Identify this bird...

What kind of bird is this? I think it might be a wood-pecker of some sort... it likes to sit in my gutters and make a terrible racket... perhaps a gutter-pecker?

After taking this picture, the bird flew off to another house... a bit later, I could hear the same loud racket of the bird 'drilling' in someone else's gutter.

A full-sized image can be found here. Warning though, the file is huge ... about 3.9 megs, 3872 x 2592.

Katie's Growing Up!

Katie just celebrated her first birthday (Feb 2nd)! To celebrate, Tracy and I took her to Wendy's for a hamburger and french-fries -- needless to say, she was thrilled! She gobbled that burger down like she hadn't eaten in days :D

When I first got her, she weighed about 25.5 pounds... and she was looking pretty thin. Over time, Tracy and I fattened her up to a trim 26.5 pounds... but she dropped a pound around the time she was spayed. Since then, we've been a bit more generous with her food (she doesn't seem to mind!), and she's filling out nicely again.

She's still a puppy at heart... she loves to play, wrestle, and cuddle. When she's at play, she plays hard... when she's at rest, she rests hard!