Has spring sprung?

I know officially Spring has begun according to the calendar. I know unofficially the migratory birds are showing up and the earliest flowers are putting on a show. Above, a few days ago, we had a bunch of red winged blackbirds carrying on in our neighbors' tree. I wondered what they were making such a racket about and then saw one of our local red tailed hawks swooping around. 

Below, one of the male bluebirds (I've seen two pairs- wahoo!) was eyeing me curiously from outside while I was on the treadmill inside. That has to be confusing. "I see that she's moving, but she's clearly not any good at this because she isn't getting anywhere! Must be because she doesn't have wings." 

We had a few warm days last week and the dogs were thrilled to be outside in the sun and not the wet for a few hours at a time. It makes me happy to see Honey feeling secure enough to snooze in the fresh air. She is such a big scaredy-chicken, poor old thing. Still has a young heart, even if her back end can't keep up with her front's exuberance. Especially going up stairs. 

Below, three of those four clumps are squirrel nests, but the big green one on the left is actually .... da da da DA.... the nest of the red tailed hawks! I knew they were local, but I had no idea they were here! So exciting! They're pretty much just outside our front door and straight up. Yay for new neighbors! Maybe they will eat Bosley. Kidding. 

I think.

We've also had some really pretty skies lately. I love it when sunrises and sunsets are colorful instead of just... dark. Being someone who despises Daylight Savings Time, I'm trying to embrace the opportunity for seeing more sunrises. Forget about the fact that it had already BEEN light outside at the bus stop for over a month and now it's dark again. *sigh* This photo below was taken this morning, and Thing Two remarked that he thought the photo shows off the fun clouds even more than it looked in person.

 

Random poetry

Cleaning off the deck;

Flowers, flowers everywhere;

Our Sticket has a Snek!

Dada and Liam used the pressure washer that Pap brought on his last visit to strip all the old stain off the deck. Then the boys were out there with rollers and brushes applying new, fresh stain. It looks much better, just in time to be covered with all the seeds and blossoms from the trees out back and bird poop from the robins that nested on one of the floodlights. 

Snek is apparently Internet slang for snake. Since I think it's cute, I tend to use it a good bit. We've declared the Sticket Snek is Stevie. There's another, nameless one out front, usually just called Snek. And there's another, larger one out back who I sometimes find in the smaller garden. 

You know that yellow Don't Tread on Me flag with the snake? I'd seen one a few years ago that read "no step on snek" which I found hilarious. The kids loved it, and we should have bought it on the spot. Instead, we let the opportunity pass us by. Last summer, en route to the OBX, we stopped in the same shop and hunted for it to no avail. Only Don't Tread on Me ones, which doesn't light my fire whatsoever. So Dada being Dada ordered one and now I have this huge flag and have no idea where to put it! It's especially funny as Snek must be related to Bosley Underfoot- I head to get water out of the creek out back and Snek darts between my legs into the creek and eyes me with suspicion. I march out to the clothesline and Snek is squiggling madly through the grass ahead of me, trying to avoid my rainbows. One of these days I am going  to step on Snek because I don't see him in time! Guess I better go fly that flag!

 

Summer snippet

Finally watched "Solo" with the boys, who naturally got quite the kick out of it. I don't remember now if there's a creature in it which prompted the discussion, if he was thinking of "Pirates of the Caribbean", or if Liam's imagination is the culprit, but we had a conversation about a space kraken. He quipped, "it'd be a spraken!" Makes sense to me. 

Liam's at Fusion camp this week, so the Resident Nine Year Old spent the day at the pool with me yesterday. He is happy as a clam plummeting off the diving boards, tooling around in the lazy river, soaking up sunbeams on his deck chair while ensconced in my floppy hat, or splashing around in the shallower pool. I am also happy as a clam as I get to sun and read in relative peace. One of Carrie's favorite comic strips is called "Strange Planet" by Nathan W. Pyle, and we have a running joke about the one featuring "star damage". You can find it here ; have fun perusing his strip. It's very entertaining! 

I don't know if everyone is having the same issue with bugs and weeds that we are and if it's because of the incredibly wet spring and the lack of rain now or what, but mosquitoes and some unidentified but apparently ravenous type of bug have eaten me alive this year. I have a sneaking suspicion something crawled into bed with me, twice, and has nibbled all over. The only conclusion I can draw is that I am quite tasty. It leaves itchy raised bumps like a mosquito bite, but the tips fill with fluid like a blister. Any idea what special level of Hades that happens to be? Not a big fan, I must confess. So I'm out there watering the garden before 7 AM in jeans, boots, a hoodie, with my shirt and pants tucked in, gloves, and a baseball cap sprayed with bug repellent, waving the bugs away from my face. This morning I ended up in a cloud of gnats who decided it'd be fun to hover under the brim of my baseball cap. Ugh. How is it that the tomato plants look the same as they did when I transplanted them yet the weeds have covered every inch of available space and then some? I could tear everything out and then the next day they're back again. Persistent little buggers! I do have one tiny cucumber though, yay!

We hosted the June and July birthdays for Dada's Krav Maga group last Saturday. It was a small turnout but that just means we got a lot of fun out of a smaller group of people. And it means we had to clean first. If you want to see our bar clear, some right after we have a party, haha! That's the only time any of our horizontal surfaces are ever free. We also witnessed a kettle of vultures cruising overhead for probably a solid ten minutes. They like to roost on the neighboring funeral home (how fitting is that? I find it funny and a bit spooky) and in the parking lot. They're probably the same ones who circle hopefully whenever I'm riding along the bike trail...

Damon has a bluebird visitor that we've been spotting with some regularity. We used to see him at the bus stop while we waited, but I've seen him swooping around out back above the ditch/creek and he was back out by the bus stop when we retrieved the garbage and recycling bins yesterday. Liam's favorites are still the goldfinches, which we often hear chattering from "up high" in the branches, "po-ta-to chip, po-ta-to chip" and he never fails to light up when he hears them.

We've been going through a lot of Gatorade, library books, bug spray, sunscreen, and ice cream this summer. How about you? The roofers aren't finished yet and I've been trying to hold off on planting some of my flower seeds because they'll end up right where the rest of the old shingles will be dropped. I don't know if I should just give up and get them in the ground and hope for the best or if I should just give up for the year completely. I suppose I could round up enough pots to just try them that way, but that seems like more work than I want to do. Summer is supposed to be a break, right? 

Happy Hump Day!

Birds and Bees

Okay, true, it's really a ladybug, but that's because the visiting bee didn't stick around long enough to me to snap it's picture.

The bluebird was puzzling because I've only seen one here before. He was perched in a spot with other trees between where I could see him without a screen and I had an internal argument over if he was actually blue or if he was a robin- the glare on the glass with the screen behind it gave me just enough pause. I snapped a shot then I moved to a different window and he spooked. I had to check the photo to be sure, but there he is! And you guys, then he came back! He's zooming around from the trees down to the grass and then back up again. 

Liam still loves everything yellow, except bananas, and especially goldfinches. This was was sweet enough to pose. 

And our crazy robins are back, nesting above the floodlight on the deck out back which means they spook every time we put the dog out and there is a feathered bombshell swooping past your head and bird poop all over the deck. "Some horrid bird..." I swear between the robins and the phoebes out back there is not a minute of peace from before dawn until bedtime. You know other birds are grumbling, "tell that Phoebe, whoever she is, to get home already so they stop calling her!

Not sure who this huge guy is, but he's having a wild ride in our 20-30 mph winds today. He keeps streaking past, just steering, making huge circles as he's buffeted. I hope he doesn't take out the guy measuring off his roof of the big red shed we can see from our back yard...