Tuesday Twitterdeedum

I just heard some Canadian honkers fly by. It's warm enough that the window to this upstairs office is open, so the outside sounds are very clear this morning. I can hear cars over on Selle Road and an occasional bark out of Bullet.

He's Gary Finney's fox terrier, and he barks a lot. He also visits the neighbors and joins walkers or horseback riders on their route along the dirt roads in this neighborhood. Most people know Bullet and don't get too excited when they see him trotting along the roadside.

One lady did get excited a few months ago, stopped her car, swooped him up and took him to the Bonner Mall, telling someone he was a lost dog. Gary and the rest of us can't figure out why anyone would take a lost dog to the mall, especially when Bullet has a collar and an ID tag with his telephone number.

Bullet came home, and so far folks are letting him roam the neighborhood rather than worrying about him.

Speaking of those squawky geese flying past, I heard some sounds yesterday while standing in my greenhouse, preparing some pots for tomato seeds. They were high-pitched, and I recognized the origin from an experience I'd had out at Willie and Debbie's a few weeks ago.

"An eagle," I said out loud, leaving the pots and heading toward the lane. We see a neighborhood eagle almost every day. Sometimes it flies fairly low over the house and yard. Sometimes it plops in Stan Meserve's big cottonwood tree and sits there surveying the possibilities.

That's where it was yesterday, and it had a friend. Two bald eagles in a cottonwood talking to each other----what a sight! I didn't run to the house for my camera for fear of missing out on surveying them for a while. One was a bit shy, and by the time I got to a good viewing point, it flew off. The other sat on its limb, quite content to have me talk to it and try to mimic its noise.

It didn't talk back.

As I walked back to the greenhouse, I thought of how fortunate I am to be leading a life where I can be outside and see such sights at any given moment during the day. I thought of all those years being confined in a room with no real fresh air and no outside sounds. Of course, there was plenty to keep my senses sharp while teaching the children.

But this opportunity, post retirement, is never taken for granted. I'll always remember Feb. 1, 2010 as a two-eagle day. Now, if the groundhog day myth rings true, I should be able to go out there to my greenhouse this afternoon, prepare the tomato pots and hear those high-pitched sounds again, right?

I guess we'll just have to see.

I also enjoyed the sights, sounds and smells of early spring (hey, the geese are flying back this way now) yesterday while taking a bike ride down Woodside Road. The dump trucks with gravel are not going with regularity now, so the road offers the freedom to pedal any old direction without worry of being in a truck driver's pathway.

There is an indescribable smell to early spring, and I inhaled it with gusto yesterday. It occurred to me during this ride that every human being should be able to enjoy a certain amount of fresh outside air every single day. I know that's not possible in many cases, but I also know such moments are good for whatever ails us emotionally, mentally and physically.

I can't imagine a day where being outside is not an option, especially when outside is in North Idaho.

I saw in the paper this morning that Judy Thompson (she's one of the family outlaws) was honored by the Chamber of Commerce as its Volunteer of the Year. Judy is one of the most amazing, most dedicated, most disciplined people I know.

And, though I think it's wonderful and appropriate that Judy received this award, somehow even the prestigious Chamber of Commerce honor seems insignificant compared to what she gives our community.

What a lady! And, so modest, humble and downright cantankerous whenever you dare to compliment her! So, from a distance, I'll shout out, "Congratulations, Judy! You deserve that and much more for the difference you've made through your hard work and devotion to the Sandpoint area!" Congrats to all Chamber award winners!

My cyberfriend Betsy told me yesterday that she planted some spinach and that she has bedroom lettuce at her house in Elmira. Well, Betsy, you ain't alone. More than 30 tomato seeds are sitting in the soil within the pots beneath a cover of saran wrap in my garden window. It seemed important to welcome February with some kind of sowing.

And, Betsy, my bedroom lettuce is coming along nicely. Should be a week or two, though, before I pull of some sprigs, maybe to dress up some hamburger sandwiches. Whether we eat it all or not, the vision of that green stuff sitting on that card table underneath the grow light in Annie's bedroom just makes my day.

This is February, and Bill is noticing that the letters to the editor in the Daily Bee are concentrating mainly on Obama bashing or retaliations to the aforementioned. My hubby is missing the usual Lawrence Fury letters chastising the school district and Jim Blake's watchdog efforts on all aspects of county government.

I reminded him after his observations this morning that we may not see the usual February vitriol this year. After all, North Idaho hasn't been cooped up for weeks on end. Moods are light and not so full of fight. February has been the usual month for prolific outbursts of venom spewing from all ends of the county.

Could be all those politicians or public officials are still screwing up, but people are just plain handling it better cuz of the mild winter. If my friend Joy O'Donnell----famously known for her frequent proclamations that we have the All Bonner County Rock Fight in February---if she were still around, she wouldn't know what to think.

Joy hated February and she swore that most everyone else did too. So, they were all in bad moods and said bad stuff and they should settle it all by standing out there on the walking bridge and fling big rocks at each other.

Sorry, Joy, but we may not need that this year if the weather continues on in the manner we've so enjoyed. Of course, old groundhog boy off there in Pennsylvania will or already has determined that for us. Still, if we have six more weeks of winter this year, we've gotten off pretty easy.

Guess that's enough for one Tuesday of twitter, twitter, twitter. Have a good day, and go out there to listen to the birds. As for me, I'll head to the greenhouse in hopes those eagles are sitting in the cottonwood tree again today.