Hiatus and Views from the Tops of Trees

What does this little guy have to do with those piles of magnolia leaves?  I often wonder.  He isn't nest building with them.  No.  He and his friends chew the leaves off at the stems and hurl them down.  So, I've come to believe it is squirrel road maintenance.  I mean, look at their highway:

The weekend began with so much rain my phone alarm signaled me to watch out for flash flooding.  I just crawled back into bed and listened to the rain hitting the window.  Lovely!

But then, the sun came out and the with it, the birds and busy squirrels, all happy and alive and noisy like it was spring.  Which indeed, it almost was--today up to 60 degrees!  Miraculous after being 6 earlier this week with school cancelled and pipes freezing up.

So, today I had a little time to play like Thoreau and sit around observing the way the light played off the tree tips and breathing deeply and thinking thoughts (I'm meaning to be a little silly here).  Anyway,  in the Redwood Forest, the weather at the top of the tree canopy can be different from the weather beneath. I find that idea really cool.  Inhabiting two worlds at once, I guess.  Or that if you just hang on and look at something from a slightly different perspective it might not be as dismal or final as you think it is--maybe you're just under the tree.  You haven't got a squirrel highway.  Of course, my backyard is not quite the Redwood Forest (or Walden Pond), but it's amazing to think about anyway.  The perspective from the top of a tree.  Very free and open--and on a day like today--bright.

Today, a little hiatus from Winter.

Being outdoors made me think about Europeans in lap blankets playing backgammon and drinking tea in the winter sun.

Nothing quite like that here, but I did get to try out the hammock!