Speaking of observing from my window, a female deer has shown up in our yard for the past several days to feast on the bumper crop of mulberries that have fallen on the ground. There haven't been as many robins in the trees this year to gobble up the dark purple globs of juiciness. Looking at the deer with my binoculars, I discovered that she had a full udder of milk between her legs. Wah, that means there's a little fawn somewhere hiding in the woods waiting for her to come back and feed her. I got this great shot of her today while she was in the sunlight for once. We live in an urban area surrounded by houses so it always amazes me that we have deer in the yard. Our yard is backed by a creek and there is a nice spread of small forest that goes for half a mile north. In the past, I have seen four deer at one time in our yard.

This band of trees has been a great haven for birds, too. I have quite an extensive bird list for this backyard. The yard is always a flurry of birds. I counted nine species yesterday as we were eating dinner on the deck in the Zinn Center. The most exciting ones to see were the two adult red-belly woodpeckers feeding their two baby woodpeckers. There has also been a contigent of noisy baby chickadees, titmice, and house finches. All noisy on a very cute level and all with that typical little fluttering of wings that indicate "I want fed!" And I have been enjoying seeing the pretty ruby-throated hummingbird feeding from the sugar water that Bill hung in the tree close to my window. The eastern wood peewee has come back again. Every spring I hear his furtive "pee-wee" from the forest. Rarely do I get to see him. But today, he perched on a dead branch of the mulberry tree and I got a good look at him. And another one joined him, too.

And then there is always faithful Roscoe, the raccoon. About a month ago, he surprised us by showing up at 8:30 p.m. while it was still daylight. Just this past week he's adjusted his time schedule to 9:30. We tend to be out in the Zinn Center at 8:30 sitting back relaxing after enjoying dinner. He's gotten so used to us that he comes over to the screen and sniffs up and down hoping for a handout. And we always give him something. He is so silent that you can't hear him walking but you sure can hear him sniffing when he gets up here. We even been able to get him to take pieces of food from our hands. He will find every scrap of food that has been tossed on the deck. Sometimes the female raccoon comes up, too, while he's here (I saw engorged nipples on her) and he growls very gruffly at her. She manages to steal a bite or two but she is more timid and makes a hasty retreat down the steps after a few minutes.

Roscoe loves hot dogs and bananas and cantaloupe and rice and spaghetti and when I don't have people food I put out dog kibble and he goes right to that, too. Bill got the fountain up and running so now when Roscoe's dinner is over he can go over and wash up.

It was such a gorgeous day yesterday although we spent most of it inside rearranging the computer room. We got very tired of the boxed in look so Bill put himself on the other side of me where we are directly face-to-face again. My sewing table went in front of the other window. It totally opened up the area. Today we are now trying to get through the endless sorting of stuff. The urge to purge has been very strong in me for the last month but once one gets to sorting not as much gets thrown out as I hoped.

One last thing, I'm gonna crow a bit. I do the Butler County Democratic website here. Well, this year I went to the annual fund raiser. It's a big deal to go to and you get to meet all the Democrats that are in the area that you didn't know existed in this Republican town. This year I got chosen as the Volunteer of the Year for Butler County Democrats. It was a total surprise. Now I know why the other people on the website committee asked me to go. Here it is, the official plaque.