Snow and Critters

It rained off and on all day yesterday, and was still raining at 4 this morning. Sometime between 4 and 6 the precip changed to a rain-snow combination, and when I went walking this morning, the clumps of snowflakes falling against the water-proof material of my jacket and hood made the soft slushy sounds of overly wet snowballs hitting a target. We currently have all of one-half inch of snow on the ground in Boulder, while Estes Park has 12 inches already. The temperature is falling and the forecasters are now saying that we'll end up with over 20 inches by Saturday evening. Several airlines have cancelled their out-going flights, so Kathy and Jim are having to take a wait-and-see stance about their flight to Boston for Jim's run in the marathon. Jim's other tests came back positive, so upon his return from Boston, he will undergo a needle biopsy aspiration of his bone marrow - checking for multiple myeloma. My friend Jane's pancreatic cancer has been nasty to her for the past week, so her first anniversary get-away has been cancelled. She and Michael are hoping they'll be able to make it to Florida for the May 12 launch of the Hubble Telescope repair mission of the space shuttle.

There is good news, in one respect: the owner of Rex, the tortured Shiba Inu, has given up his ownership (or guardianship, here in Boulder) of the poor dog. Rex is now in the care of the state at the Humane Society. No word has been released about Peanut, the chihuahua owned by the female torturer. - With the snow falling and carpeting the grass, the little birds are appearing on my patio, looking for food. I feel terrible that I cannot feed them, just for today and tomorrow. My nosy neighbor checks my patio 2 or 3 times a day, whenever she goes out on her patio... I don't need a citation for ignoring a management directive - otherwise, I'd do it in a heartbeat! Right now there are 3 sparrows sitting on my patio light, twittering away... I want to feed them so badly! - Banichi is on the top platform of the cat tree, looking at the sparrows; Lovey is fast asleep in the middle of my pillow. Both kits went out this morning - Lovey took a quick trip out in the snow, while Banichi touched a toe to the wet concrete and returned inside post-haste.

The snow falling is very wet and heavy - yesterday afternoon 4 ugly pine trees in pots were placed in the backyard prior to planting. Their branches are drooping down in the shape of an opened umbrella now, while earlier, in the rain, they were almost upright - like a U. I would have placed other types of trees in the backyard, but maybe the only thing the budget would allow were pines. There are a couple new fruit trees planted at the front of the building, as well as about 10 of these pines. This is after the management cut down over 100 feet of juniper bushes and 15 cottonwood trees that shaded the north end of the parking lot. ... Ah, the folly of man!