Friday, Feb 28 - Normally the last day of Feb., but one more to go given this is a Leap Year. Just what we need, an extra day of winter. Which is what we have here in Florida. We have another cold front, so the heater is on, the furnace has been working, and although it's going to be another sunny day, the temp is going only into the 50sF. Down to 1F tonight. But it's only temporary, as next week promises to be back to normal.

So we haven't been doing much. It rained all day Wednesday, so we were confined to barracks. Yesterday we managed to get in a little 15 km bike ride, and sat in the sun reading, despite a quite cool breeze from the north. Today we hope to venture a little further, as it should be a little warmer.

The main excitement yesterday was having a red-shouldered hawk land on our skylight. We were having breakfast, when all of a sudden there was a clatter on the roof. I looked up, and there was a hawk, having a drink from water that had accumulated on the skylight. And he stayed there for several minutes, long enough for us to observe him as close to a hawk as you'll ever get, and to take a few pictures. I'll post a few of them right now.

As low-key birders (meaning we love chasing after our feathered friends, but don't get too serious, like keeping a life list), this was very exciting. He is a beautiful bird, one we think we'd seen sitting on a tree branch the day before. But to have him this close for several minutes was quite a treat. The third photo shows him looking down to see what we were having for breakfast. Guess Gail's All Bran didn't appeal, as he left a couple of minutes later.

Other than that, we await the arrival of grand-daughter Anna on Sunday evening, and hope the weather is much better for her visit. She'll no doubt inject some life into the humdrum existence of these old codgers. All for now. More later. Stay tuned.