The longest night

Happy New Year!

Last night we rode Santa's holiday train

The winter solstice this year occurs on Tuesday, December 22, 2015 at 04:49 UTC. At the moment, I'm in Portland Oregon so that means the solstice happens here today, the 21st, at 8:49 PM. For me, the winter solstice marks the end of the old year and the beginning of the new so .... wishing all a good new year.

Baby Chance wasn't so sure about Santa
but he liked the candy cane, his first.

The train wasn't going very fast. Cyclists were passing us on the bike path that follows the tracks but it was enough to make for a thrilling ride and shaky cam photos.

Off into the longest night

Somebody cares

Love Song to the Earth

Shelby morning update

Nobody likes Shelby. Nobody, that is, except M. Lee. M. Lee is Shelby's one and only advocate here at the Bird Park. This morning the magpies refused to come down from the trees for breakfast and that can only mean that either Shelby is lurking somewhere nearby or he recently killed somebody and everyone is still spooked.

Of course Shelby has a right to eat. That's M's argument, circle of life, it's only fair, a hawk's gotta eat. Mine is that the Bird Park is not a natural environment. Peanuts, tiny puppy kibble and piles of seed do not naturally appear every morning in the Nevada desert. To Shelby the Bird Park is a fast food joint. Next Bubba will appear, then Hank and Tootsie Pie, Mable and Jack and in about a week they will have eaten everyone. So I run Shelby off.

Local news at 11:05, or if you prefer, 23:05

Barcelona street

Moving on. Not that I have anything particular to say this evening. I'm just tired of looking at the last post. What did I do today? Mostly organized stuff, cleaned things. Printed out some notes I took this summer that I many eventually work into a poem. And I repaired a painting I did about 25 years ago. At some point it had picked up cardboard fuzz or something. Whatever it was I sponged it off with q-tips.

And I had a nice, long phone conversation with my daughter-in-law this afternoon. Seems Baby Chance is fully committed to walking now and, in fact, insisted on it during their mile+ forest hike today. By the time we see him in December I expect he'll be unstoppable. That'll be fun.

Happy Tofurky Day

I posted this image on Imgur. If anything it will probably cause a shitstorm. Go figure. Anyway, Happy Gratitude day to everyone.

View post on imgur.com

Local news at 2:11

It's snowing. That explains why so many birds dropped by for breakfast this morning. Even Plonk's pigeon brigade stopped in, including one very lovely, all white bird. Nobody is there now as I write this but I'm sure the quail are cozy under the very bushy twin lilacs. Anyway, it's not very cold but it is sticking and kind of pretty.