Spring

We all woke to another morning of steady snow. This isn't the photo I took from my favourite window, but it will do just as well.

The sparrows might regret their life in these northern wastes. If they could feel regret. I've noticed them gathering with hilarity in a still leafless -- now snow-crowned -- bush, their mating hormones cheering them just enough. They don't notice there is nothing they can get to and eat. The gulls were skreeking overhead because they couldn't see any garbage, only white drifting snow. I worry. How many of the little morons will succumb?

Once, many years before me, I am told, the snow came again with the new leaves. That summer, only the conifers were green. Had it happened again the next spring, the deciduous trees would all have died. That is the way the Green World ends: we wither into Apocalypse. Happy Earth Day.

On not writing

Just over a week now since the migrants' return.

All on one day, it seemed: slim robins running across the blasted grass -- idiots, every one of them, thrusting out their rusty breasts like field marshals. (That's Turdus migratorius, of course, a stringy thrush, rather than the small but juicy Erithacus rubecula.) Then, gulls screeching, crows crowing, the sparrow hawk starting its mad trill from the top of the spruce tree. And best, and so out-of-reach, the long Vs of the wild geese.

Not so out of reach is the tiny nuthatch. His pneumatic beak has been tapping out a hollow in a nearby tree. An unlovely Manitoba maple, I think, but it's old and full of bugs. It's got a lovely corrugated skin, excellent claw-holds, a road to swarm up with a clatter and a snap.

So, I've been biding my time. And when spring and the flies have finally arrived, who wants to be typing away? Least of all, don't bother with the words of any posting human. They are all self-important idiots, like Monsieur Turdus. Nothing to do except peep their feeble triumphs, "Look at me! Look at my feathers! This is my branch! This is my mud!"

Exclusive Cat

Did you know that my friend the Goon is a celebrity? Oh yes. He is the poster boy for Clover Leaf Cattery.

Liza Skinnelli

I never met the kittenwarrior Liza in the skin. Her powers of endurance are heroic: as of writing, she has lost 5000 battles against cuter kitties, and still she battles on. G & B: Have you met her on the field -- as yourselves, or as your alter-egos, Snowball and Fluffie? I bet her claws are sharp. Heh heh.