The 19th day of the fifth month of the year of Emergence

Flash, it's all over the news!  Coffee is good for you.  Seems like it tends to stem some of the worst types of colon cancer.  I knew there was a reason for stumbling into the kitchen every morning with one eye closed.  Fool around with getting the water just right and the number of tablespoons of Pike Place measured out.  I mean other than the massive benefits of the caffeine we all knew about, this is great news.  Course you need to drink six or more cups a day for it to do the job.  And still you need to exercise to get the full benefit.  Can you just imagine those test mice, running around all strung out on that much coffee.  They would have had to reinforce the walls to the maze.  With also brings to mind those office workers running around their cubicles for forty hours a week.

So much for current events.  This dove is one of my back yard buddies.  We have a pair who seem to have taken up permanent residency, in fact one was sound asleep in the middle of the feeder the other day.  Must have thought he died and went to heaven.  Soft spot in the sun and all you can eat just below your chin.  I think I enjoyed that same feeling years ago in some restaurant in New York City.  That was during my lost decade.  Anyway, like the carrier pigeon (these birds must be some distant relative), the dove has a lot of hidden and subtle coloration's.  The blue around the eye is just electrifying and the iridescence on the neck is brilliant in the right light.  Double click on the image to get a full screen.

This aint' your grand ma's standard pigeon.  Actually the dove is quite a sporting bird and wing shooters travel to South America each year to shoot them in abundance.  I for one could never hit them with a shotgun, preferring to lay in wait for larger and slower moving prey.  They fly erratically and fast but at least stay in the open areas.  If they are so hard to hit with a shotgun, you can just imagine how hard it would be to get a meaningful flight shot with a camera.  I'll have to think about that one a bit.  It almost sounds like work.

I did go out and splurge yesterday on some squirrel repellent equipment.  I have not been spending money for some time on things which are, to me, toys.  This equipment, purchased --Gasp-- at Wally World, is of the Daisy variety.  That's right folks..........Gun like!  BB caliber.  This thing can be pumped to create the strength you need.  I can pump it up twenty times and it shoots like a canon, or just a couple of times and it stings.  Stinging is good, drawing blood not so much.  I just want them to know that it is I what owns the sunflower seeds and not them.  And if they want some, either they pose pretty or get stung on the way over the last branch.

  I actually educated two yesterday afternoon.  Great fun, for me at least.  Last year my neighbor thought he would live trap them.  Thought he only had a couple who were pests.  Well, when he stopped he had relocated (against the law down here) forty of the little critters.  So, we don't just have a couple of em.  And their brazen little critters, sorta like all those pigeons in the major cities that we actually trip over. 

Have a good day all and prayers go out to all those folks along the Mississippi River.