Picnic table day

I worked really hard all morning to replace the old top boards on a picnic table. The worst part was all the times I had to get down under the table and back up again. Like about 50 times.  A killer for my knees and back. I ended up taking an aspirin, something I only do in dire circumstances.

Before

After

                     

Now the canopy needs more sotol so the picnic tables will have more shade. That's a project I once did, but it would be too hard on me to attempt it again. Either my son will do it eventually or some volunteers will..... or it won't get done.

I thought I saw the female Cardinal today that's been hanging around all winter, but upon closer examination, I believe it's a Pyrrhuloxia with a berry-stained beak. Tricky!

No idea what berries. Vegetation is still pretty dead at the oasis. Ocotillo is starting to bloom. Maybe they eat the buds on that.

When I arrived at the oasis this morning Lucifers came right up to me. One poked its beak at a brown button at the top of my knit shirt, right at my throat. It didn't take me but a second to realize the feeders must all be empty and they're desperate. Sure enough. I literally ran to my pickup and tore up to my cabin for sugar solution. I had left plenty in five feeders. I think the wind tilted the feeders and emptied them. It can happen, although that's rare. One male Lucifer started drinking from a feeder before I even got it hung.

I came across an old, almost empty roll of  toilet paper that I had purchased in the 1980s. For some reason, I had saved it, maybe because it was the last of the blue toilet paper. They quit making it. I remember how fat those Scott rolls were. Today's rolls are pathetic by comparison.

It makes sense to reduce portion size in food products since so many Americans are obese, but they're also larger, so it doesn't make sense to make the toilet paper roles smaller. Of course, they cost more, not less. All about profits. I guess the pandemic proved how indispensable toilet paper is. People would have hoarded it no matter the cost.