Posted on November 02, 2009 at 09:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on October 25, 2009 at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)
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We've been living here for 10 years watching what we though were Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds. We put feeders out every spring and love watching them flying around. Imagine my surprise to discover that we don't have Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds. We have a sub-species called the Southern Red-Necked Hummingbird! How do I know? Because last year my SIL gave us this very pretty feeder for Christmas (I know it was my SIL and not my brother because he would given us a Lowes gift card or forgotten all together - not that there's anything wrong with a Lowes gift card mind you but this was a thoughtful and personalized gift) and the hummingbirds won't touch it!
I even tried to trash it up for them with some bright red ribbon and then still will not get near it. The feeder that used to hand in this spot was their favorite. Now they are all over this one on the right. I only had to wait about 10 minutes to get this photo. See the red neck? You heard it here first. It's a new species!
I captured that photo using my continuous shooting mode on my camera. Thanks to Sue's Friday camera lessons I may actually learn to use some of the features of this fancy camera! While waiting for the hummingbird, I got this shot of a butterfly trying to break into my house. I was about 8 feet away.
Posted on June 07, 2009 at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on March 03, 2009 at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (21) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on March 03, 2009 at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
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I'm sorry. I can't help it. We don't get snow like this very often so I have to post photos. If you are from a snowy climate just skip these posts.
Chris took these during the snow yesterday.
The guest house
Deer Tracks
The Pond
A creek feeding into the river
At the river - I only go down here in the winter. You know, snakes and all....
Chris checking the wood duck box
A tree on the river bank
The house
Posted on March 03, 2009 at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)
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Have you analyzed me yet? Need more time? Try these.
When I returned from Craft Week I had some great surprises waiting for me at home. Here's part of the cool mail I've received.
Karol-Ann won my drawing for the left over Monkey fabric a few weeks ago. She surprised me by sending this really cool monkey tea towel and tote bag last week. She made the tote bag. it's lined and has pockets on the inside. I just love the orange and green fabric.
Summerset sent me these great hand dyed socks. They are wrapped in paper left from her daughter's painted paper bag book covers. I can't wait until it's cool enough to wear them.
I also received some great inspirational magazines from Carole but they missed the phot shoot becuase they are already by the reading chair.
See, sometimes mail can be good!
Posted on September 09, 2008 at 05:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
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My friend Kim is a terrific photographer. Earlier this year I finally convinved her to upgrade to digital. It was totally selfishly motivated so that I could "have access to" her photos. She took lots of photos during craft week and here are a few that I want to share.
You'll notice that none of the photos have people in them. I have a really weird hangup about my art. I don't like people or parts of people in any of my art. Animals are OK but no people. I don't know why but I've always been that way. I also hated dolls as a young girl and still don't much care for them. It's probably because my Mom beat me (just kidding) or something but I'll leave you to analyze while you enjoy these non-human views.
More in the next post.
Posted on September 09, 2008 at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
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It seems like everyone is doing the latest cool thing - Community Shared Agriculture. One of my friends is doing it and she shared some fruit with us a few weeks ago. We don't participate in a CSA program for three reasons. First, I can't figure out what the are going to do in the winter. Second, there are a lot of vegetables that I either don't like or are allergic too. Third, we are getting enough from our own garden.
But I looked out the window this weekend and realized that we are already participating in a CSA program. Our peach tree is feeding a large community!
So there. I am cool after all!
Here are a bunch of random comments....
For a look at a man who truly loves his wife, check out this post on Gina's blog. It features one of my tie dye shirts. I didn't realize they were liked so much!
Today I went for my third deep muscle massage. My back is getting better but it still hurts to twist and take a deep breath. The massage therapist thinks I've "popped a rib", whatever that means. Whatever it is, it's darned uncomfortable and I hope it unpops soon.
