Shhhh...

No one's home- I have the place to myself. I'm supposed to be working. But I just had to share this story with you:

This morning, for reasons that I won't go into detail about, I put myself into a time out. For the record, I had not done anything wrong, but before I completely blew my cool, I thought I would step outside for a few minutes and breathe deeply. I headed down the stairs off my deck so I wouldn't see the two little pouting faces wondering where I was going without them and sat on the bottom step overlooking my yard and the field and woods behind our house.

In the five minutes that I sat there, I saw:

Four bright red male Cardinals
A party of five Blue Jays (so much cheerier than a murder of crows)
Various and sundry sparrows and chickadees
A Great Blue Heron flying overhead towards the river
Two Turkey Vultures soaring in the wind
A little Red Fox who has built a den in the scrub I think
And A sharp-shinned hawk who flew into the view, causing the jays to lose their minds. He sat in the tree watching the fox and then followed her closely in case she left some food behind somewhere.

I had a National Geographic special in my own backyard.

Ok I gotta get back to work.