I don't do windows!

Right. We have lived here for three years now, and in that time we have NOT ONCE cleaned the exteriors of the upstairs windows. I refuse to go up that high on a ladder, Gordon is lousy at window-cleaning, and on top of it we couldn't figure out how to get the screens off!

Finally, I laid it on the line for my hairy half: "For the love of all things shiny, let's hire someone to clean the damn windows!"

And so, after lot of procrastination on the part of a certain bearded husband, we did. My scrawled note on the kitchen chalkboard no doubt prodded him into snail-like action:



Now we have a houseful of clean, sparkling windows and I couldn't be more pleased. It makes bird-watching much easier, and it means I can take photos like these without a haze of filth obscuring everything:

Mr. Chippy raiding the squirrel-proof birdfeeder. The red squirrels are too heavy and weigh down the bar so that the feeding ports close, but I like the chipmunks so we have set the adjustable feeder so they can go ahead and fill their cheek pouches!

And our resident American kestrel:

That's the best I can do with the long lens I have. One day I'll buy a better camera lens for bird shots.

We always seem to have a kestrel (maybe the same kestrel!) sitting on our power line, looking over out fields. I read that, among other things, they enjoy tasty grasshoppers. We have lots of fat ones hopping about right now!

But the funniest part of today's window-cleaning was when Daniel, window-washing wizard extraordinaire, pointed out to me that almost every single window in our house, including the upstairs ones, is a tilt window. In other words, I could have cleaned ALL the windows from the inside of the house, no ladders needed, at any time over the past three years.

But Daniel did a better job than I ever would have!

Happy upcoming long weekend. I'm off to admire my clean, shiny beauties. (Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talking about the windows!)