Goldfinch Style Bath

It's difficult to take pictures of the water feature in the morning light through the dirty kitchen window, but the goldfinches are charming as they stand right in the middle of the water, dive into the bubbles and flap and shake like dogs. Sometimes there are as many as five or six of them all coming and going and congenially sharing the small space. A hummingbird  came to check out the scene but they don't play well with others...not even other hummingbirds. Especially not other hummingbirds, so it didn't stick around.

We may have started a new tradition a la Lady Findhorn's Sunday visit to the Temple of Toast, only in our case it is a visit to the downtown Acre Coffee with beignets from the Parrish Cafe just up the street. They are almost as good as the ones at Cafe du Monde in New Oreleans and just as addictive. It was a beautiful morning and we sat in the sun until Ozzie got either too hot or too interested in an old Red Bone Hound dog sitting with his person in a more shaded area. 

There are a number of interesting restaurants which have recently opened downtown. We may well have to visit the paella restaurant which features three types of paella--chicken, vegetarian or seafood and lots of tapas. 

We wound up our downtown walk back at our car where we started at Western Farm Supply to buy smoke bombs. OilMan is back on the warpath against the ground squirrels, which are nesting underneath every deck or stair where they can find an opening. He built a rock wall to keep the squirrels out and the water in place at the base of some plants but for such small rodents, the ground squirrels have managed to dislodge some surprisingly large rocks. The smoke bombs will go in their  tunnels, then, when he hopes they have vacated the premises, OilMan will put cement between the rocks.

He is standing by with a hose to flood the tunnels after starting fires in the roots of plants on two previous occasions....