Day three of my vacation. It was a busy one, and not one that I expected upon awakening.

School ended last Wednesday here, and George has spent several mornings at the bus garage, getting his bus clean and ready for DOT inspection. This morning he planned to make one more trip over to finish the job, and asked me to go with him. I almost said no, but then I realized that I don’t have many opportunities to be a helpmate in situations like this, so I tagged along. The bus looked pretty clean to me, but there were windows to wash, and seat belts to arrange, so that is what I did, and the job was soon done, and we were free for the rest of the day.

We had packed up our birding bag so that we could walk on over to the wetlands area near the athletic fields where we saw redwings, a cardinal, goldfinches, mourning doves, catbirds, grackles, and one lone mallard.

The sun was high by this time, and we were on the boardwalk in the tall grasses, so it was really too hot to stay out long. We came on home, and did some yard work, pulling out the Deadly Night Shade that was growing under the deck.  I cleaned out one of the nest boxes, and we planted another maple tree on the hill.

There really were no other plans for our day, so I sat down with my laptop, and George sat down with his model. We heard the rumbling of a delivery truck out front, and here comes the replacement cell phone we ordered Saturday for my dad and Evelyn. They have been without a cell phone since Friday, when their battery died, and we wanted to get them this one ASAP. It allows them free long distance, and a way to be in touch when they are out and about. We decided there was no time like the present, so we hopped in the car, and drove on up to Auburn. I took a container full of brownies with us, and Evelyn reciprocated with some ginger snaps she had just pulled out of the oven.

We stayed a couple of hours to visit, then the long ride home. The sky was really dark when we headed back, with a heavy rain soon after. The skies finally cleared as we neared Watkins Glen.