Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas

Good morning everyone. Santa came to our house but we can't open our stuff yet. Paul went to the SPCA to walk dogs, his new volunteer job. Chris is upstairs in bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in his head. I'm left to admire all the lovely gifts and of course, to share them with you. Even Pepper came down to have a look at the loot. She's the solid black cat next to the window. You should be very honored that she is joining us. She rarely comes downstairs except to shoot out the front door to escape the bedlam.

You are seeing Paul's bike trainer (the green gizmo) before he knows that Santa brought it. Don't tell.

Warm Christmas greetings to all from the Woody menagerie.

A Post about Nothing

One of my sons told me that if I don't update my blog constantly, no one will read it. I think it's too late to worry about that.

I have enjoyed the mountain photo in the previous posting so much that I haven't wanted to make a new entry because now the photo won't display on my feed page.

This morning it is 24 degrees. The formerly feral cats are outside proving their street cred. They run to the deck door and look in as if to say, "Naah, we're not cold at all. We're feral!! Ha ha."

I guess when they need to use the litter box they'll come in since apparently they never learned how to go outdoors in their feral life.

Moses is resting at my feet, having offered to play tug of war with his blue bear, which we did for a few minutes until we both lost interest. It seemed like a lot of work.

We (my husband, not Moses) went to talk to a banker about buying the aforementioned mountain property. That was encouraging. We'll see what happens.

I've been up for about an hour now. Seems like a good time for a nap. It's Saturday, why not.

Mountain Property

My nutty husband and I have lately been fantasizing about the idea of owning mountain property. We've looked at several pieces of property, most recently the location pictured here. These lots are just off of the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 16 in Nelson County. We had fun tramping around the lots and trying to make sense of the map that the sellers had made available to prospective buyers. It took us a while but we finally figured out which lot was which. This process would have been much faster had we noticed the sticks in front of each lot with the lot number clearly written on them. I can't help but wonder if people who can't see big sticks with numbers are qualified to live a rugged life on the side of a mountain. I will leave you to mull that over while you enjoy these photos.

Pepper Enjoys the Fall Colors

More pet silliness

Tippy ponders the meaning of life from inside the box

You may know that Paul and I are quite silly over our pets. Gaga some might say. One of my daughter's-in-law calls me the crazy cat lady. Oh snap.

The crazy cat man and I had to take the wild young cats to the vet, as they had not had their shots. They got rabies shots when they were neutered, but not leukemia and distemper and so forth. As you may recall, if you've been paying attention, these are formerly feral cats who are strongly opposed to getting into a box and taking a car ride to hell. Tux has drawn blood a few times, and we had a horrible experience with him in the laundry room where he resisted our efforts to touch him by climbing right up the wall. I still shudder when I think of it.

We were very worried about how we were going to get not one but two crazy cats into the carrier. We plotted strategy. We discussed different clothing options: oven mitts, oilskin coat, double sweatshirts with hoods. The vet advised leaving the cat carrier out in advance where they could see it, which I did, and I also put some cat food in there. Tippy would rush into a burning building if she thought there was a snack; Tux was the real problem.

On the day of the planned capture, I got up early and put the carrier in the middle of the den. I fed them only a tiny amount at about 5:30. At 7:30 I sat down on the sofa near the carrier to read the paper. They were hungry by now and came to see why I wasn't feeding them. I thought why not put a dish of food in there. I did and Tippy hopped right in. Tux looked over the edge. I observed this from the sofa anxiously. Tux then put his front feet up, then hopped up as I rose slowly from the sofa. When his whole body was in the carrier, I slammed the top down and closed the latch. My heart was racing. They scuffled and growled a bit. I ran upstairs to tell Paul. "They're in, they're in!". He was asleep. I didn't care, I was so excited. Only 2 hours till their appointment. No sweat.

I called the vet at 8 and told the nice person what had happened and asked if I could bring them early. She said sure. Long story short (too late, I know), they behaved well and don't seem traumatized. Paul and I are still exhausted.

Guns Galore

Right now I am listening to the proceedings of the House of Representatives as they debate health care. Did you know that health care is a problem? I wasn't aware until I was flipping through the channels and found this thing called C-SPAN. So far there haven't been any commercials. Everyone calls each other gentleman and gentlelady. Maybe it's some sort of Renaissance faire.

