A Portrait of the Dumbass as an Old Man

New Birds, New Birds!

So the dark-eyed juncos from the last post are confirmed from the bird book. Today:

1. The juncos were back;
2. The downy woodpecker was back -- he definitely likes the suet;
3. A new bird! A carolina wren -- orangish color, teardrop-shaped wren body, a white racing stripe on its head with dark above and below, kind of like a chipmunk. I have seen common house wrens before, identifiable by their 4-note song, A-E-G-C. I noticed the carolina wren in the back trees by his song, a cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep on the same note I had not heard before. Then it came to the feeders several times.
4. We have at least 3 chickadees. I thought we only had 2, but there were clearly 3 visible at the same time today. Probably two males, as 1 was chasing another. Maybe the offspring? I heard the chickadees song today, it is still really hard for me to capture bird songs such that I can recognize them. The chickadees seem to be very used to human presence, they were coming to the main old feeder as I was working on the new one 3 feet away.

My wife seems to approve of my birding interest, she has bought me a feeder pole, now with 6 places for feeders and 2 suet cages attached. Need to find some more feeders, preferably eclectic. That's what I do now when my wife drags me to arts/crafts fairs, shop for bird feeders.

Our neighbor 2 doors down has 3 cats tho, and they are definitely staking out the feeders and birdbath. Need to google up cat frustration strategies ...

As of tomorrow, we may have officially have achieved Basement Band. I invited a nice young guitarist (he runs his own software company) from the blues jam to come over tomorrow -- if he would agree to play bass. He accepted, so today I went out our most excellent local guitar shop Willcutt Guitars and got a 5-string Fender Jazz bass (Mexican) and an Ampeg BA115 bass amp, 100 watts, 1-15" speaker. Sounds pretty jammin'. So tomorrow, 2-4, we will have Achieved Band -- drums, bass, 2 guitars, woo-hoo!

So at 1st I'm thinking, "Got the bass, I'm done", then I start thinking, "Wait a minute, what about a PA and mikes?" That has classically always been the real determiner of the existence of A Band -- that someone has sprung for a PA system. Oops. I think I'm going to wait at least a few months on that.

Need to come up with different tags for "Music I am listening to" vs. "Playing music". Suggestions?