Suppertime

Well, such as it is, we've seen a taste of winter here in Georgia with below-freezing temperatures and frost heavy on the ground in the mornings. Last night it was coating the deck railings just after dark as the chill set in for the night. No snow here. North of us here in Atlanta there seems to have been an abundance of snow from the same system that just soaked us with more rain last Friday (Dec. 18). We had 2.03 inches of rain here Friday and are at 5.39 inches for the month. Rain, no snow, no sleet--all rain. Winter in Georgia. And an unusual one at that as we've drowned our drought conditions in record rainfalls each month since September.

So, yesterday we were listening to Sinatra Christmas music when Amy told me to come to the window as the hawk had returned to sit outside our back door. But before I could even cross the room, The Cooper's Hawk had swooped from it's perch in a winter-denuded tree and grabbed up its supper of a European sparrow from the top of the hedgerow in the yard next door. Winter is a hungry desperate time outdoors even in Georgia where we think it's a mild climate. Now if that hawk would just work on the squirrel population a bit ...