Weather, Woodpecker, and No Work

Another week in the books.  This was a tough one, from a weather standpoint, with a high of 16 and a low of -1, and that's not counting the wind chill factor.  Even though the days were mostly sunny, that's too cold for me to be out.  I did take the dogs for a decent walk, but my face was numb by the time I got back, after only 25 minutes.  Ugh.  Did I mention the $555 dollar bill we got for heating oil, for about six weeks of use?!

I woke up late Saturday morning, and stayed in bed reading.  Hearing a noise, it took a while to sink it that it was a bird calling, loudly, and unfamiliar.  I got up and peaked through he blinds and saw a Pileated Woodpecker on our neighbors tree!  This was pretty exciting, as these are big, about the size of a crow, with a spectacular bright red crest and black and white facial markings, and usually very secretive.  I was lucky enough to catch site of one outside my office window at our previous house, which was closely surrounded by woods and much quieter than our current house.  i wondered if I could get downstairs to my office, with it's window much closer to the tree, and get pictures before he took flight. I got lucky:  he was still on the tree, but as I reached for my camera, off he flew.  Our next door neighbor had launched a snowmobile onto the pond, too close for Mr. Woodpecker's comfort.  Bummer.  

Ten  minutes later, he was back!  I watched him work the tree, looking for insects.  Suddenly he flew down into our yard, and I got out of my chair to see what he was doing, finding him clinging precariously to one of the suet-filled cages!  Wow, now he really looks big!  There are two other local woodpeckers that come to the suet feeder often, one about the size of a sparrow, the other the size of a robin.  This guy was so big I wondered how he could even hold on.  There he was, pecking away at the suet as if he was alone in the deep woods, not a care in the world.  I heard exclamations from the living room, as Jared and Kathy and Henry caught site of him.  With his size and that blazing red crest, he is pretty spectacular.  And here he was, spending five minutes eating suet, not 20 feet away from us.  

We get a lot of enjoyment out of the feeders.  We get many Blue Jay visitors, chickadees, the occasional juncos, tufted titmice, and nuthatch, oh, and crows.  Also started seeing Mourning Doves, but they are more a nuisance.  

It's been three and a half weeks since our pipe break mini-disaster, and we are still working around a third of the living room torn up, and half the family room the same.  It's bad enough when it happens to your own house; add in that you are living in a rental, and you have that much less control of the situtation.  Kathy would be happy if we could break our year lease and move into another rental we looked at, which was huge, had a one-acre fenced yard for dogs, and was in a little better location.  

More Maine facts, as I know my followers can't get enough about our new state.  According to the website estately, Maine is far and away the best state for cat lovers.  We half the second highest percentage of cat owners, at 46.4%.  Combine this with the other factors such as animal protection law strength, no-kill animal shelters, and Facebook likes, plus being only one of three states with an official state cat (the Maine Coon!), and we are number one!  :-)