Pounding

Another Spring another loud Flicker drumming on the chimney’s top metal tube. The weasel doesn’t wish to mate with the Northern Flicker, and has sworn off eating birds due to awe issues. That leaves visual and the acoustic as relationship interfaces. 

In linguistics one sound implies a contrast with another. Whence the first, isn’t the question to galvanize the attention of generations of French literary theorists. Yes, maybe Descartes but he was technically before literary theory, and was also a spy. Hiding in a hut and thinking, the weasel loves that story! 

Any pair has a sequence or the Cartesian Coordinate Plane wouldn’t work. Math language is compelling that those coordinates join geometry and algebra; sequencing is real. The weasel is certain that one follows another because of feet, and the sun rising, and seasons that parade in order. The Flicker broadcasting is a sure sign: amplify a great pounding to display prowess, impressed female will arrive, and in a few months there will be fledglings training at the backyard suet feeder.

Name These Too

Honor the dead, fight like hell for the living, sorta said Mother Jones. So who are these people? Leaders of the country, starting new jobs now to work for the alive ones. The weasel hunched and memorized them all.

Hummer Hibernation

Hummingbirds tremble a little and hibernate off and on when super cold, Intermittent torpor. This one didn't notice the camera 18 inches from its little puffed tranced self. It's an Anna's, one of the biggest hummers. 

They can weigh as much as a nickel.

While snowed in, by choice because other animals were outside, the weasel was active. Wet sauce bird feeders that freeze are useless and hummingbirds need food shortly after dawn. Set the alarm, get out of the nest and hang the defrosted feeders early. Toss lots of seed on the snow and ice where sparrows are always the first to start. The weasel's friend said a carpet of ground feeding birds is very good TV.

Hummers are fun for eye darting quick looks. But. There's inaccuracy in characterizing them as cute. They fight a lot. Once the weasel saw one buzz another to the ground and keep poking. Nonsensical when there is plenty of food, who could drink a whole tube of sauce? Do they believe they are big enough to drain it? 

The weasel often wonders about how to approach scarcity, and labeling others is probably not right. Others have reasons, rationales. Is instinct a rationale? Instinct is inside. Is the reason for not labeling rational, the observer striving for empathetic accuracy, instead of moral superiority? 

But if one can only flit and buzz in imagination, provoked by gazing at the ones who can, what are we labeling for? What is this urge to reason? Familiar paws fitting into fanciful wings, the warm weasel feels awe.

Shepherd's Lesson

The neighbor human in the red jeep, the one with the unexpected yellow hair, unloaded herself and two dogs. The big Shepherd gave an announcement bark to the empty air and jerked around tangling itself in the leash. The smaller mutt stoically waited. 

Black and tan big dogs are dangerous/smart, no smaller animal is safe when their focus aims at you. Malevolent or protective, doesn’t matter, the dog holds the choice. True, it’s generally wiser not ever to be noticed, but in this case the weasel watched particularly discretely behind cover. The process of untangling was disruptive, the Shepherd bumbled and woofed and demonstrated a lack of adherence to breed by goofiness. Ahah! Beautiful muscled pelt, no brains. That kind of overly domesticated one is pretty easy to fool. The weasel relaxed.

But the Shepherd was now barking at looming danger, apparently across the empty street. It had such warning and complaint that its lady human looked around to spot the trouble. Clearly she understood her dog’s mental acuity. Leading both dogs across the street, she pointed up to the top of the wall (the mutt was bored with elementary school) while the Shepherd attentively absorbed an explanatory lesson about what is real and that mittens on yard signs do not smell.