Birds and Hazards

We had heavy (for this area) snowfall last night while we slept.  I love waking up to snow, and quiet, and the swarms of birds that snow always brings.  (Note to self--refill the feeders.)  I swept off the tile downstairs where I keep my bird supplies and dumped the sweepings onto the snow.  In minutes, three juncos had found the pile and started scratching through it.

The motion attracted Huntress.  She started talking to them in the language of the birds.  I don't think they understood her.  She has a really thick accent.  She kept trying, though.  They ignored her, poor thing.

I went in to work late, when I felt comfortable with driving.  The roads were good on the way to work, and on the way back home, but just before I got to the house I noticed there was still traces of slush in the road.  If it freezes tonight, it could be nasty, though not all the way down the hill.  The trick is to get past the ice without ditching and making it onto the lower, dry or merely wet part of the road.  The other trick is to have that instinct that tells you that the steep curves near the bottom of the hill are safe.  Many a driver trying to commute into town has listened to their instinct and been oh so wrong.  They've been wrong enough that the folks living on the downhill side of the curves got tired of people ending up in their cow pasture, so they built up a huge berm.  

If only cars were as proportionally durable as a skateboard, you could bank off the berm down the next stretch and look pretty cool in the process.  Of course the last curve has no berm and you'd then end up off the side of the road on a steep hill crushed against a tree.  What we really need there, since the slope is too steep to rationally attempt to build a berm there, is one of those cement half-pipes set on its side.  Then not only could you use it to negotiate the curve, you could also flip a loop with your car.  Not even the Dukes of Hazzard pulled off a stunt like that.