keeping warm

 Snow was predicted last night and all day today, and by morning light, everything looked fresh. Then around eight, visibility dropped and the wind was blowing it all around - I wondered if they'd be wrong again about the amounts, but it must have been a squall; it settled back into a light snow and ended mid-afternoon. But it's cold, and windy.

We throw out timothy hay, cracked corn, carrots, peanuts. The mourning doves seemed to like the corn this afternoon. 

I'd bought two large plastic bins for organizing the Christmas things, and today I can say it's done - everything is sensibly arranged in the bins and a couple of shoe boxes. Much better than it was, and I feel light as a feather! I'm surprised at how relieved I feel to have that done. By using the bins, I got a lot out of the closet, consolidated a few smaller boxes, and things that I like to group together are stored together - like it should have been all along!

Daisy sitting under the corner cabinet to warm up near the heaters

Peter Wohlleben, who wrote The Hidden Life of Trees, also has written The Inner Life of Animals; I just finished it. I liked some parts better than others, but many things were interesting. Here, he explains why moths fly around lights:

"Moths... rely on the moon when they want to fly in a straight line. For example, when the moon is at its height and they want to fly west, all they have to do is keep the moon to their left. But little moths can't tell the difference between the moon and a cozy lamp adding a decorative touch to a garden at night. Now, as the tiny winged wanderer glides past the tulips and the roses, it immediately gets turned around. The brightest light at night must be the moon, mustn't it? And so it tries to keep this new moon to its left, but the lamp is unfortunately not 238,900 miles but only a few yards away. If the moth keeps flying in a straight line, the "moon" appears behind it, and it seems to the moth that it must have flown in a circle. And so the insect pilot corrects its course to the left to, as it thinks, continue flying straight ahead. This makes the "moon" appear on the correct side, but what's really happening is that the moth is flying in circles around the light. The spiraling flight takes the moth ever closer to the light until it finally end up at the center. If the artificial moon is a candle, there's a brief "puff", and the moth's life is snuffed out."