Scattered Seed

We were up early this morning, George and I at 5:30, and Garrett about 6 o’clock. George was off to the bus garage, and Garrett headed to East Aurora about a half hour later. Suddenly the house seemed really empty again. We had had a good weekend of visiting, cooking, eating, watching movies, working on the blog, and laughing too hard over some of the postings on Cute Overload. Back to reality today….back to work for all of us.

We had a hard rain throughout the day. The stream in the backyard reappeared, and the starlings lined up along it for their communal bath. They are quite comical in their splashing and twisting in the water.

Indoors my hyacinths have bloomed and made a nice scent for the diningroom.

The animals are all huddled around me tonight, keeping my feet and lap warm while I type. The past two days, they have shared their warmth with Garrett. Back to normal for all of us.

I have been talking with Garrett the past few weeks about updating my blog. I knew I wanted a better header picture, and I wanted to incorporate some more color. We went over some ideas at our Easter dinner, and I told him anytime he wanted to come home, I’d be happy to have him and we could work on it. So, now it is done. We stayed up till 1 a.m. this morning, George and I watching his hands fly over the keyboard, re-entering information that only made sense to him, fine-tuning the picture I chose, and setting up the sidebar the way I wanted it. It was about a five-hour project, all totaled, and I felt fortunate to have a talented son that could do this for me…. He says that I should give credit to Rebecca – she could have done the same, but she wasn’t here. Anyway, I am happy with the result. I knew that I would want to give Garrett something for his efforts, so I found something at the grocery store yesterday that he had always wanted but couldn’t find when he set up his apartment in the fall – a sun tea jar! and of course, a plateful of chocolate chip cookies.

George got this in an email this morning:

Bill owns a company that manufactures and installs car wash systems. Bill’s company installed a car wash system in Frederick, Md. The problem started when the new owner complained to Bill that he was losing significant amounts of money from his coin machines each week. He went as far as to accuse Bill’s employees of having a key to the boxes and ripping him off. Bill just couldn’t believe that his people would do that, so they setup a camera to catch the thief in action. Well, they did catch him on film!

That’s a bird sitting on the change slot of the machine.

The bird had to go down into the machine, and back up inside to get to the money!

That’s three quarters he has in his beak! Another amazing thing is that it was not just one bird — there were several working together. Once they identified the thieves, they found over $4000 in quarters on the roof of the car wash and more under a nearby tree.

The call came early this morning, even before our 5:30 alarm, that school would be delayed by two hours, due to the weather.

That meant that we could stay in bed till seven, and still be on our way, both of us, by 8:00. Once I was up, I had to get my “six steps of the morning” taken care of: feed and water Martha, pour milk for the cats, take my meds, make sure we had lunches/lunch money, bring in the newspaper, and pack my phone. In between, I eat my breakfast, standing at the kitchen door, while I watch for birds. This morning was a little crazy, as there was an abundance of birds looking for food after the snowfall, so I was eating, grabbing the binoculars, and looking for my camera all at the same time. When I spotted six cedar waxwings in the willow tree, I summoned for George and he came with the tripod and helped me get the camera set up for a picture.

By then, there was just one left to photograph, but still exciting, as we’ve never had cedar waxwings in the yard before. I was glad for the school delay, or he would not have been here to help me. This evening, again, the backyard was full of birds, although no waxwings that I saw, and the heavy wet snow of the early morning has started to melt.

I’ve been trying to get in on the computer for a few minutes each morning, to check my email, and do some blog-reading. The past few mornings I have seen some beautiful sunrises out the window.

The Miata went in for inspection a couple of weeks ago, and did not pass. Ever since we first got it, it has had a fussy engine light. It would come on intermittently, and we could always associate it with damp weather. It became very predictable. We had it checked and taken care of, or so we thought, but it maintained its fickle ways. This year, it proved to be a real nuisance, as it kept the car from passing inspection. $171.59 later, we have the required sticker to keep the car on the road another year. They found nothing related to the engine light (it went off again)  but we had new spark plug wires put in, and with all the diagnostics, the cost added up. Actually there is a recall on the offending part, and even though we had it replaced two years ago, it is under warranty, so we’ll go that route again, and hope for less of a hassle a year from now.

These are the bulbs I bought last Thursday, repotted, watered, and set in the sun. Despite a little cat-nibbling on the leaves, they have been popping open new blooms all day.

I don’t usually get much birding in on a Monday, but today was a vacation day for me. I have tried to fit in some breaks from work in the next few weeks, as these are the most grueling – March into April. I was glad to sleep in a little bit, but as the sun came up I could see bird shadows on the blinds as they flew across the back yard. I set up the tripod as soon as I got up, and no sooner had the camera settled into place, when I had some good photo opportunities.

It was quite a long day…..we headed out for Naples around noon, but first I baked some snickerdoodles to take to Garrett. I had made him a batch the last time we were up, about a month ago, and put half of the dough in the freezer. So, with a couple dozen fresh out of the oven, we were on our way.

We arrived in town about 45 minutes early, so drove on through and up to the lake. There was a place to pull off, a boat launch area, so we stopped and pulled out the binoculars. Besides the Canada geese and gulls, there were several pair of buffleheads swimming not far out, and I was able to get a decent picture.

We met Garrett at the Redwood at 2 o’clock and had a nice dinner. George and I had the prime rib special, Garrett had the steak and shrimp. The waitress couldn’t do enough for Garrett, and we decided he must save up his charm for these outings. The plan was to continue on up to Canandaigua to catch a movie before we headed back out in opposite directions, but we found that iPhone does not distinguish between one Townline Road and another, and we got lost…..or rather, the theater never materialized. Oh well, it was too pretty a day to be inside anyway.

I spent the morning housecleaning and watching the birds. It was sunny, but not warm, so I left the willow branches in the back yard for cleanup on a warmer day. I did replant the bulbs we bought, so they have room to grow. They’ve made a lot of progress in just the past couple of days, and I will photograph them again soon. About midday, I was wishing we could get out and enjoy the day, so we headed up to Ithaca to do some errands – A stop at the new Salvation Army store there, where I found four sturdy dinner plates that we could use on the deck this summer. I had been looking at them in the stores last year, and just didn’t want to spend $3 each, but at 80 cents, it seemed reasonable. We went on over to Michaels, for craft supplies and a packet of note cards I found in the bargain bin for $1.00…..I felt like such a big spender today.

We came home by way of Danby….a stop at Jennings Pond to see the Canada geese on ice….

on to Spencer……a flock of turkeys flew down a hill and across the road in front of us so we stopped for a picture.

There was a kestral on the wire near Erin, but we’ve already posted a kestral picture this week, so that would be redundant.