A Crazy Week, Plus Garden Cam

Here's one more street photo from my walk with the kids on Thursday. I was trying to show them the benefits of shooting through barriers like this railing, imposing a pattern on an otherwise kind of boring photo, but as it turns out they were way ahead of me and were doing it already! (Not all with this same railing.)

I don't know what happened to this week, but it was not at all what I expected. Remember my fantasies of having some downtime at work, catching up in blogland, maybe even reading a book? Well, that didn't happen. Thursday, of course, was non-stop and I was exhausted afterwards, not only from the walking but from the heightened awareness required to manage a group of kids. Yesterday was madness in the morning because there were middle-school activities in the library, and we wound up switching out a couple of displays to accommodate work they were doing. Plus I had to go in early to give my street photography talk to a second group of kids who were going out that day. And Wednesday was pretty busy, too.

So, yeah, no reading and although I did briefly catch up in blogland, I am now behind again. Sigh.

I think I used to be better at managing my time. I'm not sure what's happened. The nature of my job is such that I can't do anything at my desk that requires much sustained concentration, because I am constantly interrupted. (One reason why reading a book there is difficult -- I don't even like to take on a magazine article when I'm sitting there!) This has always been an issue, though, and I still managed to keep up with all my blogs, so who knows.

I am retiring none too soon. (Seven workdays left!)

I was so sorry to read about the death of Bruce, aka Catalyst, the Arizona blogger behind Oddball Observations. Bruce and I have been reading each other for years and we've traded e-mails now and then, and blogland just doesn't seem the same without his Friday Funnies (though Mr. Pudding did an outstanding job picking up the torch). I am not entirely surprised that he died so soon after his beloved wife Judy, aka SWMBO. These things happen, don't they? Heartbreak is real.

Last night I downloaded our garden cam and here's the result. It's been about ten days since I looked at it last so this gathers a lot of clips into a single 7-plus-minute video. Here are my usual guideposts to help you navigate it more quickly, if you'd like:
-- We start out with a fox sniffing around where I put down the fish skin in the last video. I thought it was looking for more, but then it picks up a bone off-camera. I have no idea where that bone came from. Or could it be just a stick?
-- At 1:12, Pale Cat passes by at a leisurely pace.
-- At 1:52, a fox breaks into a loping run. Usually they sort of trot. I guess it had somewhere to be.
-- At 2:00, I put down two little bits of meat from a steak we had. The fox shows up about 40 minutes later and makes quick work of it. (The clock is still on Florida time in this part of the video, so to get our correct time here in London, add five hours.)
-- At 3:18, a squirrel chases off a starling. (The clock is correct from here on.)
-- At 3:26, a fox appears with another bone, or bone-like object.
-- At 4:12, Blackie shows up! I haven't seen Blackie in a while.
-- At 4:30, a fox stops for a scratch.
-- At 4:57, more grooming. You can see how dense and luxurious this fox's fur is.
-- At 5:16, a bee buzzes past.
-- At 5:22, Pale Cat is back, walking around like it owns the place and giving an insouciant stretch.
-- At 6:05, a bird perches atop the camera. We can only see its blurry tail. It comes back a few minutes later. I think it's a robin.
-- At 6:33, a proud-looking pigeon struts and pecks.
-- At 6:54, another loping run from a fox.
-- At 7:04, a little robin flutters around. Maybe the one that was perching on the camera?

I think there are at least two foxes in these videos, one with a sort of arrow-shaped tail and one with a longer tail with a kink at the end. What do you think?