Weekend leftovers

First up, I would like to point out a comment on my Sunday message this week by one Brian Westley, who took exception to my line, "...when our President tells us Muslims kill Americans because Christians are evil...".  At least, I assume he took expeption with it, since his comment was, "What color is the sky in your world?"  And for a little bit, I was upset with myself for using a, "Well, that's essentially what he says," rather than a direct quote.  But seconds later, I saw where that paragon of virtue, David Letterman, called Mitt Romney "a felon" for not paying his income tax- which BTW we have proof now that he did.  David just hasn't had it confirmed on Current TV yet, I guess.  Anyway, after having read that statement, which is actionable slander IMHO and were Mitt a vindictive snot like me Letterman would find himself sued down to his last poop-stained pair of boxers, I decided how I put what I said wasn't so bad after all.  Thusly, my answer to Brian was, "Blue, sometimes gray during the day. Black with white spots at night. Yours?"

Next, I thought I'd share some pictures from a walk we took Saturday.  And then re-took, since I lost my darn phone along the way (fear not, Laurie managed to call it when I was standing virtually on top of it, so it's back where it belongs).

Fall colors finally coming out.

This deer lady stood about thirty feet from us.  No, it's not the same picture, she just stood THAT still.

Underneath the yellow-leafed bough is a mass of branches in the water.  As we approached the bridge, we saw an OTTER, of all things, slide into the water.

Later, we went to get some more feeder supplies, as the pigs (boh fuzzy and feathered) had wolfed down an entire seed bell in ONE WEEK!  So I went with the intentions of putting the bell on a stand-alone (to keep our rodent diners off) and put something new on the shed hook with Laurie's feeder.  And guess what we got an e-mail ad for, just after we came home With it...

Sure enough, an ad for the very thing we'd just bought!  But, does it work?

The bigger, whiter guy is a white-breatsed nuthatch, to go with the smaller red breasted one.  Birds confirm it, our house is a nut hatch!

Of course, the part I didn't tell you is that Mr. Woody had us up at 8:30 that morning, pounding on the wall to let us know the bell was about gone!  Anyway, the whole gang had a great time for about half an hour, then somebody musta yelled, "Party at Bill's!" and I haven't seen a one since.

Which reminds me of another story.  Last Sunday, Frank Gray's column in the Journal talked about how nobody was seeing birds anymore, and where had they gone?  He even had a quote from a member of the Indiana Audobon Society claiming Robins abondoned the area "six weeks" ago!  I wrote last week to Gray to let him know he was full of beans, and invited him to stop by any ol' morning to my back yard if he wanted to see birds.  And Saturday during walk round #2, I personally led Laurie to a spot in the woods wherein we observed at least two dozen robins, merrily picking up acorns and what-have you.  Now, who's yer bird watcher?

Finally, a Lokomotiv report.  We got dumped Saturday by Avangard 5-2.  They scored twice in the last minute and a half (one in an empty net) after we had cut a 3-0 deficit down to 3-2 on third period goals by Artur Amirov (in his first game after being called up from the VHL team) and Dmitri Maltsev (also his first of the season). It was NHLer Semyon Varlamov's second game in the nets, and so far he's had a bit of trouble adjusting.  Currently, we are as I type playing Barys Astana (the team from Kazakhstan), and we've scored three times in an 8-minute span of the second period to lead 3-0 just past halfway.  Alexei Kalyuzhny netted his 4th at 3:05 of the second, and a pair of defensemen netted their first:  Dmitry Kulikov, a 3-season NHLer with the Florida Panthers with 13 NHL goals, at 8:19; and Mark Flood, a Canuck with 39 games and three NHL goals under his belt with the Islanders and Winnepeg, at 11:27. At one point we had barraged them 11-1 in shots in the period, but it has evened up as we've managed to get whistled for 4 penalties (two of them roughings that sent an opponant of the ice as well) since the third goal- which also ended with Barys goalie being yanked in favor of his backup.  I'll let y'all know how it comes out on the Fantasy football post tomorrow.