winter begins with wren

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Call Better Homes & Gardens. 

On second thought, don't waste your dime as if a phone call still cost only ten cents. Or maybe they cost less. I was told the phone calls were free, I was only paying for the data. "But if the calls are free, why do I need the data"? One could query as did I. "You may want to do some streaming." Yes, I go streaming a lot in the summer but the streams are free too. Are we falling into "circulus in probando," or circular logic with this? Let's move on.    

The above photo is the bench on my front porch. As has been the custom in my Smoky Mountain ancestry, I have been gathering dead branches for the past two months to use as kindling in the fireplace. And on a cold night in December, which just happens to be an accurate description of this very moment, I'll start digging out my bench.  

OK. The wood pile may not look respectible, but the neighbors do not mind. They have been doing it too.

A fireplace is the best location—well hearth and home simply go together— to pass the time on long cold, cold nights. But a good brush or wood pile has a secondary raison d'être. They are irresistible to winter wrens (Troglodytes hiemalis) and I had one of the winter-only petite passerines hoping around my front porch just a few mornings ago.

Winter is coming. Winter is coming. It seemed to posit.

I think the sticks on top of more sticks passed its inspection and I would have invited it in to share the warmth if I only knew where it chose to roost. Somewhere deep in a brush pile no doubt.

Don't you just love those chunky little puffballs.

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