I called first; George, the woman said, will be back in on Friday.
Ah, okay, then, thanks, I wanted to come back in and tell him thank you for how nice he was to me yesterday.
The receptionist’s surprise and delight sounded like a kid who wanted to know what was in that Christmas box: what was that all about? But she didn’t ask and I didn’t say. And now at least one person who works there knows there’s a customer who was happy enough to be making the effort to say so. Always a good thing.
Come Saturday, meantime, I think we’re due to work on a little habitat destruction together: that morning scene of water intermittently spraying vigorously from the same spot on the roof has happened again two more days, and the rain is days gone. Fallen leaves or something must be providing grubs for something up there, or maybe they’re finding a birdbath effect; clearly there must be standing water. Not a good idea. It’s a mostly-flat roof, a California fad of the 1950’s.
The first time, there was a towhee perched on the edge of the shed just below there, getting sprayed; it looked back over its shoulder, got doused again, and flew away from it.
Today it was a black squirrel, probably watching to see if there was anything worth raiding. Hey! It snorted and jerked away as it got it full in the face. HEY! And it took a big leap up onto that roof to show just who was boss here. Cut that out!
End of waterfall.
I’d have loved to have seen the end of that. Although, don’t tell the squirrels that from the occasional audible mad dashes that have ended suddenly midpoint, it seems the hawks have learned that white roofs are great for picking off black squirrels. We have a lot fewer of the big oldtimers than we used to.
And for the first time, a few days ago I saw a hawk disappear into the upper branches of the big redwood whose limbs reach over our house. Right above that spot.