Dressed for the Holidays

There is a lot of color variation in the male House Finches and this one stood out in the crowd this morning for his abundant red feathers.  Not quite as splendid as a cardinal, but close enough.  

After breakfast I headed out to my hide for a while.  Before I settled in, I rearranged my "studio" on the patio, moving some of my perches to get better backgrounds.  It's challenging this time of year because the tree trunks and branches in our woods are all very visible and can create a distracting background.  Not to mention that the sun moves lower across the sky so that also needs to be factored in.  I actually kind of like this background even though it is drab - or perhaps because it is drab?  Either way.

I have a call in to my rheumatologist.  For the last about 10 days, the pain in my hands (and now feet/ankles) has been returning.  I am not sure if I am having a "flare" or if the meds have stopped working   I've only been on the meds about 3 1/2 months so seems early to have them fail - maybe the doctor will increase the dosage.  Although I knew finding the right pharmaceutical dosage/mix to control the RA could likely take time, it's a little discouraging to be uncomfortable again.  But as with most things in life - it could be much worse!

It's very cold today so our walk was short and quick.  I will have to do some scent work or something inside to burn off some of his energy.  Although right at this moment, he seems quite happy to sleep in front of the fireplace.

Speaking of fires, we got our 5 cords of firewood delivered today - it's a massive pile!  We switched to a new company to get our wood from last year and were so pleased that we ordered from the same guy again.  Pretty much all of the ash trees in our region have been destroyed by invasive ash-boring beetles so a lot of the firewood is ash, which burns very well.  Which concludes today's lesson on firewood!

Dipped back into the dark with dried cherries today.

xo
Debbi