Downy Woodpecker....

....having it's peanut fix! It stops by multiple times a day so it's easy to catch a picture of it. Thank goodness, because we had an ice storm during the night, and considering the fact that I've had one foot and three ankle  fractures over the years, the idea of walking on the ice petrifies me, so rather than chancing it I just stayed put! Did a little cleaning, paid a bill, and called my alderman to complain that our recyclables still haven't been picked up. The pick-up should have been last Wed., but understandably (because of the snowstorm), they weren't. But then it got to be Monday and still nothing, so I'd called the Waste Management Company Monday afternoon, who said it would be picked up on the 5th.....only it wasn't.....and not today either! Meanwhile, all our containers have been lining the street for a week, many of which are overflowing, and the tops on some of the containers (not mine, fortunately) blew open in the wind last night, so now there are recyclables blowing all over the neighborhood. So when I called, the Alderman said: "Oh, that's not good".   (You think??) Then he said: "I'll bet they missed your area".  (A regular Sherlock Holmes!)  He thought for awhile....there was absolute silence for so long I thought we'd been disconnected....then he said he'd call the City Engineer and get him on it.......which to me meant that he didn't have the faintest idea what to do about it so he was passing the problem onto someone else!  Figures!     :)))