Happy Thursday

We received the predicted thunderstorm with lots of lightning, thunder, and heavy rain last night around 10:30. It cleaned things up nicely and today turned out to be sunny and mild with highs in the 50's. Just what we needed to get spring started off on the right foot. We were able to do the rest of the dog poop and corncob removal out in the yard. Still too wet to start raking up birdseed, but tomorrow is supposed to be even nicer than today, so I'm guessing things should start drying up pretty fast. We have to work 6 hours on Saturday to cover IBM's end-of-quarter work demands, but we'll get off at 11:00 a.m., so the afternoon should be free for outside tasks.

Rick got the motorcycles started this afternoon -- the first time since he stored them away last November. Maybe if it's really nice this weekend, we'll be able to go out for a little ride.

I saw my first song sparrow this evening and also a couple of cedar waxwings flying around while I was making supper. Rick thought he had seen a bluebird earlier in the day, but I can't confirm that.

The downy woodpeckers are really starting to chase each other around to establish their territorial rights. The starlings have eaten all of the nutty suet I had out for the woodpeckers, so now that the suet feeders are empty, I'll be filling them with plain suet. Starlings really don't care for that, so maybe they won't be hanging around so much.
I have a couple of windows cracked open till the sun sets, and I'm really enjoying listening to the red-winged blackbirds and cardinals singing their happy spring songs.

I'm getting a pretty bad case of spring fever -- I even got a couple of my windchimes out of storage. Now that we'll be spending more time outside again, I can enjoy listening to them.