57127--the squirrel wins

My grandparents had a bird feeder in their back yard. It was a flat square that sat on top of a pole in the middle of the yard.You could easily see it from the kitchen window. My grandma knew all the regular birds. There was a pet store in town where we would go and buy a bag of bird food. Whenever I stayed with them my job was to feed the birds. There was an old coffee cup in the garage that we used to measure out the food.

So naturally, I have a feeder in my back yard. It hangs from the branch of a tree. I can see it from the kitchen window, where I sit at the same table that was in my grandparent's kitchen. We get a lot of the same birds every day. There are a family of doves that seem to have been around forever, but maybe it's the next generation already. We also have a couple of squirrels.

The squirrels like to raid the bird feeder. One of them will lean out from another branch and see what he can get. I think they like the sunflower seeds. They tend to spill a lot of the food in their attempts, and it falls on the ground, where some of the shyer birds will eat it.

I decided to move the bird feeder out farther on the branch to see if they could still reach it. They couldn't. One of the squirrels found this unacceptable however, and decided to act boldly. He leapt off the tree branch and landed on the feeder, sending it crashing to the ground. I went out to assess the damage and saw him sitting in the middle of a pile of food, very pleased with himself. The feeder was broken.

I went to the hardware store yesterday to get a new feeder. They also sell feeder poles that are squirrel-proof, so I got one of those too. They also sell squirrel feeders and food.

So now I have a new bird feeder and a squirrel feeder. The squirrel feeder is on a tree outside the window where the cats like to sit in the afternoon. A few minutes after I put it up and filled it, the squirrels were there. They seemed happy. The birds are happy with their new feeder. The cats are happy for the entertainment. I'm happy too.

57128--High Hand

We went up to Loomis with our friends Danny and Apinya to have lunch at the High Hand nursery. It's a nice spot. They have turned an old greenhouse into a restaurant. The food is good, and it is always packed on the weekends. Interestingly, it is about 10 minutes from one of the hospitals I have to visit for my project, so I think I will take my partner there next time we are up that way.

After lunch we wandered around the grounds for a while, then headed across town to the Horton's Iris Farm. I love the iris farm. We walked through the gardens looking at the different colors, and made notes about which ones we wanted to buy. I ended up getting about 8 different varieties. Mostly bright colors to contrast the purples we have now.


Here's one of the ones I ordered.

After walking around, we placed our order and sat and talked with the owner and her daughter-in-law, who helps out on the weekends, but is a high school earth science teacher during the week. She was talking about the lunar eclipse that will occur tomorrow night, and how she is planning to stay up late to watch it. We got on the subject of the solstices and the equinoxes, and that transitioned into how to teach critical thinking. I mentioned that I taught nursing, and we both realized at the same time that we had had the same conversation about critical thinking two years ago when we were up there.

I can see the moon out my window now, and it is big and bright, waiting for what is to come.

My friend amaebi has been writing about preparing her garden this spring, and has mentioned more than once preparing her son's bed, by adding mulch, etc. When I saw the below image, I immediately thought of her.


Chun Woo's bed.