The Robins have arrived

The robins are back!

My neighbour is doing grocery shopping for me so we were talking on the phone and she told me that there is a whole flock of robins hanging out in her backyard. I took a peek out the window and saw a few of them.

The goldfinch males are turning colour, from their drab wintertime grey to their summer gold. Not quite there yet but coming along.

Yesterday I took Hapi out on the dikes because all the woodland trails are closed and I saw an eagle collecting sea grass. It had a big hank of grass in its clutches and I watched it zigzag across the sky to see where it was going. It disappeared in the direction of the Reservoir, so maybe it is one of our Reservoir eagles.

The neighbourhood crows are being unusually noisy, I suspect they are gearing up for courting and nesting season.

The other day the weather forecast said we would get a few centimeters of snow followed by a lot of rain, instead we got over 20 cm of heavy wet snow and no rain. I read today on The Weather Network that because air flights are drastically reduced, so is the accuracy of weather reports because they depend in part on data gathered by airplanes flying at the same altitude as the Jet Stream.

My snow plough guy came and ploughed out my driveway for the first time this year. Last year he only ploughed twice, both times in March. As a result I still owed him for last year so when he came to plough this time I paid him for last year as well. I usually pay in cash but these days cash is risky. Fortunately the cash I had on hand has not seen the light of day (let alone been handled) in several weeks so I think it was safe. I washed my hands, put the cash in an envelope, and when he came I washed my hands again before I picked up the envelope to give to him. I handed it to him through his passenger side window, so we were two arms-length distance from each other.

It's snowing again today but so far not sticking to the pavement so I don't think I'll need it to be ploughed.

And I am still sick, neither better nor worse.