I’m making Walter Reeves’ recipe for homemade suet for my winged friends. Don’t want them going hungry in the snow, and i love the variety of birds a suet feeder gives me.
He also has a neat idea for making your own feeder. Not going to undertake that today. . . .
And still alive. So is Pop. Spent the week at the lake with Dad, the kids, Lisa, Dash, Mom, and the three pups. Todd worked his butt off in Atlanta.
Seeing Pop was hard. I know he knew me, but couldn’t tell me my name. Mom and Dad are hanging in there. The kids and i took full advantage of the great weather. I worked at the lake (mowing, getting rid of junk piles that have been there for thirty years, tearing down that deathtrap of a swing set that my grandfather made when i was about three) while the kids swam. We took breaks to tear up the lake on the JetSki. Okay, I tore it up. The kids took leisurely tours with Mama, looking for goats on Goat Island, spying cool long-legged birds, and looking for the strange aeries in the tops of the power lines. Hopefully some knowledgeable birder can tell me what the heck bird lives up there! For the time being, the party line is that Big Bird’s southern cousin, Bubba Bird, lives up there.
And another thing, I really want a GPS thingie for geo-cacheing. I know that is geeky, but there are caches all over the lake and what better way to go look for them than on the JetSki. And yeah, I want a fancy Garmin for running too. Can i use the same one for both purposes, i wonder? Hmmm. Something to look into.
Snake count: 0 (Yes! A great count for almost a week there.)
We did get a little sunburned this morning. I thought i had us covered. This is your heads up that you should be buying stock in that spray sunscreen; I used four cans this week.
And I know, skin cancer, blahblahblah, but is there anything better than that feeling of having spent the day in the sun, being active the whole time, climbing all over boats and jetskis, in and out of the water, and just plain feeling waterlogged. I didn’t even miss my computer. And the Fat Tire I am drinking now tastes better than I could have imagined.
Still working on race report.
Spring! Love it!
It is our second spring here in the new house. Can’t believe we’ve been here a year now. This time last year, we were so caught up in the move and unpacking and repacking and living at the lake, that I didn’t get to take much notice of what was blooming in my new yard.
So, right now we have Forsythia. Some bulbs (daffs, some purple/blue elongated guys that I can’t remember the name of), a few pink azaleas (why, oh why did Grandmas have to plant Pepto pink azaleas?), a couple of white and red azaleas. My garlic is coming up nicely, even though Tiller mixed the cloves up on planting, and so I don’t know which is which. Some of my lettuce for last year is popping up again this year. That was a nice surprise – Especially the arugula and swiss chard (my fave!). Daylilies are popping up in my monkey grass. I think i remember only a few of those blooming last year, so I guess I need to dig them up and separate them. Kind of sounds like a drag, since they are all mixed in with the Monkey grass.
I pruned a ton of shrubbery around the house. I am leaving the Camellia until next winter. I think I waited too long to whack it back now. Todd has fertilized and put out seed. Hoping that our shady back yard grass will take. Fingers crossed.
Todd and I built a raised bed, too. Need to level off the spot it will go into in the front yard (only place we have enough sun – hope the neighbors don’t hate it), and then get it filled up with the good stuff. I am hoping to grow some crazy veggies this year.
Finally, we put up a birdfeeder outside our den window. I can sit on the couch writing this blog post, and see the little birdies checking it out from the redbud outside the window. Oh! And the redbud is blooming! Dogwoods are just starting to come out too.
I love spring.
Things came to a sad end here this morning. A few years ago, we planted Evergreen Clematis at the base of our porch, and trailed the vines up the pillars and along the edge of our porch roof. As evidenced by the name, the vine is evergreen, giving us green foliage right out our window, all year long. The Clematis blooms, with big white flowers, once a year, for an all-too-brief period of time.
The plus to this Clematis has been the unexpected families of birds who have set up shop in the vines. Clematis is strong, and it is strong enough to hold a nest where it runs across the corners of the porch. At one time, we had three nests, all bustling with birds. Okay, it isn’t all zippity-doo-dah; The birds occasionally swoop at us as we try to get in our front door, but it has been more than worth it to hear the babies chirping in their nest as we sit in the rockers on the porch at day’s end.
This morning, as Todd was leaving for work, and I was being roped into a game of trains with Rollie, Todd knocked on the window from the porch, a disappointed look on his face, and then pointed down at the porch floor.
“The Birds?” I asked?
Todd nodded. He held two fingers up.
Just Saturday night, Todd and I were sitting on the porch, having a couple of beers after the kids went down, and before Todd went out to see bands (lucky bastard). We sat in the fading light, and as we did, a bird kept swooping in the side of the porch, a worm in its mouth, then flying back again to sit on the fence next door. She would sit there, trying to look nonchalant about not being able to get us to move. We took pity on her and moved to sit on the porch steps, away from her nest.
It wasn’t readily apparent what happened to our birds. The two babies were just lying on the ground, and they had been there long enough that the ants, who also live around and in our porch vines, had come to take what was there, swarming all over them. There was no sign of Mama Bird. My heart hurts for her. I wonder if she has moved on, this once idyllic aerie no longer holding any joy for her.
We brought Rollie outside to see the scene, and talk about what happened to the birdies, and how they are going to Bird Heaven, where they can fly fast and forever, without having to come down for a rest, where the worms are plentiful, and the nests are safe.