In work news, I have been assigned a new project that will be announced in the next couple of days. My life is about to go out of balance for a while. It's a great career opportunity but I have mixed emotions about what this is going to do to my free time. I'll probably cut back on some of my QOV activities and other commitments for a while and use my limited free time for whatever mood strikes.
Right now, though, I am just counting the days until craft week!
Posted on August 18, 2008 at 07:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on July 21, 2008 at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBack (0)
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How appropriate that our last baby chicks are leaving the nest on our Independence Day! We have been watching the birds peeking out of the box today so Chris went to check. Here's the last one before it joined the rest of the family. They are flying among the trees now.
The season in review:
The End - Until 2009
Posted on July 04, 2008 at 05:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on June 18, 2008 at 07:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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I checked on the bird boxes after work yesterday. The Tree Swallows have fledged. I actually saw the whole family flying around near the next box so the must have just left. The Bluebirds had not hatched.
Chris checked just a few miutes ago so these have just hatched today! I hope we get to see them reach maturity.
Posted on June 17, 2008 at 01:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on June 13, 2008 at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
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We were surprised to find that the Swallows are still around. The parents were hanging close by and we tried to get a photo of the female on the box but she chose not to pose today. Here are the big babies.
The Bluebirds haven't hatched yet but Chris thinks he saw a Wood Duckfamily cross the driveway. He's going to check the Wood Duck box down by the river to see if there's any evidence of nesting. That would be very cool but either way we have a family of some kind of duck! Unfortunately our rent-a-dogs were here this morning so the ducks were chased off before Chris could get a positive ID. Silly dogs, don't they know what they are not supposed to chase?
Posted on June 11, 2008 at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on June 09, 2008 at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on June 05, 2008 at 09:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
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The Tree Swallows are growing. Now I know why they feather their nest - you can hardly distinguish the babies from the loose feathers.
The Bluebird has laid 2 more eggs. Does this photo remind you of anything?
Unfortunately, something got to the Brown Thrashers. They were not old enough to fledge.
Posted on June 03, 2008 at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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While I was posting about my fabric dyeing adventures we had an awesome sunset. I ran out to get some photos. Everywhere you looked the sky was different. I took all of these in less than a minute.
This last one is what got Chris so excited. This is called mammato cumulus. I thought you would want to know.
Posted on June 01, 2008 at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on June 01, 2008 at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
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Chris took a walk this afternoon and checked on the Brown Thrasher nest. It's in a cedar tree in the neighbor's yard. (Remember that a "yard" to us is 10 acres so it really is "a walk".) He got the first photo of the Thrasher guarding the nest. She pecked him while he was taking the second photo of the new babies! He risks his life to provide me with a little entertainment!
Posted on May 29, 2008 at 09:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on May 28, 2008 at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on May 27, 2008 at 08:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)
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We are still waiting for the Tree Swallows to hatch but today Chris found another nest! This one is on a tree at the corner of our neighbor's property and it's a Brown Thrasher! Isn't is a pretty nest?
We will keep an eye on both nests and post again when someone hatches.
Posted on May 21, 2008 at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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I've received a few questions lately asking how we take the bird photos. Chris made all of our boxes. The 4 bluebird boxes are mounted on fencing posts with the top of the boxes about 5 feet off the ground. I have to stand on tiptoe to look in but they are the perfect height for him. He hinged the lid so we can open then and peek in. The birds have never seemed to mind us taking a peek. I just open the lid and snap a couple of photos and then leave them alone. We try to only go every other day so that we are not bothering them too much.
Two other boxes are mounted on trees. He has to use a ladder to check those. I'd love to figure out a way to have a web cam in the boxes but that would require some REALLY long extension cords!
We checked on the boxes today and the news is not all good.
The Chickadees in bluebird box 4 have fledged but the Chickadees in the Chickadee box are all dead. We don't know if something killed them or if the parents abandoned them. We had several days of very heavy rain and maybe the parents couldn't take care of them.
But the 5 Tree Swallow eggs are doing fine.
