sphinges

It was a lovely weekend and I got to give two woofers from Tucson a brief tour of the 'hood:

Here's John in front of the two marble sphinxes (or sphinges, pl.) that seemingly guard the entrance of the Scottish Rite Masonic building on 16th & S Streets, NW DC. The one on the right of the door (with its eyes half closed) is a symbol of Wisdom. The one on the left (with its eyes open and alert) is a symbol of Power. Each sphinx weighs 17 tons and was carved out of a solid piece of stone quarried at Bedford, Indiana.

It finally got sunny and warm around here this weekend after a record-breaking cold April that made Mordor look like a vacation spot. There's all kinds of birds in my 'backyard', including a sparrow that sounds like a chickadee. It's got stripes on it's face and a bit 'o yellow towards the beak, but I have yet to identify it, and it sings like a chickadee (not the common 'chick-a-dee-dee' song but it's territorial song). The birds are always in and out of my backyard going for the water in the 'pond'. The other morning I also saw some kind of thrush going through the backyard. There's also a Carolina wren out there too, which looks like something between a small cactus wren, or a large house wren. I'm not yet as versed with eastern species as I was with midwest species - there's a lot around here that look the same so I find local species hard to identify.