I don’t know how much time the Great Hunter and I spend standing at the kitchen sink looking out the window. Face it. We’re old. That’s what old people do. We watch birds…and squirrels, and even the occasional rabbit.

We had a rabbit living beneath our covered barbecue grill for a while. The first thing the dogs would do when they went outside was run to the grill and sniff the ground to see if the rabbit was under it. If she (he) were, their tail would go up in the air and the nose would go farther under the grill, and the rabbit would dart out the other side. They wouldn’t chase her because I wouldn’t let them. The rabbit would often stop in the middle of the yard as if daring them to chase her until she either ran under the fence or around the house.

We had another snow storm last week. It was predicted that we could get anywhere between 8-13″ of snow. I remember back when getting that amount of snow was not really that big a deal, but now everything shuts down in anticipation of the the possibility. We ended up only getting 8″ but due to the bitter cold and snow, I didn’t leave the house for five days.

The birds, and or squirrels have been eating me out of house and home. I replenish their feeders about every other day and I swear they must get up on the feeders and do gymnastics, because the ground below the feeders is always covered in seeds and shells.

But, I remind myself that we don’t drink or smoke or buy expensive coffee or spend money frivolously (Amazon doesn’t count), so the money I spend on bird seed is money well spent.

And….a flash from a winter past…December 2016.