So now, I'm up early in the morning watching flocks of migrating birds outside my window. From a distance, its hard to tell them from the leaves blowing off the few trees not yet winter-bare. I think only the maples and ashes are left in the forest.. though the old willow is giving them a run for their money.
The willow is a funny creature. Somewhere along the line, long before I was born, someone must have stuck a cheery pit in one of the grooves of the tree. The result is that the wiilow looks like it has a cherry tree springing from the top of its head -> it looks like the point intersection of a cone and a half-sphere, and in the spring looks really funny with white cherry blossoms over the pink.
I used to be able to identify every tree here by seeing a branch with a leaf. We had to, since the teacher just gave us leaves, and one of them was poison ivy. Granted, we could have just learned to identify poison ivy, but when only given one leaf its damned hard to tell from Virginia creeper, and so thats where it was encouraged we use our free "i don't know".
::outside now::
My mother is going to kill me when she sees how much coax I've strung up to get the laptop out here. I see no reason why everyone shouldn't be required to get a WAP.. like a public service type thing.