Is this a great place or what? Good thing I put the screens up last weekend.
The poor trees. That's one helpful thing for now about the blizzard two years ago: the weakest branches are already gone. Still, when I woke up, I threw on fleece and thwapped as much as I could reach with the paint roller's handle, which extends to maybe 10 feet. Now it's 10:37 and I've shoveled twice, us and the two houses to one side, among whom exists an unspoken shoveling agreement, and the two octogenarians' houses at the business end of the street.
Which reminded me, now his immediate next-door neighbor has moved, who will mow Mel's grass? I guess me, which is fine: I don't get to use my reel mower much.
First, the head-petting, for relaxation and comfort. He moves his head around under my fingers if he's in a forgiving mood; otherwise he expects me to know where he wants to be pet next and beaks me for any infraction. This was a head-petting he was glad to get because I had been doing terrible things like jiggling my feet to keep him off them or putting him back on his cage if he wouldn't give up his suit. The petting goes well: the skull and jaw massage, the ruffling of the neck feathers backward, the tugging on the crest feathers. The last I adopted from the masseur, when I decided I might happily pay someone just to pull my skull from my neck for a while. I guess I decided that it would feel good on Blake too.
Then he preens, possibly to get everything I disturbed back into place, possibly because feathers need a lot of maintenance, possibly just to startle me when I look up at the webcam window and he has no head.
And then the nap and my holding my head carefully not to disturb him and the breast feathers tickling my neck. This is my favorite part.