Anyway, it's been a rough week for a sensitive person like me. I had fun being an election official on Tuesday (almost as good as being called gentlelady). My candidates all got shellacked. I am sure things in our Commonwealth will be fine though, as God probably is happy with the outcome. Maybe God will send us some jobs and highways. And affordable college. A clean bay. Low, low taxes. Don't laugh, it could happen.

I was horrified at the signs at the latest Obama-haters rally in DC on Thursday. A great big poster of dead bodies at a WWII concentration camp. Something about health care written on it. WTF? Don't these people have any decency? I was so upset that I fired off another one of my irate e-mails to my representative Eric Cantor. I didn't call him any names or mention that he is Jewish, since he likely knows that. I implored him to speak out against the use of Holocaust imagery, and the constant invocation of Hitlerisms. I take no credit, but I did read today that Mr. Cantor did speak out against this disrespectful behavior. Good for him. I hope it sounded genuine.

This was the same day that the army psychiatrist killed a bunch of people at Ft. Hood. I don't handle this sort of thing well. I suppose no one does. Is it my imagination or is this country growing more violent? Got a problem, get a gun. We do a horrible job on mental illness in this country. We look away and say it's none of our business, or everyone has a right to privacy. True. So is there nothing to be done? Gun supporters say that there needs to be more guns, so the Virginia Tech shooter would have been taken out as soon as he started shooting. Gee whiz, wouldn't you think there were lots of guns around on a military base? I suppose the solution is for all of us to have guns, and that we keep them drawn all the time. Yeah, that sounds about right. We can all put the blue tooth phone things in our ears to keep our hands free. Get those hats with drinks in them and tube going to your mouth. Gotta have coffee. Gotta be prepared.

I heard that the Ft. Hood shooter bought his automatic weapons at Guns Galore. All legal. When you are going to kill a lot of people quickly, automatic is the way to go.

Guns Galore. You gotta love that.

Kitchen Rehab II

hello, the kitchen is nearly done. I've made a slideshow since it takes so darned long to upload photos here.

Take a a look; I hope you like it. We like it a lot.

Kitchen Rehab

The kitchen rehab is proceeding nicely. Today the refrigerator moved into the den. I can see some advantages to this arrangement: retrieve snacks without missing any TV. Hmmm, maybe there's room for the microwave in here too.

Take a look. But don't ask me where the trash can is. I'm afraid it's lost.

Moses' $800 Hat

There is a children's book we like a lot called Go Dog Go, by P.D. Eastman. One of the recurring threads is the male dog asking the female dog, as they ride around in his jaunty roadster, "Do you like my hat?" She always says no until the end, when she says "Yes, I do, I do like your hat!"

I don't think any girl dogs will like Moses' hat.

You're probably wondering why he is wearing this hat. On Tuesday Paul took him to the vet because we felt a lump on his shoulder about the size of a ping pong ball, but soft. The vet called later in the day to say he wasn't worried about the lump, it was just fat (I find that hard to believe) and he wanted to know if we'd noticed the hematoma on his ear flap. Ummm, gee, no, we hadn't. Was that a bad thing? Dr. Rose went on to expain that when dogs shake their heads vigorously, they can get blood-filled bruises on their ear flaps. I've been around the pet care world long enough to know that no good would come from this blood-filled bruise. Moses is happy to be home now, with his rawhide and his kitties and his big front yard to do his doggie business in. And that $800? Heck, we would have just wasted on something frivolous.

Welcome home Moses.

What is this Plant?*

*It's called amaranthus - also pigweed, love-lies-bleeding, summer pointsettia


My friend Barbara A. gave me some wildflower seeds as a gift; the plant shown here is the most fascinating of the whole group, which did amazingly well considering the lack of attention they received from the gardener. They're wildflowers and my belief is that they don't need human intervention. Does anyone know what this flower is? I've included a close-up of the "petals".


thanks Barbara

All Pets -- No Politics

Today was Tux's first day outside since moving in with us on April 3. I wanted to display the photos in order, as he stepped out the door hesitantly, but the blogger machine had other ideas. Pepper still hates all the other animals. Moses has lost weight, don't you think? He cleaned up all the bread I threw out for the birds a few days ago. Good boy. Tux enjoyed the outdoors and I told him, since he did not run away like his sister, that he could go out again tomorrow. I hope you will enjoy these out-of-order photos.

