A Gift from Nature on Leap Day

I'm starting to feel a bit better, but unbelievable as it seems, still I was not able to make it into work today. That makes a total of four days out. Everything makes me tired and it's frustrating.

But this story isn't about how I'm feeling. I'm getting real tired of that. It's about these beautiful feathers I saw on my countertop earlier this week in my delirium.

Beautiful yellow feathers, along with another deer antler. My husband had beenwalking in the woods again and he'd brought me home some presents.

He's been doing this for as long as I remember. Usually the presents are something really interesting like these feathers but I'll tell you, sometimes they're something really gross.

Like the time he pointed out to me that he'd replaced one of my candles with the skeletal head and vertebrae of some small possum-sized creature. I hadn't noticed it after about an hour, but when he finally couldn't take it anymore and told me, I realized that now I knew where that distinctive smell was coming from. And I wasn't happy. I got a towel right away and picked it up and threw it out the door. And sprayed the area. And stomped my feet. And told him never to do that again. He hasn't done anything like that since. But, like I said, he's always bringing something home. We have a pretty extensive collection of deer antlers, several different types of feathers, an oriole's nest, pieces of wood he's found interesting, and lots of odds and ends.

But back to these feathers. I wanted to get a good picture of them and today was the first time I actually picked up my camera all week. As I was taking the feathers from their spot, to set them up for a photo, I happened to glance outside and saw my first Robin of the year. In fact, my backyard was absolutely full of robins. I got the camera quickly and shot a few photos and counted 26 robins in my backyard. That was a nice gift.

So today I have a picture of the first robin to hit my neck of the woods, and my husband's feather find. It's the little things in life, isn't it?

Hey, stop back around 6 PM tonight when I hope to post this week's Guessing Game. I say I hope because well, I really don't have a picture yet. And I need to take a nap.

UPDATE: Nearly two hours after posting this, I came downstairs to find the jawbone (complete with teeth) of a small woodland creature, (possibly a vole), on my kitchen counter. *sigh*