Had spent most of this week doing paperwork, so today I worked outside.

Still paperwork, but at least I was outside. Coding April's lek observations onto the data entry sheets. But I hauled out the wife's grandfather's old wooden camping table and worked in the back yard in the morning. Listening to the sparrows squabbling to the west and the mourning dove cooing from the trees to the north. With the not-quite-pleasant aroma of the blooming mountain ash.

Was surprised to note how loud the interstate traffic is, on a quiet day. And the town's weekly test of the Emergency Broadcast System at exactly noon.

The masked heeler enjoyed my new work station. She got to stay outside as well, harassing squirrels.

The heeler sisters and I went over to check on the owls during our mid-day trip to the post office. They are beginning to anticipate the visit to the cool lawns in the median around the civil war cannon.

Mother great horned was perched on a window sill, with one owlet doing its best to stay in her shadow. But only its front end was in shade. Its sibling had jammed itself down between the building and flower box, again seeking the only shade available. If the days get any hotter, they may bail from their nest box too soon, and then I'll have to decide what to do with them. Would love to drape a couple spruce boughs across their balcony if I thought they would stay while I set it up.

After lunch, I moved to the front porch to also stay in the shade, and continued my coding. Listening now to the new neighbors spreading gravel on their new driveway across the street. And whacking their weeds. Still haven't figured out why he used his ATV to bulldoze gravel all of two meters, or shoveled it into the wheel barrow several times only to roll it and dump it a few meters away. I've done that chore. A rake works just fine.

Shortly after, a small thunderstorm blew through town. Little maskless heeler panicked at the thunder, and got her boy to let her inside. The masked heeler hates boom-ba-looms even more than her sister, but stayed outside with me. Chasing squirrels back up into trees is apparently a more urgent need than survival. So she sat on the porch trembling as the wind battered the wind chimes and covered my work with elm seeds. Closest lightning was three counts away, most were over a mile.

At 15:05 the emergency sirens went off again. For real this time. Followed shortly by a county fire truck barreling east on the main street.

A fellow stopped by with an archery question. Since getting run into by a semi last winter, he has a separation between two disks in his back and cannot pull a crossbow back to cock it. And wonders if he can get a handicap permit to allow him to use a lever cocking device (illegal otherwise in our state).

Probably, but I have to refer him to the game wardens on that.

As he departs, the little neighborhood girl comes over to visit with the heelers. And to tell me the grass at the end of our street was "all fired."

So. That explains the sirens and fire truck.