Kohlmeise

Kohlmeise is a kind of chickadee and the kohlmeise (coal-my-zuh) has a yellow chest with a black stripe running down the middle of it. They're really cute, as you can see. This weekend we hung a little birdhouse from one of our plant hooks on the eave and, despite it's tendency to spin around in the breeze, the kohlmeise have been ALL over this new toy! We also hung a gooey seed ball from another hook and they love that too. Helps perk up the back balcony some...

Most of them stop for a snack and fly off seconds later, but one of them, or maybe it's more than one, I don't know, there are usually 4-7 birds around our balcony at any given time nowadays, anyhow, one of them will sit on the edge of the birdfeeder with a large sunflower seed in his beak and just rap tap away trying to get the thing open. This wouldn't be noteworthy except that when a bird is on the feeder the feeder spins around and around like a quickly spinning merry go round. I don't know how he stays put, let alone keep tapping away! Some birds don't get it and land and peck against the plexiglass sides, trying to get to the seeds they see inside....silly birds! Here's a little bird-backside for you:
So we have a new computer, with Vista, which we set up to be in English, although every now and then a right click will show some German. The keyboard is in German, BUT there is a handy thing at the top of our desktops that allows us to switch between US English and German. This means when I type a Y, Z , [, ;or a ? it will come up not as the Z,Y, ü, ö, or -. I also have a ß button, which is fun ßßßßßßß that's the sign for a double S, but only after a short vowel in a German word. After the spelling reform that is, but my problem is the spelling reform happened after I had my foundational 4.5yrs of high school German in the early 90's, so now I must not use the ß as much as I'd like to. So I'll use it here to make up for it: ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß That was fun. Here's a picture of where I spend today's German class - totally depressing looking classroom isn't it?! Makes me appreciate my Gordon classrooms!!
Anyhow, with the new computer I'll finally be able to post about the really fantastic vacation we had when my parents visited. Stay tuned for a Postcards series! Meanwhile, here's a cute picture of Stefan and Madeline. She's the daughter of dear friends Britton and Sarah who just got stationed in Germany and came to visit us recently. She just turned 1 this past weekend!