A Good Week After All

This past week has been neither bad nor good.  It was just blah.  I did have moments of extreme anxiety, but that is how it is when you have a 90 1/2 year old person living with you.  For someone who never needed to go to the doctor, we have been there a lot.  A little over a week ago dad had lower back pain and wasn't feeling well.  Some other symptoms convinced us that another trip to the ER was in order.  We went and found out that dad had a kidney stone that was trying to make an exit.  We have been monitoring it (if you know what I mean), but no stone has showed up.  The urologist wants to wait for a couple more weeks before any intervention as long as his pain is low and Dad doesn't feel too much discomfort.  Hopefully it will pass soon.

A couple weeks ago our poor nesting bluebirds lost three of their five eggs to the House Wren.  I have written about the cruelty of the house wren many times.  I hoped this year would be different.  Two eggs were left in the nest, but I'm sorry to report after three days the bluebird parents abandoned the nest.  This week I cleaned out the nest.  The bluebirds have returned and built a new nest.  I haven't checked to see if she laid more eggs, but when she does I hope the young can hatch and survive.

The weather has been too hot and too cold.  Last weekend we directed traffic for the CHN Cancer 5K.  We had signed up to walk in the race, but they needed volunteers on the race route.  I was hot just standing there and the runner/walkers looked really hot and sweaty.  Sunday was also hot.  We got to 87 degrees.  Then as night fell on Sunday the temperatures started falling.  It turned windy.  We heard the crash and saw one section of logs fall.  The wood is piled between the big pine trees.  I think the swaying of the trees caused the logs to shift.

We planted some grass seed this spring.  It is very hard to grow grass in our yard.  Lack of moisture and sandy soil makes it difficult to have a nice lawn.  The seed has sprouted but looked a little sparse.  Now we know why.  All spring we have had a turkey living in our wooded area.  She comes to our yard to feed, and I caught her eating the lawn seed.  If she has eggs laid nearby, we may have our hands full when they hatch.  Several turkeys can cause a lot of damage to our already pathetic yard.

Then today the temperature didn't reach 60 degrees.  Tonight there is a chance of frost.  I hope it is warm enough for the fruit trees.  If there is a hard frost there will be very few apples, cherries or other fruit later in the summer.  To be safe, I brought in all the flowers I had placed outside.  I hope that is the last time I have to do that until next fall.

With the summer coming (we hope), other critters pass through the yard.  This is a woodchuck trying to get into our old garage.  He tried to get in several places, but I think he moved on.

He checked out the cat door put in by a previous owner.

A racoon has become brave enough to come out while it is still light outside.  Normally they wait until it is dark.  The past two nights this one was checking out what was on the ground under the bird feeders.

We had vultures flying over.  There were at least three of them flying over for quite a while.  There must be a dead animal somewhere in the area. I hope it isn't one of our deer friends.

I don't know what is up with these birds.  They are either mating or fighting.  All I know is that they don't look happy. 

We have bald cardinals, turtles coming out of the marsh to lay eggs. Baltimore orioles and tree swallows nesting and many other acts of nature.  So as I said the week was neither good nor bad in my world.  Actually that isn't true.  We had our grandson Jack with us today.  He wasn't feeling well and his parents had to work.  In the afternoon, we went outside to feed the birds and fill the bird baths.  He picked up a pine cone and planted it.  He said that he really loves nature and whenever we want to move, he wants to buy our house.  He said by then the pine tree will be tall.  He is six years old and I was touched by that.  I guess it was a good week after all.