GOING, GOING...GONE?

GET OUT THE SKIS...

WE'RE BURIED! ...

RIVER BIRCH FULL OF GOLDFINCHES...

...DITTO

PILEATED WOODPECKER ON TELEPHONE POLE

FEMALE DOWNY WOODPECKER ON  SUET BLOCK

Friday,  10:00 AM.  14 degrees F, wind NNE, light with moderate gusts.  The sky is cloudy and overcast but the sun is struggling through and it is a very pretty day with all the new snow.  The humidity is 82% and the barometer is trending up, now at 30.02". Yesterday was a blustery day, with an accumulation of about six inches of snow, and then we had a surprise of another 8' to 12" overnight, so we are buried! Neighbor Jon surprised me as well, as he plowed the driveway while I was walking the dog. The day is starting out very well indeed.
   This morning there were at least one hundred goldfinches in the river birch on the corner of Ninth and Old Military Road.  I think I heard them discussing where to go for breakfast; "We'll go to the Ode's, the rest of you go to the Edwards,"or something like that.
   The pileated  woodpeckers are really active, even bold.  There were two on this telephone pole on Tenth and Wilson, but when one was visible the other never was.  The little guys, the downies, have been at the suet block on the back porch, both males and females.
 " Going, going..." the Canadian Prime Minister has voiced his frustration with the Obama Administration's foot-dragging on the Keystone Pipeline for perhaps the last time.  He issued a final warning that a pipeline will be built instead to the Pacific and the oil shipped to China if we do not get our act together.  We are no longer a serious nation, friends, and deserve the diminished, insecure future that awaits us if we do not wake up.
   And if we do finally wake up, the citizens of Connecticut, at least, will find their Second Amendment rights diminished as well, as gun owners in that state are at this moment standing in line to register their firearms; a bold first step towards gun confiscation, which is inevitably followed by the dictator's jackboot on the neck of the disarmed citizen. As Connecticut tiptoes down the path to serfdom,  the Obama Administration watches,  gleefully.  "Going, going..." Gone?