Chris has seen the baby Bluebirds flying around and we are hoping for one more Bluebird nesting before "baby season" ends.
Posted on May 15, 2008 at 09:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
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This is probably the last bird check until Thursday. we got these two just before the big rain started.
This is bluebird box #2. We can finally see that the Tree Swallow nest has 5 eggs.
Here are the Chickadees in bluebird box #4. They may be gone by the time we visit them Thursday.
While we were out we had a very exciting sighting of the Scarlet Tanager. I've only seen this bird once about 8 years ago. We hear them often but they don't often leave the cover of the woods. This photo isn't very good but it's still proof that we saw one! I was standing about 40 feet from the tree.
Posted on May 11, 2008 at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)
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Don't read to the bottom of this post if you are against vermin destruction.
First the good news. Chris took some more photos today.
The Tree Swallows are working Bluebird Box 2. We always love these birds because they are really friendly and don't seem to mind our attentions at all. Chris got 2 photos. One with her peeking out of the box and one with her on the nest. I think they are really beautiful birds.
Then he checked on the Chickadees in the Chickadee box
and the Chickadees in Bluebird Box 4. They are getting their black caps!
You might be wondering why I am doing two bird posts in a row. I had planned to wait until Saturday to survey all of the nests again but something happened today to add "bird inventory" to Chris' list of chores.
I work at home Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today, during my lunch break, I happened to look out the window and saw a bird perched on Bluebird Box 3 (the Chickadee family photographed yesterday). I grabbed the binoculars and saw that it was the evil House Sparrow. Over our few years of birding, we have lost bird families to two things: snakes and House Sparrows. Snakes, I understand and we do a lot to dissuade them from eating our birds and, if Chris catches them in the box, they generally have an unfortunate accident.
House Sparrows are not native to the US. They are to us as the Gray Squirrel is to the Brits. (I don't like the squirrels much either but in Britain the Gray Squirrel has just about eliminated the native Red Squirrel population.) House Sparrows here are brutal to native birds. They destroy eggs and baby birds and then nest on top of the abandoned nests. I did a lot of reading on the subject last year (after they destroyed a little bluebird family) and followed the recommendation to let them lay their eggs and then destroy the nest.
When I saw the House Sparrow on the nest box I knew what had happened. I looked in the box and all of my Chickadees were gone and the Sparrow had already started building a new nest. I reported the incident to my hero hunter.
Vengeance is mine saith the bird woman....
.....followed by a full inventory of all other families.
Posted on May 08, 2008 at 06:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on May 07, 2008 at 08:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on May 05, 2008 at 07:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
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We did a complete tour of all of the bird nests this morning.
The Bluebirds are growing like crazy in Bluebird Box 1
The Tree Swallows are about finished with nest building in Bluebird box 2
We have 3 Chickadee families. Here's the group in Bluebird box 3
and Bluebird Box 4
and the newest family in the Chickadee box
Posted on May 03, 2008 at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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It's a great day in bird land!
The Bluebirds are growing fast. Their blue feathers are starting to show.
The Tree Swallows have been very busy.
And the Chickadees are hatching everywhere. These photos are from Bluebird boxes 3 and 4. We didn't get a photo of the Chickadee box but assume they have hatched too. I think the ones in Box 3 hatched today. The ones in Box 4 look a day or 2 older.
Posted on May 01, 2008 at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)
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If finally stopped raining so that we could check on the birds. The Chickadees still have not hatched but the Bluebirds are growing!
And the Tree Swallows are building on Bluebird Box #2
I hope that you are enjoying the bird photos because there isn't going to be much fiber content for a couple of weeks. I've got lots going on at work through mid-May. The birds will have to keep everyone entertained for a while!
Posted on April 29, 2008 at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
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We went out to check on all of our families this morning. As we approached the first Bluebird box we eyed the male in a nearby tree bringing in a worm to feed.
The babies are growing fast.
