My Backyard

Not your average backyard

I live in a really old residential area. My house is on a hill that overlooks the site of the The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. My father used to work there as a Winder. Winders assembled huge coils and mounted them in enormous generators. My Dad worked on the generators that went into Niagra Falls.

Interestingly, Nikola Tesla worked there for a while too. During the time he was employed by George Westinghouse, Tesla spent time here in Pittsburgh. Anyway, back to the backyard.

Due to the geography there are a lot of wooded hillsides and the neighbors are spread out pretty far. Some Critters live here and some pass through on a regular basis.

Deer, in particular, are plentiful. Again, this isn't what you would call the country, I'm about a 10 minute drive from Downtown Pittsburgh and about a 20 minute drive to anything you might consider farm land. A few years ago, I might see one or two deer in the Winter but, in recent years, the deer have multiplied dramatically. I have neighbors who feed them which is probably not a good idea. I used to do a lot of gardening but, now it's diffucult because of the deer. They're adorable but, they eat everything.

Birds seem to like it here... Maybe they like the food I leave out for them. Who's to say? Anyway I get a lot of really incredible looking birds out my kitchen window.

I'm still waiting for the perfect alignment of events where I get the best picture of a bird that has ever been taken. Many times I see an absolutely stunning visual image occurring right outside my window but, I don't have a camera set up. Every time I set up a camera and wait for something to happen, it rarely does.