Everybody Has a Job

The plasterer is in this week to repair the ceiling in my 3rd floor study. And we all have jobs to do.

His job is to do the plasterwork.

My job is to refrain from asking him so many questions about doing the plasterwork that he never is able to do the plasterwork.

Gwenith and Huw's job is to make themselves scarce.

Llewellyn's job is to stay by me when I'm here and to pretend to like being cooped up in his crate when I'm not, and to contain the barking even if he doesn't like it.

And Rhadwen's job is to go wherever she pleases and look cute.

A Seedy Post

The birdfeeder is outside my dining room window. To get to it you have to go out the door on the other side of the house, around the front, and back along the other side to where the feeder hangers from its wrought iron shepherd's crook.

There's still a lot of snow on the ground. Deep snow, that I don't want to tromp through.

I have, not a ten-foot, but a four-foot pole, with a hook on the end, that I made for fishing things out from under bushes (mostly plastic grocery bags that the wind blows out of my dog-doo collecting stock on the back porch. But I anticipate). This winter I have discovered, that if I open the dining room window and lean out, this pole is long enough for me to hook the birdfeeder, fetch it in, refill it, and hang it back on the crook.

(This may explain why my natural gas bill was so high last month, but let's not think painful thoughts.)

On Friday, I fetched the feeder in and poured in the mixed seed from the big popcorn tin under the window. I hung the suet holder on the plastic hook under the feeder, then, having placed the feeder bale on my pole hook, I leaned out, out, out the window to hang it up.

Oopsie!

This time, I missed. Feeder and suet cage crashed to the ground. And this time I could've used a ten-foot pole.

Rats. Gotta go out in the snow regardless.

Picked my way along the partly-thawed strip along the front border and crunch, crunch, crunch into the side yard. Where I discovered that the plastic hook on the birdfeeder was broken.

Oh, well. I hung the suet holder on the shepherd's crook, too, and came back inside.

1. Where I discovered that
   I had neglected to put the lid on the birdseed tin before I went outside, and


2. There was a biiiiggggg dent in the birdseed and scads of millet and sunflower seeds and cracked corn scattered across the floor, and


3. Llewellyn was happily helping himself to it all.

If I had any question that it was he who'd caused the birdseed level to drop so precipitously, it was settled in a few hours when I took him out to do his business. You'd think my dog had turned into a canine seed drill. Doubt the birds will want them any more, sauced as they are with essense of doggie digestive tract, but I do have to wonder if any of this stuff will sprout when Spring finally comes.

After all, it works that way with birds.