A little of this, a little of that…

Lynn and I were sitting at the table having lunch on Monday. We enjoy the frenzy of activity at our 7 bird feeders this time of year. Things have really picked up as the weather has turned colder. We were watching several chickadees and Carolina wrens, marveling at how tiny they are, when a bird half their size popped into their midst.

That beautiful little gray bird looked like a miniature mockingbird, but it was non-stop nervous, moving its wings and its tail as it hopped from perch to perch. It wasn’t there more than three moments before it grabbed a piece of a seed and flew off into the shrubs.

I immediately sent a text to our pastor. Rev. Tommy Brumett is an avid birder, which you know if you hear my radio program on KLIF on Saturday afternoons. I described my new little friend, and Tommy sent me a quick guess as to the ID. Bingo – my first Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Tommy says that the great Merlin app from Cornell Lab of Ornithology of Cornell University describes them as “rare,” but that he sees many at his feeders near downtown McKinney. I’m certainly going to be watching my own feeders more closely.

One thing I found especially interesting is the range where this bird has been found. I’ve done a screen capture from the Merlin website.

That’s one tough little bird!

Note: There was no way for me to get a photo of my feathered visitor. It came and went so quickly. Pastor Brumett referred me to a reference we both use all the time: merlinbirds.org. Credit for these photos to them. If you’re not familiar with that website, you need to be!

Oldest tool in my shed…
I was cutting shrink wrap off a case of Diet Dr Peppers the other night with this little tool. I don’t keep it in the garden shed any longer. It’s too special to me.

My wife knew what its real job had been “back in the day,” but that wasn’t how I’ve always used it.

My dad had this 70 years ago and used it as a linoleum knife. That was back in the time before plastic laminate countertops. We had linoleum counters with chrome-plated edging, and this was the linoleum knife we used to cut the rolls as we laid them in place.

Never wanting for a tool to make my work easier, I found that it worked great at cutting weeds between bricks in sidewalks and edging in my garden. That was before line trimmers and glyphosates. I spent a lot of hours on my hands and knees with this little thing in my right hand.

Luckily, most of its work nowadays is confined to liberating my diet drinks. It has retired from the more physical tasks. I have, too.