Puddles.

Now's there's an oddity this year in the Drought of 2012.

But I had to sidestep puddles as the meathead and I rambled off this morning.

In the last nine months, puddles have been a rarity. Apparently it rained far more than I heard during the night. I had .7 inches in my rain gauge.

As I was sidestepping puddles by the ballfield and watching the road, I noticed dozens of earthworms.

If it was spring or summer, I would have pulled out a plastic bag I keep for dog poop and collected them. I do that from time to time.

With the extreme heat yesterday--hot enough in the 70s that I put on jean shorts and sandals just to do it on Dec. 3--I am sure the road was very warm, compared to the cold rain.

Canada geese called from the lake to the west.

As I saw dozens of worms, I debated whether I should stop after all. But the reality is that in winter, I very rarely use worms, sticking more to spikes or wax worms for fishing.

Another oddity was that I didn't see a single night crawler, and that out of the maybe four or five dozen earthworms I spotted.

On the back side of the south old clay pit, a downy woodpecker hitched around around an Osage orange tree.

I like that verb ``hitch'' to describe how downies move. I have to give credit for that verb to allaboutbirds.org.

Rail workers gathered by the tracks as Storm and I headed back into town.

Squirrels were everywhere back in town on this nearly flat calm, gray morning. Most were gray squirrels.

But, steps from our porch, Stumpy bolted across the street. Our kids named our friendly neighborhood black squirrel that because of his stumpy tail.