My day? Oh, a trip to the hardware store in Wadena this morning to pick up a new float for the sump-pump outside the southwest corner of our house. It's in a four-foot-deep hole Scott dug yesterday, and I've been checking it every 15 minutes all afternoon to make sure it's working. Water has stopped coming in on that side, but is still coming into the storeroom at the east end of the house.

Redpolls have been having major battles at the bird feeder! First time I've seen them this year.

This weekend we had a flock of brewers' blackbirds cackling in trees around the yard. When you're outside you can hear geese and ducks in droves in the field south of our place. It's surprising how audible they are, given the distance.

I've heard cranes flying over too, but not seen them. They fly high.

There's a very large woodpecker — the western flicker is our guess — that has been landing on the house in the past few days too. That, we don't need.

When we were driving home on the highway from Margo on Saturday night, the frogs in the ditches and fields were so vocal that you could hear them through the closed windows of the van and the road noise. Little buggers.