Lazuli Bunting

When it comes to reading bird books, I throw in the towel. I'm lucky if I can see the bird much less whether it has bars on its wings or whether its belly is all rust colored or just a rust colored band. Who sits around deciding that if it has bars on its wings it should have an entirely different name from the one that is otwise identical only without the bars that I can't see anyway? I do love to look at them, however, and these bright blue birds are satisfying to watch as they flit about and this one was particularly cooperative, sitting on his fencepost in no hurry to fly off.

It was a beautiful crisp clear morning. The cold wind kept the clouds away, the grass was taller and greener than it was 9 days ago, the grass was full of lupine, vetch buttercups (or whatever those shiny yellow flowers are called) and there was a kite flapping madly to keep itself over one spot before suddenly dropping straight down out of sight after whatever prey it had spotted. Dana said her boys used to laugh at them when they saw them helicoptoring above the field, but I find it quite a prodigious feat.

OilMan and I both went to the dermatologist today. Disregarding all my pleas to wear sunscreen and a hat in the garden, I think he thought he was some kind of invincible being with special protective skin until I, who am in a position to recognize these things because I get so many myself, spotted a nasty looking lesion on his leg and threatened to remove it myself without anesthetic unless he got it checked. He elected to go with me to my appointment, and see if he could "get them to take a look at it." They not only gotsomeone to look at it, she checked his entire body and did several biopsies. The truth is, he was just scared. I have no sympathy. I'm happy to leave the nagging to a doctor who is considerably younger than our daughter. Do you suppose she could get him to close the garage door and take his beer bottles to the recycle bin?

I think my crankiness (having had multiple biopsies myself), might be assuaged by a trip to the Caffe Rosso for dinner....