De lunas al sol y pájaros carpinteros

Another week has gone by of this most interminable and frigid month of January, and I can't wait for it to end. At least February will be 2 days shorter and will inexorably move us closer to March, which precedes April.

Still, I have to say that only in a bone-chilling morning in January can I see the moon, looking like a sun rising against the blueish-pink of a dawning sky, hiding among the denuded trees of the forest behind my apartment in the woods.

January is also responsible for the fact that I have spotted four kinds of woodpeckers at my bird feeders in the apartment in the woods in my college on the hill.

This includes the Pileated woodpecker, below. The lens of my trusty little camera isn't good enough to capture the Pileated, which is almost as large as a guaragüao or an owl, and which was only about 10 or 15 few feet away, rummaging near the foot of a tree. But my husband did some magic with the photo and you can at least see a little of his blood-red crown and his stork-like beak.

On another one of these horridly cold January mornings this past week, I stepped outside to put some feed on the feeders, and I heard a very loud hammering. "Who could possibly be hammering at this hour and in this weather?!" I asked myself.

I then realized that the noise was coming from above my head, among the tops of the trees. That's when I spotted the Pileated, whom I'm going to have to name, especially after I saw his humongous shape try to eat out of my suet cage yesterday before I came back home to the city. The camera, alas, was packed away in the car so there is no pictorial evidence that this most marvelous of birds is now a regular customer of mine.

Along with the Pileated, I've spotted downy woodpeckers, a red-bellied woodpecker and even the strikingly beautiful red-headed woodpecker at my feeder. All that red sure compensates for the mind-numbing, all-encompassing whiteness of January.

Still, January's bitter cold didn't keep me from soldiering on yesterday and walking 3 miles along a country road as part of my training. I'm not sure I'll be able to make it, but the plan is that my husband will run half a marathon at my college on the hill and I'll walk the other half. I'm in training now until April and Saturdays are my long-walking days.

There was no red anywhere to be seen yesterday morning though, as I took to the road with my new running shoes and left the little town behind and then walked on the road that changes name as it cuts through snow-covered field after snow-covered field after snow-covered field. Just when my soldierly courage was beginning to fail me, I noticed the street marker of where I needed to turn back and I did so gratefully.

I'm looking forward to my next long walk this upcoming Saturday, especially because it will be February then, which means this 31-days-of-freezing January will have passed on, never to return again (well, until next year, that is).