Back from a trip

It's a week since we got back home after a week and a half trip to Berkeley and this is the first I am able to sit down and write. I was wonderful seeing everyone and enjoying the company of close friends. It was also hard to leave our new home and a pleasure to return to it.

When we left it still felt like winter and we were able to dodge bad snow in the passes, but now it is starting to feel like Spring. Flowers and trees are beginning to open and the days are longer; even though the the temperature this morning was about 34 it is actually warming up. In Eugene, where the season is about 1-2 weeks ahead of us, people are planting snow peas and the daffodils are in full bloom. Most noticeable are the birds: we're hearing more different songs and seeing birds we've not seen before (Huttons' Vireo is one). That Varied Thrush is still around as are Robins and the Stellar's Jays are getting more active. The rabbits that live in the woods are out more so we can see them. Then there's kinky sex: seeing two newts in the pond mating. Definitely Spring is springing. The longer days have the hens laying more and us being out more.

Spring is one thing I really missed in Berkeley.

We are finding a delight in all the new things we are seeing and sounds we are hearing, such as all the different bird songs we heard today as we went to get our mail and newspaper. I found myself wondering "what kind of bird is that?" As I did that I realized that at that point I wasn't hearing the bird, but was trying to label and categorize what I had heard. I had stopped experiencing the sounds and being delighted and started thinking. Goodness only knows what I didn't hear or see while all that thinking was going on. So I'm going to try not to get too involved in the name attached to what I see or hear and just enjoy whatever it is. I sure can feel the itch to know, but I'll just try not to scratch it.

Right now five Barred Rock hens are pecking away on the lawn and I can't tell which is which. And I'm not going to try to figure out which one is which and give them each names. Hens, or "The Ladies" as I call them, is good enough.