Meanwhile, it appears that the Tree Swallows are building in Bluebird Box 2. We usually have one Tree Swallow family each year but the Chickadees built in their box this year. I hope they stay in the new box.
The Chickadees are still incubating. We think they will probably hatch this week.
Posted on April 27, 2008 at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
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I checked on the new baby Bluebirds today.
Remember how the yard looked in March when i started these photos? Look what a difference some rain and sun makes!
Posted on April 24, 2008 at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
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We have babies!! The Bluebirds in Box 1 have hatched.
We also too the opportunity to check on the Chickadee Box that we could not get to Sunday.
She left while Chris was taking photos so we could see that she laid 6 eggs.
But our morning started off with this:
Our rent-a-dogs apparently had a little fun and chased these two raccoons up the dogwood tree. They were stuck there for a couple of hours.
Posted on April 22, 2008 at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBack (0)
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There was about a 15 minute break in the rain today so we were able to get a few photos. If you need location reference for any of these boxes you can find it in this post.
Mama Bluebird was keeping her 5 eggs warm in Bluebird Box 1. You can see that she is wet in this photo.
Bluebird box 2 is still empty but Chris saw Bluebirds and Tree Swallows shopping it this week.
The Chickadee in Bluebird Box 3 has laid 7 eggs.
We couldn't check the Chickadee Box because the ground was too wet for the ladder but earlier this week Chris noticed yet another Chickadee building a nest in a box that we had abandoned. We'll call this Bluebird Box 4. If you look at the photo of the first Wood Duck box, Bluebird box 4 is about 20 yards to the left. Chris checked it today and got a photo of the mama on the nest and another of the 4 eggs.
Mom emailed me a week ago and said that she has a Chickadee nest in her bluebird box too! That's 4 Chickadee nest this year and we have never had Chickadees nesting before. Weird.
The Wren box and the 2 Wood Duck boxes are still empty.
Posted on April 20, 2008 at 09:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
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Here's the last check of the birds until next Sunday. If you are interested, you can see where these boxes are located on our property here.
Today we were able to get a photo of the mama Chickadee on her nest in Bluebird Box #3.
All together now, say "Awwwww!"
Another Chickadee family is underway in the Chickadee Box on the South side of the house. You can barely see the first egg.
Posted on April 13, 2008 at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
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We have the first Chickadee egg!
The question now is whether this is a Black-Capped Chickadee nest or a Carolina Chickadee nest. They look a lot alike but I leaning toward the Carolina. I don't really care I'm just happy to have our first Chickadee nest since we've had the nest boxes out.
Posted on April 12, 2008 at 02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)
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The mama Bluebird finally left the nest long enough for Chris to get this photo yesterday and confirm that we have 5 eggs! Now to wait for them to hatch. The two Chickadee nests are still unoccupied and Chris saw a Tufted Titmouse checking out the Wren box. I hope they are all full this Spring.
I'm sorry there hasn't been much in the way of fiber content lately. I have a new project (THAT I DID NOT WANT) at work and my Spring allergies are starting up. If you have been reading Gayle's posts about the spoon theory you will understand what I mean when I say that today was a 3-spoon day. I apparently got a teeny piece of cheese in my Mexican dinner last night and had a terrific allergic reaction. At 5pm, I am just now coming out of the fog and I had so much work to do today! Unfortunately, I will not be sewing after dinner tonight.....tomorrow will be much better!
Posted on April 09, 2008 at 05:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted on April 06, 2008 at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)
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Mrs. bluebird is busy. We usually get 4 or 5 eggs so the nest may be full by Sunday.
The Chickadees seem to have finished their nest in the 3rd Bluebird box. It's hard to tell from this photo but there is a very well defined cup ready for the eggs.
Chris took this photo Thursday morning before he left on his golf trip. This one is on a tree on the South side of the house. We'll have another update Monday.
Posted on April 04, 2008 at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
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