Oh my, how I love the snow! And boogers and zits and snot and toe jamb and crotch rot and pit sweat and wet socks and cheese stains and toothaches and old rockers and, well, you got it.

Took a mile (signposts) walk this evening on the Sweetser rails-to-trails. My dogs and I were the only breathing bodies in the blizzard. It was beautiful. The wind was (mostly) blocked, and the bushes were piled with snow. Not all that cold, and the footing was the best it's gonna be the next several days.

Was up at Pearson's Mill earlier in the week, kind of moping along, trying to keep my dogs out of the carcasses and the real stinky stuff, when an Eastern Bluebird flew across the road about fifteen feet above.

Which put me about fifteen miles high. Confession: I lived well over 50 years without ever seeing a bluebird. And now I know what the to-do is about (Buffalo Springfield comes to mind).

Just a most totally wonderful bird.

I watched a little, probably pre-school, girl get out of a car, followed by mommy with a cigarette burning in her pie hole. What's a car interior, about eight cubic feet? How long does it take a lit cigarette to turn that space into a gas chamber? Two minutes, three tops? Cigarette smoke has been a known carcinogen for at least fifty years.

You can fit this mother's love in a box the size of a cigarette pack.

What kind of god lets people - mothers - do this to their children? If it's free choice, then this mother is not equipped to make the decision.

There are hawks hanging about, and becoming familiar, like they are my hawks.

More so the red tails, as their "territory" becomes evident to me.

The American Kestrels are always a surprise, more discreet than warm-weather birds. Summer kestrels always fly as you pass, circling back to the perch. Winter kestrels sit tight, and in this bleak winter there isn't enough light to see those beautiful colors, and you either note the distinctive shoulder set or you guess.

This morning I watched a red tail floating on a building east wind, maybe a half mile, before he (guess) flapped a bit with the breeze and began a descent, out of sight.

If you watch a soaring or gliding hawk, and, even with glass, can't detect any tail movement, remember a NOVA feature where they mounted a camera to focus on the tail of a hawk, to see what role that broad tail played in flight dynamics. This project, for this application, cost tens of thousands of dollars, and showed that the tail was critical for flight but moved almost imperceptibly. I think the researchers were very disappointed with the findings. And they missed the point.

Aircraft are designed with massive fixed wings. Birds use wings for every facet of flight, except aspect and balance. These two most critical functions are controlled by the tail, the bird gyroscope.

The researchers, who spent a lot of money focusing on the tail, were disappointed at the lack of activity (movement), and missed that the set of the tail is hypercritical for successful flight.

We spend billions and billions flying airplanes, and still haven't dissected the mechanics of the success of the "bird brains" who fly effortlessly.

And we are the smart ones.