An exciting late afternoon, well exciting for me. As I work on my drawings, smelling my freshly watered soil holding sunflower seeds in their trays on the windowsill, I can see several new lines from a busy spider glinting in the sunlight. This just happened because I only just put my laptop in this position and the lines run from it to the counter-top. There, I see her, small, brown and orange and taking a break.

I glance up and see a hawk of some kind doing circles over the houses. Could it be the same bird of prey I saw yesterday? That had caught my attention because a crow was silently chasing and had forced it to drop something. It flew over my head, some way up and I noticed that it was quite small, very long tail, buff underbody and a bar on the undertail. That's all I could catch with the speed and play of light. Maybe it wasn't even a hawk? I am terrible with bird of prey IDs. I reach for the nearest binoculars and find they are the "not-so-great" oldies. Darn. I debate, should I run to the next room for my new ones? What to do, what to do. I chance it and the hawk is still there. Oddly enough he is not being mobbed by any of the crows. He disappears out of sight and I sit on the patio enjoying the sun.

Unbeknownst to me, a crow is chasing a Bald Eagle off to the right. (I only noticed because I was watching a crow fly in my direction and thought it odd to see him stop in a mid-air stall.) I follow his change of course. There I see the eagle being bossed by the another crow. I follow their passage from room to room until they disappear over the neighbourhood, lost against the darkness of the mountain back drop. I also notice with some dismay, the windows need cleaning.

Back to the task at hand. I notice that the sunflower seeds in the "Allsorts Mixed" pack are all different shades with various stripes or freckles, or both. These three I plant in their own pots. Come August, I'll be able to match up the seeds with the flower. Ah, long-term plans. Hope abideth in my heart