Country Roads

("Take Me Home, Country Roads," John Denver, 1973)
Work was finished on Bucks Bar Road just before Christmas.  I hadn't had the opportunity; let me rephrase that, I hadn't had a reason until yesterday to go to town.  What a difference.  The entire road needs to be resurfaced, but I'll settle for having the countless potholes filled so it's not necessary to serve like a drunken driver to avoid bone-jarring ka-thunks that could throw a vehicle out of alignment.

Celeste's pink piglet has been named Waldo, as in "Where's Waldo?"  I never know where Waldo will turn up.  He's been found several times in a wastebasket in the bedroom, as he was again last night.  I dusted him off and tossed him to the floor, where Ralph, the rotten little brother, immediately grabbed him up and began a game of keep-away with a distraught Celeste.  They were still at it when I turned out the light and went to bed.  The house is strewn with toys, but Waldo is Celeste's favorite.

The first Steller's jay of the season showed up yesterday.  They're such flashy birds, much brighter than their cousins, the California scrub jays.  Scrub jays are here nearly year round, but the Steller's only come in winter.  The current bird population consists mostly of the dinky birds, little bitty guys of a number of types.  They hang out in the bare lilac branches just outside the kitchen window.  I did hear the Rod-RI-go birds (quail) the other day, but haven't seen any.  Red-headed woodpeckers are in abundance, jack-hammering away on posts and dead branches.  They are still stuffing acorns through holes in the front shed and the floor is littered; better there than in what used to be the ceiling.  That was a disaster.

We're rapidly running out of 2017.  How did we get here so fast?  It seems no time ago that we were throwing a big party to celebrate the Millenium, and everyone was so sure that computers would go whacko trying to compensate for 2000.  That crisis never happened and the world kept turning.

I've been writing an almost-daily blog for nearly eight years now.  Thanks to all who have followed the twists and turns along the hills and valleys of the country roads in my mind.