A Good Day for Ducks

This pair of ducks have lived in our bathroom for many years. No doubt they came to live with us when the kids were little and decided to stay. I like them next to the toile shower curtain, which might otherwise seem to be taking itself too seriously.

Despite the rain, wind and predicted thunderstorms, the bird feeders are doing a brisk business. There are a lot of birds crowded onto the trays and in the adjacent tree, looking like a perpetual motion machine--moving up in the queue, along the slanted bracket, flying back to the tree or simply up in the air according to some avian code that is indecipherable to me. Every once in awhile a jay appears and the whole lot rises as one and scatters, leaving him to feast in lonely splendor. I'm enjoying the show from my comfy chair in the living room, accompanied by a chorus of snores from OilMan and Ozzie.

When I went outside to retrieve the bucket, which OilMan emptied and forgot to bring back from the compost pile, I had to turn directly around to fetch my rain jacket. No such thing as a quick dash up the stairs through the mist. Water is beginning to turn the drainage swale next to the house into a creek. and drips from Peter's abandoned scooter and OilMan's abandoned shovels and buckets. By tomorrow morning we should know if OilMan and Dana's french drain is working properly.

I am feeling rather smug because I have a pot of Bolognese sauce simmering on the stove. I'm doing it the Northern Italian way with a little milk and pancetta. Pretty soon I'll go watch the news which will tell us repeatedly that this rain isn't having any effect on the drought. If not rain, than what, I ask.