out for a ride
Jan. 10th, 2006 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunrabSince the daytime temps have been hovering near 50 for several days, we went for a ride today. Between going places where we needed large musical instruments, and having errands to run that involved mailing parcels and buying groceries, we hadn't had time until today. But we suited up and rode down to Columbia and around a bit, for lunch, and then ran minor errands on the way home - I'm home already, S isn't yet. S is going "so this is January up north? I can take this!" and I almost don't have the heart to point out that this is not a typical January. Although, who knows, with global warming it may well be that future Januaries will be like this.
The highway exit we got off at, down where our apartment from this summer is, has been the site of several nasty traffic accidents over the past 2 days. Luckily, those were things that happened in dark hours - everything was working fine and people were being quite careful during daylight today! Still, it gives one pause.
It would be easier to park the bikes in the carport if our driveway were a foot wider, so that one could drive in forward and make a complete U-turn without having to do any backing-and-forthing. At least we have a carport - several of the houses on this block don't. (A couple of them have actual garages, but they're one-car garages, just as narrow as the carport.)
One thing about riding around is, I notice how few birds there are here. Now lots of people will point out that it's winter, and that's true, but even in the fall I noticed it. I can't say as I specifically miss grackles, or the starlings or the turkey buzzards either, but they were part of an overall abundance of birds in Austin. It's so quiet here - no constant background hum of insects (step outside at night in Austin and the locusts/katydids/grasshoppers cause an ever-present insect whine), no flocks of grackles settling into trees at dusk with squawking so loud it's difficult for people to hear each other talking. No turkey buzzards feasting on the dead squirrels at the intersection in front of the house whenever traffic was light. My bike was not big enough to strike them as a threat, so small flocks of them would stay in the intersection when I pulled up at the light, not moving until I actually rode into the middle. It was an interesting way to start many mornings on the way to school.
And we had four species of doves in our driveway, picking at spilled bird food - rock doves a/k/a pigeons, mourning doves, white-wing doves, and Inca doves. And a mockingbird in each back yard along the block, each starting his morning off with a long, loud announcement of territory. And the chickadees, cardinals, blue jays, cedar waxwings, house finches, purple finches, sparrows, wrens, and various unidentifiable LBJs that always hung around. Starlings nested in the eaves of the front porch, ugh, and wrens in the light fixture of the porch. Sparrows nested in the light fixture on the back of the house, above the back door and driveway, and would attack the painters every morning.
Here, there are seagulls in every store parking lot, and ravens and crows everywhere, but not much else, at least this time of year. True, there are wild rabbits hopping through many of the back yards and even across the streets, which we didn't get in Texas. They're pretty quiet though.
Anyway, it was good to get out in the fresh air.
The highway exit we got off at, down where our apartment from this summer is, has been the site of several nasty traffic accidents over the past 2 days. Luckily, those were things that happened in dark hours - everything was working fine and people were being quite careful during daylight today! Still, it gives one pause.
It would be easier to park the bikes in the carport if our driveway were a foot wider, so that one could drive in forward and make a complete U-turn without having to do any backing-and-forthing. At least we have a carport - several of the houses on this block don't. (A couple of them have actual garages, but they're one-car garages, just as narrow as the carport.)
One thing about riding around is, I notice how few birds there are here. Now lots of people will point out that it's winter, and that's true, but even in the fall I noticed it. I can't say as I specifically miss grackles, or the starlings or the turkey buzzards either, but they were part of an overall abundance of birds in Austin. It's so quiet here - no constant background hum of insects (step outside at night in Austin and the locusts/katydids/grasshoppers cause an ever-present insect whine), no flocks of grackles settling into trees at dusk with squawking so loud it's difficult for people to hear each other talking. No turkey buzzards feasting on the dead squirrels at the intersection in front of the house whenever traffic was light. My bike was not big enough to strike them as a threat, so small flocks of them would stay in the intersection when I pulled up at the light, not moving until I actually rode into the middle. It was an interesting way to start many mornings on the way to school.
And we had four species of doves in our driveway, picking at spilled bird food - rock doves a/k/a pigeons, mourning doves, white-wing doves, and Inca doves. And a mockingbird in each back yard along the block, each starting his morning off with a long, loud announcement of territory. And the chickadees, cardinals, blue jays, cedar waxwings, house finches, purple finches, sparrows, wrens, and various unidentifiable LBJs that always hung around. Starlings nested in the eaves of the front porch, ugh, and wrens in the light fixture of the porch. Sparrows nested in the light fixture on the back of the house, above the back door and driveway, and would attack the painters every morning.
Here, there are seagulls in every store parking lot, and ravens and crows everywhere, but not much else, at least this time of year. True, there are wild rabbits hopping through many of the back yards and even across the streets, which we didn't get in Texas. They're pretty quiet though.
Anyway, it was good to get out in the fresh air.
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Date: 2006-01-12 05:53 am (UTC)Austin has all those raptors, also; bald-eagle watching is a popular pastime. And nightjars and nighthawks, and whippoorwills at dusk. Possums living under the storage shed, raccoons rummaging through urban garbage, deer everywhere (which I gather is the case in every city in North America by now). Lots of squirrels. One thing Austin didn't have, is chipmunks, and I'm happy to be back in chipmunk territory - they're so cute! Steve is still amused by them, as well as bemused by the parking lots full of seagulls.