond them symbolizing my connection to the children’s writing community. The daffodils and I have been on a nine-year journey together. Every year they push through the soil to face whatever comes their way, not knowing whether they’ll be greeted with sunshine or flurries. And every year I continue writing my stories, not knowing whether they’ll be greeted with warmth or snowy rejection.
It’s a risky business for those flowers and me, but we keep on doing what we need to do. And year after year, we prevail.
(1) I used to be kinda indifferent about Led Zeppelin, but for the past couple months have been mainlining it at a LOUD volume.
(2) I’m still having to run back and forth on the one flat street in my neighborhood due to glute issues and yesterday did three miles with the help of Sly & the Family Stone.
(3) I’ve started working part time as a substitute library page which means I shelve books at various local libraries, and have developed a love-hate relationship with the Dewey Decimal System.
(4) I’m revising a manuscript and enjoying the process which I call a WIN.
(5) If this rain doesn’t let up soon, I’m gonna scream loud enough to be heard over the Led Zeppelin.
Today it’s in the 90s.
Hot, sweat-inducing weather.
As I walked by my neighbor’s yard, he called out, “Hi, Tracy! Nice day!”
I replied, “A little toasty for my taste.”
His response: “I still remember January.”
Point well taken. Although, who’s to say these starlings weren’t a bit overheated?
The Eurasian Collared-Dove was introduced to the Bahamas back in the 1970s
and rapidly spread westward across the United States.
Wonder whether this guy would rather be here in snowy Colorado or
lounging on a warm, sandy beach.
© Tracy Abell 2012
The thermometer reads 8 degrees
and I'm so very grateful for my warm home.
I filled the feeder this morning after shoveling
(a profanity-filled exercise due to steamed-over-eyeglass-induced blindness)
and am enjoying the flurry of activity out there.
The House Finches and Mourning Doves coexist peacefully
but there are some birds who never seem to fit in the the crowd.
Juncos are often chased from the feeder
but today's odd-bird-out is this Spotted Towhee.
© Tracy Abell 2011
Is it just me or does it look as if he's wearing an executioner's mask?
Dude, there might be a lesson there.
I just came in from hooping on my patio.
It was warm and sunny, and I dressed accordingly.
No, not like this:
image from morguefile.com
However, I did enjoy myself greatly.
In a few hours, the temperature will drop about 40 degrees and
the snow will begin to fall on this part of Colorado.
Maybe I'll wear a pink wig and striped socks when I'm out shoveling.
Someone left the phone book out in the rain . . .
image from morguefiles.com
Yo.
Enough with the rain, already!
Tracy Abell 