Dad

Yesterday I blipped mom and daughter. Today dad was hanging out on the suet feeder. They have a special love of the peanut butter suet I put out. Now the whole family is hooked on our goodies. You can tell this is a male by the red splash of color on his face. He is also a Red Shafted Northern Flicker. Rarely do you see any other kind here in the Pacific Northwest though I did have a beautiful male Yellow Shafted Northern Flicker who stopped by a couple of years ago. The splash on the Yellow's face is black instead of red. All the shafts in his wings and tail are yellow instead of red like this fellow. They are all marvelous birds.

Arvin and I are doing a day at home today. They are not his favorite but right now he is upstairs watching "Robin Hood Men in Tights" so I think he's enjoying himself. We did a shopping trip to Costco and he liked that too. I'm happy to be able to grab some time to myself downstairs at my computer this afternoon. I find weekends the hardest because I always have so much I want to do. Must admit that this has been true my whole life. There has always been something - school, work, family care - that has filled much of my time. The other stuff - art, photography, singing - I've just managed to squeeze in. When I retired it was heaven for about eight years. But now I'm back in the "fit what I can in" mode. Sigh. But never mind. I'm used to it and am very stubborn. So I will manage to fit in the things I really want to do.