Signs Of Spring (And Fixing Card Reader)

It's the last day of March 2019, and it's been one of the warmest on record.  Our front yard is clear of snow and the back yard only has snow in the shade of the house.  And I'm avoiding talking about anything depressing by showing you a couple of pictures instead.

A small gift pile from a visiting moose to help fertilize the soil.

The first tulip to poke out of the soil and leaf mulch.

I was finishing breakfast, reading the newspaper on the deck when I heard the tapping behind me.  It was on a neighbor's old cottonwood tree.  But I can't tell if it's a Downy or Hairy Woodpecker.  It seemed pretty big, which would lean toward a Hairy.  If we could see the beak, we could tell.  And a better birder would know.

And finally, inside, the hoya is blooming.

This is not as sharp as I would like because I took it with my phone.  My MacBook Pro card reader stopped working the other day.  But I had to use my good camera with the telephoto lens to get the woodpecker, so I googled and found some video tricks to fix the card reader.  The first one - blow air into the opening - didn't work.  The second one - put alcohol on a piece of paper towel and wrap it around the sound card and put it in the card reader - didn't work either.  The third one - said to go to launchpad and click on 'image control'.  I had to find it in launchpad's search.  But it didn't fix the problem.  Finally, another video said to 1) turn off the computer 2) clean the brass colored part of the sound card with alcohol 3) insert it and remove it from the card reader ten times, and 4) turn the computer back on.  And then it worked again. (I had turned off the computer after #1, and it didn't work.)

Tomorrow, the first quarter of the year will be over.  So remember, don't sit here wasting time on the computer (do things that are important only) and go out and enjoy the world.