George’s alarm went off before dawn this morning, the alarm meant for last Saturday when we got up early and headed to New York. This morning, he turned it off, and we slept on. Even after the furnace kicked on, I was happy to stay under the comforter for awhile, half listening for the sound of birds outside the window. It was a foggy morning, so the backyard was still quiet when I finally got up for the day. I had filled the feeders after work yesterday, after neglecting them much of this week, so I wondered if the birds would show up.
The fog lifted, and soon they came - crows, titmice, house finches, a cardinal, chickadees, mourning doves, a brown-headed cowbird, house sparrows, blue jays, and my first junco of the season! You can see that these finches were hungry, and not taking for granted that I would be consistent with the feeders.
A tufted titmouse is still a rarity here, so I kept taking shots till I finally got this photo.
As I watched birds from the kitchen, I had many cooking projects going at once. The crockpot was filled with a pot roast and vegetables for dinner, I hard boiled some eggs, and cooked up a big pot of chicken barley soup for lunches at work.
This afternoon I made up another dill casserole bread. (Morgan told me last weekend that George said he really did like it.)
Part of our day was spent on errands, including some Christmas shopping. Our holidays will involve less expense (offspring, take note!), so I plan to be a little more creative and today was a day for working out some ideas.
George picked the last of the swiss chard, and tackled the job of putting the cover over the rolled-up awning and cleaning up the deck for winter.
With my regular Saturday cleaning thrown in for good measure, it was a full day.