A Curious Statistical Anomaly

It’s been a heck of a month. It seems like all month, I’ve been running as fast as I can just to stay in place. There’s been so much going on. So, finally, here is the May Coffee Cup. It’s bright and cheery and I’ve been enjoying it all month. It’s just the right size to fill and sip on at the computer and the coffee stays relatively warm in it. Though I have to admit that I will drink my coffee hot, warm, tepid, and cold. Comes from years of work in IT where often you’d forget to go heat it up if you were deep in the code and on the right track.

We’ve been moving the zines from one host to another. That means transferring the DNS and that means a lot of backups and waits to see when the change would go through and the administrative functions were disabled and all I could do was let the work pile up. We’re nearing the end of the month and tonight the last magazine is being moved and the administrative functions restored. The email addresses are being reinstated on the new server and hopefully they’ll work okay. There’s a bit of a problem with sending email out and I’m hoping that gets resolved before I have to send out the notification to the publishers that a review is now up on our site. The monthly announcement can, if necessary, be sent from another server as a backup plan — hopefully we won’t need it.

So, I’ve been trying to get more books reviewed this month and have managed to do several graphic novels for the June issue of SFRevu, including Jim Butcher’s The Dresden FIles: Storm Front: Vol. 1, The Gathering Storm adaptation by Mark Powers and illustrated by Ardian Syaf (so check out our June issue for the review.

We’ve managed to keep the bird feeder going. We thought the little guys were going to eat us out of house and home but now that it’s getting into late Spring/Summer we’re finding that while they still cluster about the feeder, the birds aren’t eating as much. We do have a Tufted Titmouse that is coming about and fluttering at the windows by where we sit in the living room. Not the window closest to the feeder but the ones where we sit. He’s even been at the kitchen and the dinning room window when I’m there doing something. The hummingbirds are back in force and we’re making food regularly for them. We had to buy a new feeder since they didn’t like one of them and now they’re eating from both of them.

We’ve had some new birds show up also. We started getting Yellow Finches, Tufted Titmouse (Titmice?), Blue Jays, Brown Headed Cowbirds, and a strange looking black bird we haven’t gotten a good look at yet. I’m enjoying trying to identify the birds that stop by and I’m getting a better understanding of why people enjoy bird watching.

I’ve also been knitting. Trying out new techniques and more importantly trying to finish up some projects that have been sitting around for a while. First, I’m trying to keep socks on the go all the time for traveling and away from the house waiting times. I finally tried the magic caston. I watched the youtube video. Well, actually there are several just search on Magic Caston and a long list shows up. I tried several before I found one that worked for my brain. The others were well done but I just didn’t get it until I meshed with the right video.

I used an after-thought heel and did a very loose cast off for the cuff on these toe-up socks. That makes it easier to get them on if they shrink a bit in the wash. Here’s a photo of the needles in for the after-thought heel and another of the finished socks (well, one finished sock though I’ve got both done now).

So, in spite of the fact that I’m running as fast as I can to just stay in place, I might just have accomplished some stuff this month — or rather I hope I will. I don’t know how other people cope with unexpected or even expected inconveniences that through their schedules all out of whack. Luckily for me, I cope with these things by either knitting or reading — too things that I need to do anyway. How do you cope?

Shortly after the New Year and before we took down our tree, this cardinal showed up on our deck. He’d arrive shortly after sun up each day. He’d spend some time looking in the sliding glass doors, hopping to the left and right and turning his head. Personally, I think the only thing he could probably see was his reflection but maybe he was seeing the tree. We weren’t sure because he repeatedly fluttered up and down the left hand door and then the right hand door.

Day after day for two weeks, he’d begin at sun rise and stay until shortly after sun set. Up and down the two doors. Time after time. He took a few short breaks of about 15 to 20 minutes several times a day. But basically he spent the days attacking our window. We took the tree down thinking that he was trying to get at it. That didn’t stop the fluttering. This photo isn’t very clear. I had a difficult time taking it through the glass because if I got too close he flew to the side of the house on the corner of the deck and waited until I left to start in again.

We were getting worried about this psychotic bird. When was he eating? Was he going to die trying to fight for territory with the cardinal he saw reflected in our doors? What was with this guy? Other cardinals in the area didn’t take to battering the door with their little bodies for hours on end. So, we worried.

In the end, we went out and bought a bird feeder. We set it up on one of the plant hangers on the deck across from the doors. We figured he wouldn’t have to go far to eat and could keep up his strength to attack our door — which was getting bird poop all along the bottom of it.

The bird feeder went up and non-migratory birds from all over came to eat. After two days the cardinal left. Haven’t seen him since. But these fellows have been photo’d at the feeder. The only ones we’ve identified — we bought a bird book — are the finches:

We’ve also had some black eyed Juncos and got a picture of one but I can’t find it now. We also have these birds that we don’t recognize. We can’t find them in our bird book — or at least can’t find a matching picture. If you know what they are let me know.

We’ve also had some woodpeckers at the feeder but they’re a bit big and just snatch and fly away to eat so I haven’t been able to get a photo. On the other hand, we have a number of ground feeders like doves getting the dropped food from the feeder on the ground level. Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to bring the camera down to try for them.

It has been really nice having the birds around. Not as noisy as I would have thought. But I can sit and read and look up and watch them lining up to take their turns with the feeder. They’ve begun to share. At first they would fight off the other birds, especially those in another species, but now they will share. It’s interesting to watch the interplay.