Hanging Out

I count six Collared Doves and a bunch of starlings in this tree, It's the big tree that sits in the middle of our view of the lake. I've watched it grow and change over the years. Last year the owner of the property cut down the left half of it so now it is half the size it used to be. The birds don't seem to mind. It is a congregation place for them. They gather there and keep an eye out for hawks or other raptors, and watch and notice if I am out putting food out for them.

Today was a busy and weird day for me. Do you have some days when it feels like you are swimming in molasses trying to get something done. That was today. I had planned to complete some photos of a friend's paintings that I had been shamelessly late doing. I had it all planned. But things kept cropping up. And then I was in the midst of doing it, had done over 60% of them and - Wham - my computer developed a weird problem. Both displays suddenly were covered in small boxes of color that moved and flashed until they settled into black and blue square. The cursor turned into a strange kind of rectangular matrix and I was not able to do anything. So I shut down and rebooted and was able to work some more and then - Wham - it happened again. Again I rebooted but this time the screens came up with the patterns right away and I had to admit that my computer was, and still is, seriously ill. Dang! That's my desktop computer that is seven years old, an old Mac tower that has faithfully served me all these years. I haven't wanted to replace it because it worked fine and I didn't want to have to move all my files and then try to get Lightroom to find them all again... (They are mostly on external drives.) So here I am on my laptop, knowing that I will either have to get my desktop fixed if it can be or figure out another way to get to all my files and Lightroom catalogs. Yikes. Not a happy picture for me. Honestly, I am not amused!

Other than that, I did get some stuff done. And my brother is back from Costa Rica and we had a good talk. He's coming for dinner tomorrow and we'll be having Thanksgiving together with our brother Dave and his wife Nora and a bunch of other family members. I am looking forward to that.