Happy Valentine's Day!

(A Valentine gift for my Mom...utterly useless, and therein lies the fun)

A man who knows his math!

(An email from my brother...I don't know where he gets these things...who starts these forwards?)



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I was riding to work yesterday when I observed a female driver, who cut
right in front of a pickup truck, causing the driver to drive onto the
shoulder to avoid hitting her.

This evidently angered the driver enough that he hung his arm out his
window and gave the woman the finger.

'Man, that guy is stupid,' I thought to myself. I ALWAYS smile nicely
and wave in a sheepish manner whenever a female does anything to me in
traffic, and here's why:

I drive 48 miles each way every day to work.
That's 96 miles each day.
Of these, 16 miles each way is bumper-to-bumper.
Most of the bumper-to-bumper is on an 8 lane highway.
There are 7 cars every 40 feet for 32 miles.
That works out to 982 cars every mile, or 31,424 cars.

Even though the rest of the 32 mile s is not bumper-to-bumper, I figure
I pass at least another 4000 cars. That brings the total number to
something like 36,000 cars that I pass every day.

Statistically, females drive half of these. That's 18,000 women drivers!

In any given group of females, 1 in 28 has PMS.

That's 642.
According to Cosmopolitan, 70% describe their love life as dissatisfying
or unrewarding.
That's 449.
According to the National Institute of Health, 22% of all females have
seriously considered suicide or homicide.
That's 98.
And 34% describe men as their biggest problem.
That's 33.

According to the National Rifle Association, 5% of all females carry
weapons and this number is increasing.

That means that EVERY SINGLE DAY, I drive past at least one female that
has a lousy love life, thinks men are her biggest problem, has seriously
considered suicide or homicide, has PMS, and is armed.

Give her the finger?

I don't think so.

Good Gawd, they're everywhere!

More turkey vulture stuff. I can't seem to get away from them.

The other day, Lorelei was watching "Go, Diego, GO!" ( a show on Nick Jr. and Noggin).

The show is about Dora's cousin Diego, a young animal rescuer. Very cute. You should tune in sometime. (If you are the parent of preschoolers, you probably already do)


When Diego is saving an animal (and it's usually a cool South American animal like chinchillas or
pygmy marmosets), if they come across a 'scary' animal, they don't say "Oh, no! Jaguars EAT chinchillas!"....they say "Oh, no! Chinchillas are AFRAID of jaguars!"

No reason to elevate blood pressures in the preschool demographic, right?



Anyway...
I don't remember what animal was being rescued here (the jaguar in the corner is Diego's sidekick), but whatever it was, it was afraid of...........................
TURKEY VULTURES!


(Look how concerned Baby Jaguar is!)
Thought of Lynne. Again. Had to post it.





One more thing.

Would anyone like to see a baby picture of EARL?????





(Taken 24 years ago, when Earl still had baby down. Feel free to say awwwwww..............)

An impromptu song about a vulture

Lorelei is always singing something. Whether it's a song she knows, or one she makes up on the spot....it's kind of like living with an opera singer.

We spotted a turkey vulture above our street, and it inspired her to make up a little ditty:



I think Lynne will like it.

She did it again!

Isabelle was extremely happy when she got home from school today.
She dug into her backpack and retrieved this:




So she has a Perfect Attendance award, was on the Honor Roll, and now STUDENT OF THE MONTH????
Think we can get her into Harvard?

The suckiness of....oh, Hell with it.

Yesterday was a study in adventure.
My program began at 3:15. The good ol' weatherman said that we could get 1 to 3 inches of snow.
When my program ended at 4:20, that had been upgraded to 4 to 6 inches.
The program was only 12 minutes from RAPTOR. It took me a solid HOUR to get the birds back.


This particular snow was thick and fluffy like feathers. Very pretty as it fell silently. Onto the old snow and ice from last week.

Sylvester disapproved of the forecast.

Click on the photo....that dusting of snow on his big sweet head just does me in.


By the time I had redeposited all the birds in their mews (and almost ending up on my ass while holding Priscilla), the forecast had been upgraded to 6 to 8 inches.
Okaaaaayy....
My trip home usually lasts about 30 minutes. Last night, it took 3 hours.
One of the local radio stations was taking requests from people stuck out in the mess on the highways. Someone requested a good one:


I didn't get above 9 miles an hour. For 3 hours.

This morning, with my good humor restored, we were able to go out and enjoy all the annoying loveliness:


That's a foot of snow on the table behind Isabelle.



Lorelei enjoyed herself, until......

...while making a snow angel, Nellie went in for a kiss and pushed a quart of snow into her face. That was that for Lorelei.


What is it about snow that makes dogs go out of their minds?

"Let's play, Nellie! RRrrrrrrrrr!"

Hooper's a big dog. The snow was hitting his shoulders:



It did my heart good to see Nellie romp and frolic like she was a puppy, instead of a geezer 8 year old:





The pictures don't do it justice. It was a yard full of diamonds.

And now....the goofiest pic I got today:




Hooper in full "Snow Gritties" mode.

Raptors are better than Prozac!

Did you know grouchiness evaporates at the sight of birds of prey? It's true.



The local red-shouldered hawks have been seen perched next to each other for the last few days. Yes, it's February, but birds and other wildlife know that Spring is getting closer. I've seen red-tails perching very close, too. When they can tolerate each others presence, you can bet those dirty thoughts aren't far behind. (Kind of like when you meet a guy in a bar, and if your standards aren't too high, you might realize that this weird-looking guy might just get to see the inside of your apartment.)
Okay, maybe I stretched that metaphor a bit there.

It got up to 49 degrees today, and I HAD to get out of the house. (did anyone notice I have access to the Interwebs? That stupid router, the one that the CUSTOMER SERVICE GOON said wasn't "pinging", is just fine.)

*Let me get this off my chest...I boycotted the Super Bowl today. I didn't watch ONE commercial. I was sickened to think of all the millions of dollars being squandered just for 30 seconds of advertising. Families are being thrown out of their homes (and that hits very close to home for us...we came very very close last year) and all that money is filling NBC's coffers. Why couldn't a company stand up and say, "Hey. Instead of being greedy bastards, we are going to donate this big pile of money to a homeless shelter, or feed hungry children, or {insert good cause here}"?

End of rant....for now.

Armleder Park, the stage for past Raptor-Paloozas, was quiet yet crunchy today.
Though the short-eared owls were off sleeping somewhere, two Northern Harriers were hunting with a vengeance.


Trick to photographing harriers (whose erratic, moth-like flight makes them unpredictable):
Just stand in one spot and be still. They will eventually fly right by you. This one got as close as 30 feet from me. The air was so calm, I could just barely hear the swoosh as it passed.


Look closely at the pictures...the owl-like facial disc that harriers possess allows them to hunt not just by sight but also by hearing.


They fly with their face pointed down, all the better to hear those juicy meadow voles, my dear!



I met a local photographer while we were both watching the harriers flow back and forth.

He was good enough to hip me to a screech owl roosting cavity and also a natural great horned owl's nest across the river, both of which I will be visiting when the park's other road is cleared.


Some birds of prey are rather civic-minded...this one was trying to direct traffic.

And the other harrier decided to go after larger prey:

A red-clad human!