@lioness, @artist01, @loribmt, @sueinmn, @jakedduck1, @gingerw and all...

Well, Lioness...beautiful picture of beautiful artwork....pencil? Love your colors and the piece.

Lori, those pictures are fantastic...peaceful and precious. I'm so glad you have this marvelous property with so much joy and peace from nature. Nothing could be better! Keep the wonderful pictures coming, my friend. We all are extremely jealous, but thrilled for you at the same time.....
I have a tiny note of fun: I now have a new excellent, favorite sound - Zzzzzttttttt! The sound of my zapper zapping and I smile a quiet, partially evil smile as I realize another mosquito 'bit the dust'!
I have a wonderful electric zapper plugged into my kitchen island sitting there lit up 24/7 enticing the little nasty bugs of all flying kinds into the light and a quick Zap, death of another mosquito! That means I have one less nemesis to torture me in my own home. I have a smaller zapper upstairs now in my bedroom. It's helping, but is smaller and I'm still getting bites upstairs, so think I'll bring the bigger one up later. Haven't been outside much, just to refill feeders a couple of times. The outside zapper is shining bright blue and I'm not attacked anymore.

Doc says I need to keep an epi pen with me as it seems the darn bites are getting worse with each bite. So, guess I will. Lori, do you need that for protection just in case? Hope you haven't had anymore problems with these fellows. crazy times....

I've been meeting with Mayo folks re pre-op stuff. Spoke for an hour with a nurse yesterday going over history, drugs etc; Go tomorrow for bloodwork, maybe other tests, probably just one on one with anesthesiologist. Apparently, I have circumstances in my health history, yucky stuff that could raise issues during surgery....that I have to chat personally with the doc, not just the nurse anesthesist. They're always quite competent, but I will feel a lot better since I have the breathing issues, etc. I'm concerned about this silly little surgery, folks. Silly as it's a little, common type of surgery, just don't want to do it now. Have to, to feel better and to get rid of the invasive infection that won't let go. Actually, now I have issues spreading to other sinuses, so time to get this done. Don't have a choice, do we? I don't, so I will breath deeply, think good thoughts and have confidence all is well. I'll wake up breathing just fine, able to go home and feel much better!

I've been having more fun watching my bird families come and go. The young boy cardinals are half and half right now. Half bright red new feathers, half fluffy, dark feathers. But for the orange beak, they look a lot like house finch males. Oh, I had my 3 mourning doves back together again yesterday. They have some kind of story there w/the relationship. I think, 2 are males, maybe brothers, and the one female is the issue. The only real love behavior information I've found so far is the mate for life thing, which may be the reason for the occasional tiffs. I watched 2 of my 5 squirrels yesterday, have a real fight! Not fun to see...one chased the other up and down and around my tree, caught him, jumped on his back and they tussled, then the smaller one fell to the ground and ran up the fence. It seems with the fewer available feeders since I'm getting smarter, they are having a spat over the metal tube with peanuts. I put it low so they could eat them, so now they fight over them. I may put out a 2nd easily available peanut tube so they have more. It keeps them happy.

Well, that's all for now, folks. Another book, but I'm sending it anyway.
Be safe, be well, be happy and be blessed.
elizabeth