I’m grateful on this brand new day for an abundance of sunshine and little yellow tulips, for the grape hyacinths, for sandhill cranes flying over head in their eons old migration, for evening grosbeaks, house finches, and piñon jays.

I’m grateful for the energy to cut back the curly rushes in the pond with the Sunjoe plant trimmer (though these photos are before the job), and Wren is grateful that we get to play down at the pond again.

She takes her Frog Patrol quite seriously, and I had to trim rushes in a pattern that didn’t disturb the frogs and also kept Wren at bay from both the cutting blades and the frogs so that everyone had safe space.

Our patience and persistence was rewarded with a rare sighting of a pair of courting Northern Leopard frogs. Once I spotted them we left the pond for the day.

No-Buy New Year is going pretty well a quarter of the way in. I’ve spent more than I’d like to on vet care, more than I needed to on groceries, nothing on clothing, and only indulged in a couple of justifiable gadgets. I dropped my mini-digital-voice recorder I’ve used for many years and it broke, taking with it irretrievable pearls of wisdom from the previous few months. Oh well. So I went without for a couple more months, but the phone voice memo app is awkward in many situations when I need to record a thought, detail, bird sighting, or perfect turn of phrase, so I just ordered a new recorder for $80 before the price goes up. (Or maybe it already has; but it will pay for itself before long anyway, and will likely only get costlier if I wait.) I didn’t order from Amazon, have quit buying anything from there, and am looking to support more ethical alternatives.

Thanks to Neighbor Mary for the giggle with this image of the Yellow-crested Half Wit. With Easter on its way, I also appreciated this from Penzeys egg-seasoning email this morning: “Trump ran on lowering food prices from day one. With eggs this isn’t rocket science. A few practical low-cost regulations to lower the spread of bird flu. Getting the poultry industry all the workers they need. And if we do have to import eggs to stop demand from outpacing supply, don’t jack up import costs through the roof with economy-crippling tariffs.”