We hang birdfeeders from a post that is visible from our dining room window. There was not much traffic at our goldfinch feeder last year and I wondered why. This spring, when I got that feeder out of the garage I decided to give it a thorough cleaning. I soaked it, scrubbed it, and then used compressed air to blow out the last remnants of debris. As I was eating breakfast this morning, I watched goldfinches coming and going, with up to five of them on the feeder at a time.

Lesson learned: birds don’t want to eat from dirty dishes any more than I do.

On a completely different subject, I was thumbing through a Ritchie Bros. catalogue of farm auctions and came across a listing for an antique tractor auction three months from now. There is a guy in Alberta who has accumulated 246 antique John Deere tractors, 200 of then being the old two bangers. Anybody else old enough to remember those? I was in my early teens when John Deere announced they were bringing out a new line of tractors with four cylinder engines. I wondered why anyone would want to buy a John Deere tractor that didn’t sound like a John Deere. Evidently a lot of people did, and still do.

I’m just guessing what those tractors might bring, but a Ritchie Bros. auction brings online bidders from around the world, so say they go for an average of $4,000. There are a few other pieces of antique equipment so the total value could easily be one million dollars.

That got me to thinking. If I were to retire from writing today, how much could I get for six unfinished book manuscripts?

I was afraid you’d say that. I’d better get back to writing.