What Do ACORN and the Postal Service Have in Common?

I was going to write a pet update but once again current events have distracted me from a more pleasant task. The pets are all fine, by the way.

I have been wondering for some time what people mean when they use the post office as an example of how government can't do anything right. This belief has been voiced frequently during the health care free-for-all, where everyone gets to shout about what they want, unless you're in favor of medicare for all, like me, then you have to shut the hell up.

Back to the post office. I listen to C-SPAN's Washington Journal in the morning. This is the show where callers get to comment on current Washington hi-jinks. One day a retired guy called in from Hilton Head. Right away you know this is a wealthy white republican. No one else can afford to live in Hilton Head. He whined about socialism and government ineptitude, using the post office as his example. His example of the sorry state of our national mail system is that he remembers when the mail was delivered at 8:30 and now it is delivered at 10:30! Aha!! Oh snap. You are so busted, mailman. What better example of incompetence is needed to make the case against USPS. Only a retired person with time on his hands would even know when his mail gets delivered. And, what difference does it make? Can someone tell me please?

It dawned on me a few days ago what the beef is with the post office. When affirmative action was implemented, the workforce at the post office became integrated. What do whiney republicans hate more than the post office? Affirmative action. White guys hate it when black guys get to ride on their gravy train.

Now, about ACORN. Who works at ACORN? A lot of low wage black people. Who does ACORN serve? Poor people, a lot of whom are black. How much government money does ACORN get? Very little.

ACORN's detractors claim to be outraged by corruption and government waste. I ask you, are they also protesting Halliburton and Blackwater? How about Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo, and any other financial service entity currently feeding at the government trough? How about Enron and Tyco and all those big companies that squandered and cheated their way through billions of dollars and hurt millions of people? I don't remember those protests, do you?

Oh wait, all of those are run by white guys, and made tons of money for white guys.

Sometimes I forget the rules. Never mind.

Bullshit

One of my favorite blogs, Margaret and Helen, recommends that we start calling the constant hysteria aimed at our president what it is, which is bullshit. This is not a word I normally use, but it is time to call out these racist folks who claim to be so worried about the imaginary government take-over of their lives. These are the same people who sat on their hands for 8 years while the previous administration started 2 costly, deadly, quagmirish wars, wiretapped anyone they felt like, suspended our basic rights, politicized the Department of Justice, squandered our standing throughout the world, and pretty much gave us the finger while saying "in your face, chumps".

But now, my fellow americans, we must prevent the president from giving a back-to-school pep talk to our students.

Next these same parents, so worried about their impressionable youth, will be demanding that the president's picture be removed from their schools.

And will the school administrations cave on that? You bet.

What message is this sending to black students? What message is this sending to business owners who might be thinking of locating to one of these areas where the president is being censored? Would you locate your business in one of these areas?

The USA has a terrible dropout problem. Is it any wonder with idiot parents like these that one in 3 students drops out of high school. Colin Powell and his wife Alma started a foundation called America's Promise Alliance to address specifically our disturbing inability to finish high school. This makes me wonder how these same objectors would be acting if Colin Powell were president. How about Hillary - how would they be acting if she were president?

I despair for the future of our country. I remind myself that any time a country goes through big dramatic changes, those feeling threatened by those changes make a lot of noise and carry on irrationally, but then the change comes and they quiet down, or die, or accept the change, which turns out not to wreck the country after all. Please tell me that will happen this time.

I don't like to use the word bullshit, but sometimes that's what you have to do, for the good of the country.

What Would Jesus Do?

I don't know much about the Bible, but I am pretty sure he'd be against government run health care. It must be so because that is what I hear on my TV all day and all night. And in my newspapers, my favorite talk radios shows, my next door neighbor, my hairdresser, my office mates, my dog. Government run health is of the devil.

Most of that paragraph is not true. And I most certainly don't listen to talk radio.

Seriously, wouldn't Jesus encourage us to comfort the sick and treat their afflictions? What is so damned hard about that notion?

