Tundra Swans Depart

Well, yesterday's Post Journal had an article about the arrival of swans, making it clear they were tundra not trumpeter.  Supposedly, there are only 1600 trumpeter swans left, as they were basically massacred by hunters, at times, 70,000 a year were shot in the late 1800's.  As of the 1930', only 70 survived, thus the moratorium on shooting them.  There wingspan seems to be close to 6 or 7 feet, so they are much larger than geese.  They only spent the night and are now heading south, in fact, I can see little wild life other than the birds at our feeder, seemingly the same each day, the pigs!  It was 23 degrees when I got up, fairly late for me, 7:40, and it looks like another gray day.  In fact, the weather report for the next few days is the same as the past few days, cloudy, with snow flurries to showers, and no sun shine.  This really seems like a Chautauqua winter, with nary a ray of sun.  It makes me thing of Florida, walking the beach in the warm sun.  If I am thinking of Florida now, how will I feel in late February?

We talked with Tom and Marlena yesterday and she has started a blog.  When we were there during Thanksgiving, she kept up a journal and  really seemed to enjoy it, writing in it the first thing each morning.     Here blog seems like the perfect catalyst for her both enjoying and improving her writing skills.  So far she has three entries, and we have responded to all three.  Let's hope she keeps it up.  It would be fun if Hayden and Marisa started one up as well, and they all could keep track of what their cousins are doing and thinking.  The reason I didn't set one up for her was I didn't want to get in the way of her handwriting practice, which will be forgotten if we all just use computers.