My Little Chickadee

I'm officially declaring a start to summer - we've had our first bird in the garage. If I forget and leave the garage door up they think it's an open invitation to come on in - then the silly things fly 'round and 'round for hours on end.

Hummingbirds usually make their way in and we've gotten pretty adept at capturing them. They wear out pretty quickly and are willing to land on a broom or we catch them in a dip net. We have all had a chance to hold hummingbirds over the years as a result; and sadly a couple of them have died after being trapped too long.

This little chickadee got in yesterday and was mighty upset. She fussed and carried on the entire time she was in the garage - I finally had to close the big door, turn out all the lights, remove the screen from one of the windows and open it from the top AND put all the cats in the house.

After about four hours she made her way out...

P. S. I'm turning a blind eye to all of those cobwebs on that window, they are in Danny's garage. I expect you to do the same.

Alive and...

We all made it back from Memorial Day weekend in one piece. Shelley was a little worse for the wear - poor old dog just doesn't travel well any more, that long car ride is hard on her old bones. Nelson had himself a fine old time, as usual. We humans got to see family and friends, ate some good food and just hung out - but we were all really glad to get back home.

The end of the school year is here and things are really busy. Besides school stuff, Rea is playing on a tournament soccer team and that's taking quite a bit of time and I haven't had as much opportunity to blog.

On top of being busy, I have a major bloggy distraction too - there is a teeny, tiny bug inside my screen. He's somehow gotten INSIDE my computer and he spends his time happily meandering all over my computer screen; right now he's just over the Google toolbar and headed south. I spent a couple of hours trying to kill him before I realized that he was on the INSIDE of my beloved computer.

Now things are a little complicated - if I MASH him on the screen he will remain as a permanent blight.

If I continue to let him crawl on my screen I may go INSANE.

Randomosity

I flipped across our local access channel today and caught a few minutes of a new cooking show. Some lady I didn’t know, was preparing one of Emeril's recipes in her very own kitchen. Maybe it’s just me, but I was oh so distracted by the industrial size Cascade (or could it have been Miracle Gro), spray cleaners, vinegar and stuff in the background. The big umbrella out the window was a nice touch too. And apparently she's never heard of kosher salt either. Poor Emeril would have been so disappointed in that iodized stuff she dumped in those red beans & rice.

Hey, ThomasP. Purple Winter Creeper = KUDZU. The euonymus. It.Grows.Like.Kudzu. Google Kudzu if you must! Danger Will Robinson!

I don’t have any special tips to offer up about Sea Monkeys. Syd is solely responsible for their well-being – as she is her father’s daughter, suffice it to say, she most likely READ the directions and has followed them TO THE LETTER. The downside of that is we still have the unfortunate little beasts.

I finished Who Stole My Church? last week, it was a quick read, but I am pondering and collecting my thoughts about the “book report” that I owe some folks (there’s a back-story there). I really enjoyed the book - it's just taking me some time to get a post together. I promise it hasn't slipped my mind and I'm not trying to get out of it - it just requires some quiet time.

Do you remember the other day when I posted about "Gopher Barky"? About three days later Danny walked into where I was sitting and said "What in the world is gopher barky???" Poor thing, I never dreamed that he missed out on so much because he didn't get to be a Girl Scout. So I sang: "The Lord said to Noah, there's gonna be a floody, floody..." to him. And then he REMEMBERED the song from his childhood days in VBS and blamed me for the ear worm he had for two days!

I have friends with daughters who are second-graders. I was with them the other afternoon and the two girls had a minor spat. One had her feelings hurt because she was told that she "couldn't count" (literally) and the other was called a "Figure of Mean".

Back last October, I told you about "visiting" Danny's work and their never-ending quest to keep the pond stocked with ducks. Well, by the time spring rolled around, once again, things were looking pretty grim for the duck population and they were down to one lonely male.

A flock of new babies are being raised and here's a snap Dan took from his Blackberry of the newest generation. Let's wish them well!

A Mystery of Sorts

I’ve been puzzling over something since yesterday afternoon.

When I went to pick Rea up from soccer, I was following behind a couple of cars and they straddled something on the road in front of me. I drove over the item as well and after I had passed by it, I glanced back in my rear view mirror and I was very surprised to see that it was an aluminum walking cane.

Now, there are a lot of things you come to expect to see in the middle of the road…dead tires, flat animals, shoes, car parts, just to name a few. But a CANE? My first thought was where in the world was the cane’s owner? I scanned the road ditches and didn’t see anybody. Had some pedestrian just been hit and emergency personnel left the cane lying in the road? I didn’t see any evidence of that. There was a flattened squirrel nearby, but I’m pretty sure that cane wasn’t his size.

Nobody in front of me even braked or noticed the cane – so I kept driving too.

I came right back through the same way about ten minutes later and the cane was gone – had some elderly cane owner been lurking at the roadside waiting for the traffic to stop so they could “rush” out and retrieve their cane? Did some opportunist see it and think “Hey, I’ve been wishing for a decent cane” and stop and get it? Could be that a roaming pack of boys found the cane and it’s now a formidable sword.

Or better yet, did some Good Samaritan see it, and maybe it’s propped up against a light pole like a hubcap and I just missed it…

It's the thought that counts.

Oscar lovingly brought another "slithery gift" to the house this morning - it was meant for Danny this time. There were a couple of small issues with the "gift".

The "gift" was still quite alive.

Danny didn't see the "gift".

Danny STEPPED on the living "gift".

The "gift" was then stomped to smithereens...and now Danny needs new Fruit of the Looms.
















This is the "gift giver" now - lounging on the guest bed - all is well in his world.

FREE! To any home!

I don't recall for which occasion, but Rea bestowed Sea Monkeys to Syd as a gift. I really don't think there was love in her heart when she purchased said gift - she just needed a token gift for her sisty ugler.

The Sea Monkey package laid around forever and one day when she was bored Syd set up the Sea Monkey habitat. That's been MONTHS and MONTHS ago.

The Sea Monkeys refuse to give up the ghost. They are living their happy little Sea Monkey life, in their little Sea Monkey habitat and are even procreating...

Don't you want a Monkey of your very own?

Dog Days

Way back when, I spent a couple of summers transplanting, babying, trimming, obsessing and encouraging purple winter creeper euonymus to grow as a ground cover around the front of our house.

I thought it would be the perfect replacement for all the mulch that Shelley kept tracking in the house. Plus, each spring and fall we were either breaking our backs spreading mulch or paying a small fortune to have it spread.

Hindsight is 20/20. I should have just yanked some kudzu up off the side of the road and slung it down - I think I can hear this stuff growing as I type and it's threatening to come into the house.

Nelson loves it though - he burrows in it and watches the world go by.