Here's the plan:

-Phase in Medicare for all over the next 3 years.
-Tell the insurance companies that from today on, they cannot refuse coverage for a pre-existing condition and they cannot raise rates. And they cannot cancel any existing policies until everyone is on Medicare.
-Pay for item 1 by ending the war on: Iraq, Afghanistan, and drugs. And, when Congress has a minute or two, roll back the Bush tax cuts and raise the cap on payroll deductions for social security.

There, that's done, now y'all have a nice weekend.

You know what sticks in my craw? Two things:

Remember when the folks in charge for 8 horrible, horrible years sold the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy with the promise that it would lead to job creation? Tell me, how did that work out?

And, why oh why is John McCain on my TV night and day? He lost! He's a loser! Who cares what he thinks. Move on, dammit.

I am going to go play with kittens now, dammit.

Bokeh!

My brother the fancy photographer told me I had achieved bokeh with one of my photos. I visited the butterfly exhibit at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden with my photography class with the assignment of taking "macro" photos of butterflies. Macro is close-up photography, usually using a special macro lens. I was able to borrow such a lens from my friend Rita and lo and behold, apparently I achieved bokeh without even knowing it. Bokeh means that the subject of the photo is enhanced by the blurriness or fuzziness of the rest of the photo.

Here's the photo, you be the judge.

Still Life with Vegetables

I grew all this stuff and tried to get Pepper to pose with it to make a Still Life with Black Cat but the black cat was having none of it and stormed away in a huff. I suffer for my art and expect her too also. Is that asking too much?

Vanity, thy Name is License Plate

Driving south to my home sweet home on the major east coast highway, I spotted this license plate:

I95SUX

Yes, it does when you can only go about 25 mph as we were at that time.

On the trip north I saw this plate:

EVISCR8

Why would you want that on your license plate?

Today I saw this one:

HORCPLAY

What do you think, hard c or soft? The horse decal on the bumper gave that one away.

Also seen today:

QTPIRN

I have no idea.

And a few months ago:

4NIC8ME

Clearly the DMV censor was not paying attention. And the young man driving this car was a terrible driver.

Wait, on the one from QTPIRN: cutie pie RN? A cute nurse?

Here's my personal favorite, seen on the vehicle of a hipster grandpa I know:

Adorable Birthday Boots for Evie

Grandma and Evie

I've been a very negligent blogger lately. I'd like to say I've been busy, but who hasn't?

Here are some adorable photos to make up for my lack of fascinating posts.

I must go now, I'm very very

busy.

Tippy hates her new collar.

To Hell in a Handbasket

I don't mean to be gloomy, but when do things begin to look up? I try to be cheery and optimistic but it's getting tough. You know what would help? Besides millions of jobs? if all the crazy-assed, loud-mouth whack job politicians and professional talkers would just shut the hell up. And you can tell them I said so.

Psst, has that love-struck governor stifled himself yet? And is the king of pop buried yet? And that nice latino lady, is she on the Supreme Court yet?

Seriously, I am broken-hearted over events in Iran. How I wished for a good outcome, and now that seems remote. I am humbled by the courage shown by the protestors, especially the women. We really need to get more involved with political affairs in this country before the politicians mess up even more than they have already. We the people are much too complacent.

What I recommend for those times when you can't bear to turn on the TV: play with kittens!

I hope to get a photo soon of Tippy and Moses who have become best buddies. Enjoy these until it get that precious photo.

All Hail Twitter

I guess Twitter isn't so silly after all. I have been fascinated by the 'revolution" in Iran. I hope there is peaceful resolution to the horrible fraud perpetuated by the controlling regime. I admire the courage of the protesters and wonder if we would be brave enough to do what they are doing. I like to think we would.

Peace to all.

Twitter Foolishness

Hello fans,

My husband works at a newspaper. They require some of the writers to tweet. Well, I thought, if my wacky husband was tweeting, I certainly want to experience that.

So I signed up to follow the tweeting of the R------- T---- D-------.

Nothing happened for a few days, so I asked my tweeter had he tweeted lately, and how does this work since I had signed up to follow his tweets. He said something like "I dunno, it's all a bunch of crap, who cares." That might be a bit more negative than what he said, but I try to make things interesting for my readers.

A few days later I received e-mail saying that the RTD was now following me. Now readers, I don't know much about Twitter, but I don't think a big old newspaper really wants to be following me. I'm pretty sure it's meant to be the other way round.

