Stuff, Wacky and Otherwise

My local newspaper is great: thin enough to read and keep up with, but full of great stuff.

For example, although I did not hear anything on the network news about the Icelandic teenager who tried to schedule a phone call with President Bush, I did read about it in one of the newspaper columns.

And I have to say, calling the Icelandic police because he called somebody on the phone, even the president? That's extreme. He didn't call and make any threats, just tried to schedule a call-back. He didn't even post the number on a website, sheesh. And just think of all the telemarketing calls that could have generated!

On the less wacky side, another thing I read in the paper today was about a Wednesday knitting group over in Bay City -- at the Saginaw Correctional Facility, where a group of inmates is knitting and crocheting hats, mittens, and scarves and donating them to charities.

And since the weather forecast was so snowy, here's all the snow we got.

Enough so the birdfeeder was just mobbed all day, the driveway was slick, and since it was windy and the snow was light, it blew around and made the air white outside.

I'm getting redpolls and pine siskins again this year, which I haven't seen for a year or three. Lots of red-breasted nuthatches and white-crowned sparrows, and even three blue jays at once.

The blue jay numbers dropped like a rock when West Nile virus hit Michigan a couple of summers back, so I was glad to see them, even if they do gobble up the black oil sunflower seeds whole!

I get crowds of house finches, some chickadees, juncoes, downy woodpeckers, and white-breasted nuthatches.

We drove out to Stantall Trees Saturday ahead of the snow and cut a small balsam fir for our Christmas tree. Total time between cutting and putting in the stand: about three hours.

My dog magnetism was in evidence, as the neighbor's blue-eyed dog came to watch us and bark at the chainsaw. It was skittish at first, but by the time I was putting the tree in the back of the Odyssey, the dog was leaning against my legs for a thorough petting.

I have a button that says, "I have animal magnetism: when I go outside, squirrels stick to my clothes!" (But it has a picture of a chipmunk, which kinda ruins it for a person who knows a Sciurus from a Tamias.)

Anyway, it's actually dog magnetism. Apart from the odd poorly-socialized dog pent up with no one to teach it pack manners, it's a rare dog that doesn't come find me when I visit. In fact, my husband finds me in the house by where the dogs are.

Once I was in the bathroom, and I heard him saying to Ajax, "You're confused, she's outside!" I laughed, and then he said, "Sorry, Ajax, I guess you know more about where she is than I do."