Still no tweets. Do they come to my e-mail or do I have to go fetch them? If so, that's dumb.

A few days ago I received e-mail saying that Bettina Merkl was now following me. Yikes, I don't want anyone following me, most especially a stranger.

Then today I received e-mail telling me that a young lady I do know and am very fond of is a follower. Jeez, now I feel like I have to tweet. This is getting to be a lot of pressure.

Today I screwed up my courage and clicked on the profile link for Bettina to see who she might be. Doggone it, "Bettina" is selling something, something related to satellite TV. I bet there isn't even anyone named Bettina Merkl. What do you think?

You know, I just wanted to see the funny stuff my husband writes. Maybe I'll skip Twitter and just ask him when he gets home if he wrote anything funny today.

My Day

Did you know that Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a newspaper column called My Day? This posting will not be as good as anything she wrote.

I slept in a little bit. When I got up I slopped the hogs, milked the cows, and filled all the hay bins in the barn. Well, not exactly, but taking care of all these animals feels like I'm living on a farm. Poor me.

I watched the D-Day commemoration broadcast from Normandy on C-Span. It was very moving. All the presidents spoke (UK, Canada, France, USA) Ours talked the longest. He was good, as usual, but went on a bit too long. I wonder if Michelle pointed this out to him.

He told us about one of the D-Day veterans who was in very poor health but made the trip anyway. Last night this veteran visited the cemetery to pay his respects to his fallen comrades. Then he died later in the night. I hope that he went peacefully.

Of course when I think about D-day, I think about my dad who was D+1; he landed the next day. I wonder what he found on the beach. He didn't talk about his experience, as most veterans don't. I bet he saw some horrible things during his tour of Europe. I still have the little wooden clogs he brought home from Holland.

After that we took our big old fat dog for a walk. He seems to be moving better and may have lost a pound or two.

After that I went to the library. The one I used to work in. I miss it quite a bit. It was crowded and noisy and one of the patrons had pretty bad BO, so that helps me remember that I don't miss everything; just a few things.

Then we went to Costco to look at patio furniture. We spent $157 but got no patio furniture. Once you start putting things in your cart at Costco, all is lost. Don't fight it. Sure, why not get a $10 jar of cashews. This is America, live large.

Then I went to the grocery store while my nutty husband went for a run. I'd tell you how much I spent there but I didn't even notice. My purchase did not include patio furniture.

For dinner we ate a pizza we purchased at Costco. It has mozzarella cheese, basil, and tomato. It was tasty but the crust was too thick. It is also the size of a man-hole cover. Come on over, there's plenty left. Maybe Pete will come by and help us finish it.

We took the fat dog for a walk again.

Now we are waiting for the kittens to amuse us with their playful hijinks while we watch a Paul Simon special on PBS, which would be very enjoyable if these pesty people would quite asking us for money.

I have to go now and wake these boring kittens up. I need some action.

Let me know if you know a good place to buy patio furniture.

Good night.

Happy News

If I had written this post 24 hours ago, it would be called Sad News.

You see, Tippy was missing for over 24 hours. After several hours of not seeing her, and noticing that the food dishes hadn't been totally emptied on Saturday (all 3 of them) we got the flashlight and looked all over for her. We knew by Saturday night that she must have gotten out.

We were distraught. I thought I had seen her Saturday morning but couldn't remember for sure. Paul thought she must have gotten out late Friday night we he let Moses out.

I got up early Sunday morning after deciding at about 4 a.m. that she must be stuck in a tree.

I was standing in the laundry room and heard thumping on the back porch. I looked out and saw her. I put on my shoes and went out; by this time she was in the side yard looking panicky. I called to her but she ran away. I looked all around and went inside to get a dish of food. It was so early that I didn't want to shout her name, so I walked around shaking the food dish and calling quietly "Tippy. Here Tippy".

No luck. We spent the day incapacitated with sadness. Yes, we know that was kind of silly. Paul blamed himself which was not at all justified.

Late in the day we walked around looking for her; we told several neighbors to be on the lookout for her.

I dallied on going to bed since it would be so lonely in there without her. Since Moses came to stay, we do all of our playing in our bedroom. I turn the lights off and get under the covers. I stick my arm out and wave the feathers on a stick. Before long, I have 2 kittens colliding in mid-air and tussling on the floor. Great fun. We go on like this till my arm gets tired.

I played with Tux a little but it wasn't much fun.

After a while, I heard the deck door opening and the voices got louder. Paul came upstairs and said "Tippy's home."

Yay. She came upstairs and we had a nice reunion. Tux came too. Paul told me Tux was the one who noticed she was out on the deck.

So a sad story has a happy ending. I think I will never get attached to a pet like this again.

Never.

Good lord what a fat dog

Meet Moses, our foster dog. His owner died and the lab rescue folks needed a place for him to stay and we said OK.

We were told that he weighs 92 pounds and has arthritis and needs ear medicine and is depressed. I know how he feels, being a bit overweight myself and having all kinds of aches and pains. Who wouldn't be depressed?

Actually, he seems quite happy to us. He loves everyone. Wants to jump in the car and ride every time we go out in the front yard.

Compared to our granddog, Princess Buttercup, he is rather comatose.

We've been walking him several times a day and feeding him very lightly. I bet if he dropped a few pounds, that arthritis would clear right up.

Moses likes cats we are told, but you wouldn't know that by the reaction of our cats. They have all locked themselves in various rooms upstairs and refuse to come down. There is one crunching food under the sofa right now, after Chris kicked her out of his room.

Tippy has just come out from under the sofa to get a look at the large, panting behemoth sleeping in the middle of her playground. This should be interesting.

College Boy Comes Home

We've had our college boy home for a week now. Things have been pretty chill. He seems to be handling the lifestyle change OK. It only took 4 days to do all the laundry. We haven't figured out yet what food to buy and how much. I hope we will get it right soon.

I noticed a barricade of shoe and other boxes in front of his door. Then I noticed that all of his pillows and blankets and sheets were in the laundry room. Hmmm I thought. This can't be good. Better investigate.

I stood in front of the barricade when the door was open and leaned into the room. "What's up with the boxes?", I inquired in a non-scolding voice. "Don't want those cats in here." The feral kittens I presume. "One of them pooped on my bed." "And you had to take all the pillows off, too?" "Yes, he peed too." Oh dear. "It was Tux", he said. I said maybe it was Pepper, who has pooped under our bed a couple of times to punish us for bringing those horrid kittens into the house. No, he said, Tux was in here for a long time with the door closed. "I'm sorry about that. You sure the cats won't just hop over these boxes?" Grrrr.

It took another 3 days to do all of the bed-related laundry.

Tonight Paul made cheeseburgers for him. "Mom, where's the ketchup?" Hmmm, that might be a problem. "Bottom door shelf", I said hopefully.

He's in his room packing now. Life is better in Blacksburg where they have an unlimited supply of ketchup.

Politics and World Affairs

are not covered by this blog.

Tippy approached me about getting into the blog scene. "How do I get started?", she said.

Here are two tips. Don't sit on the computer. Get some thumbs so you can type.


Often when I work on my computer, Tippy helps and with her help I have recently sent out a number of interesting messages. Samples:

"I hope to see you soon.

Janet2222222222222222222222"

And

"Please let me know how much it will cosm548233 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx kkky34567"

Tippy likes to pick a letter or number and really let it have a star turn. Kind of like Sesame Street.

Right now I am watching Washington Journal on C-Span. This is the show where a question is given for callers to comment on. Questions such as should Guantanamo be closed, should GM be bailed out, should there be an investigation of torture, what kind of dog should the Obamas get? Some of the callers are so stupid that you have to wonder how they dialed the phone. Today's topic is the White House Correspondent's dinner last night. It's hard to take seriously any caller who contends that our president has no sense of humor. Dang, that's why I voted for him. Anybody who can say "wassup homey" and look and sound so good saying it is OK by me.

hold on, Tippy wants to say something:

ddjkajwfih238y52ym28yt3q8rfkvnjujfehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjfQOD

sEE YOU LATER HOMIES

Tux Steps Out

oh yeah, I'd call this progress.

At the Rookery

On Thursday I visited the heron rookery on the James River in downtown Richmond. The river was very high and very wild. Walking on the pipeline was noisy and windy. New leaves on the trees hide the heron nests a little bit. All of these photos were taken with a telephoto lens. I hope you enjoy them and that you get a chance to visit the rookery someday.