Nesting

Our fledgelings have left the nest, but before the whole family flew the coop, I managed to snag a blurry picture of Mom and Dad hanging out on a nearby branch to catch a breather between feedings. On this particular day I was working from home at the kitchen table and had the chance to notice the comings and goings of these hard-working parents as they made their way back and forth to the nest with worms, caterpillars and miscellaneous flying bugs. After each feeding, they would fly back to this same branch outside the kitchen window and preen, side by side. The next day, the whole family was gone. I'm glad I had a chance to watch the these tireless little wonders!

With all the bird activity, I decided to start one of my back-burner projects and make Clementine her very own indoor tree perch. Not being a very confident bird with her footing, I'm not sure how she'll take to something so jungle-gym like, but we'll see. I thought it would be nice to keep her big old cage in the office and have the tree out in the family room for her to sit on while we are home. It takes less space and it would give her a different place to be so it's not the same old, same old. I used one of the fallen branches in our yard and bought screws and bolts to construct this tree of perches. I had to strip the bark and will give it a douse of bleach water to kill all bacteria, fungi and bugs.

The tree was still not completely debarked because the outdoor temps soared again, so it had to remain outside. But after the neighboring birds got used to it being on the deck, some adventurous ones came by to make sure it was sturdy enough.

It's been turtle-nesting season, I'm thinking, because they are on the move just lately. Sadly, many get run over on the roads because they are trying to get to wherever they are trying to get to on the other side of the road, and they are not quite fast enough. Plus, they just ball up in their shell when a car comes their way. I have had to pull over and hitchhike a few to the other side.

This guy was cruising the perimeter of our veggie garden and was making a hasty retreat when I came by. Luckily, even at his fast pace, I was able to tap on the window to get Paul, he got his shoes on, found the camera and came out to grab a picture before the turtle could make the large 10 foot journey to the underbrush.

Even I am nesting. It kicked in and my gosh the projects that can be accomplished when focused! Curtains for both family room windows are nearly done after a few weekends of hard work (I've had the fabric for about a year), and wow are they orange! I love the color but they are orangier hanging than they were flat, so I'm working on ways to blend the colors in with the rest of the room and I think painting the walls will be key, along with some accessories.

Positively Pregnant

Wow six months pregnant and time has flown! Over the past month people are no longer avoiding asking if I'm pregnant for fear that I've just gained a bit of weight. I guess it has become more obvious that I'm carrying more than a few burgers. My favorite thing is that when I go to do some shopping, the cashiers ask me vague questions like, "So what are you having?" and I thought it was a weird question and responded with, "oh, just these few things, thanks." I still hadn't really gotten used to the questions yet when another cashier at Lowe's said the usual, "How are you today?" followed by, "Is this your first?" I said, "No, I've been a regular at Lowe's. I come at least once or twice a month." She laughed and said she was referring to my baby, and then she continued down a topic that was not so funny at the time. She asked, "how old are you?" I answered warily, "35." And THEN she said, "You have given me hope. I'm in my late 30s and am hoping to have kids..." Anyway, she must have certainly thought I was past my prime to have asked, and then she obviously thought that having a baby at my age was like climbing Mt. Everest! At the time, I found that conversation depressing since at 35 I don't feel ready to sail off into my sunset years just yet! But then I realized, it's how I feel that counts, right? And I feel great!


Yeah, I know, this picture is a bit odd, but Paul was never home from work when I was thinking of taking a belly picture, and he'd always think about it right about as I was about to drop into bed, so finally I just tried the timer feature on the camera and went for the self-portrait look.

Progress in the Garden

This spring was my first experience using my compost that took 2 years to mature. I have since realized that mowing/chopping my autumn leaves before putting them into my compost speeds things up tremendously. See, last fall I started a new pile before my old pile was finished. I didn't want to add new leaves to a nearly mature compost pile and so much to the chagrin of my neighbors, I had two monstrosities going simultaneously. With this new pile I have turned religiously every weekend and have the smaller leaves and it is already nearly at the stage that the 2007 pile was in by 2010. This spring I used my mature compost to spread around all my planted trees and shrubs which all needed a boost, and I used the rest to start my vegetable garden. Fun thing: I ended up with lots of surprise seedlings around my front yard bushes. I didn't pull them right away like I would other weeds because I was suspicious (and was right) that they were tomato plants! So looking carefully in the photo below, around a boxwood are 3 or 4 tomato plants.
I also ended up with a mystery squash or melon plant growing from my compost in the veggie garden. I still haven't figured out what kind of veggie or fruit it is, but I'm patiently waiting to find out. Another fun thing about my compost is that the results were quite amazing when my neighbor asked why the two cabbages on the far right are twice as big as the others. they were all the same size when I planted them, but the only difference was the two cabbage plants were growing in my compost and the rest were growing in the store-bought compost. I didn't have enough homemade compost to fill up the whole garden so only about 1/3 of it is filled with my compost. I might have converted my neighbor who was till that moment my biggest critic for the unsightly compost piles. She started asking me the particulars of compost-making.

The big project for the spring was this vegetable garden and the fun addition of a rain barrel. I bought one that is the most unobtrusive that I could find and hooked a soaker hose to it and a special rain barrel timer (that can run without any pressure). This setup, along with a rainy spring, has kept my garden watered self-sufficiently until the last few weeks when I needed some more aggressive watering due to the heat wave we had. The garden has gained a few neighborhood fans who come and admire the rain barrel operation. So I have to keep it well tended and weeded so as not to disappoint the fans.

Another great thing is that the rain barrel can't easily be seen from the front of the house.

Pillow Tester

If you are wondering what kind of strange horseshoe-shaped pillow Paul is napping in, you are not alone. I've never seen one before, myself. This is the wonderful pregnancy pillow that arrived from Amazon.com yesterday. I've been having back problems at night since almost the beginning of pregnancey so I finally decided it was time to try something new. I shoulda tried this sooner -fabulously comfy! I guess Paul wanted to make sure it was suitable, and so is testing it in nap mode at this very moment. As he's been out for a few hours so far, it must be getting a good review. Maybe next week we will have two of these monstrously large pillows in our bed!

Morning Glory Muffins

I got this recipe from allrecipes.com and they are SUPER!! I did 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour as opposed to what's listed below, but I think I'd need to add an additional 1/4 tsp. baking soda next time to help the heavy wheat rise more. Plus I am thinking next time of using 1 cup of honey instead of 1 1/4 cups of sugar (that's a lot of sugar and they were more than sweet enough).



Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups grated carrots
1 apple - peeled, cored, and finely chopped
1 cup raisins
1 egg
2 egg whites
1/4 cup apple butter
1/4 cup mango chutney (or use 1/2 cup total of apple butter instead)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts
2 tablespoons toasted wheat germ

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly oil 18 muffin cups, or coat with nonstick cooking spray.
In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, egg whites, apple butter, oil and vanilla.
In a large bowl, stir together flours, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir in carrots, apples and raisins. Stir in apple butter mixture until just moistened. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling them about 3/4 full.
In a small bowl, combine walnuts and wheat germ; sprinkle over the muffin tops.
Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and spring back when lightly pressed.

Our Ultracool Ultrasound

Ultrasounds have come a long way as my Aunt Jamie has said when she started doing the 4D ( I hope I'm using the right terminology... I want to call it 3D) ultrasounds on her patients. But it was hard to be amazed, truly, until we had one ourselves!

Tired Baby Teague

Bluebirds at Home

After many false alarms, a nesting pair of bluebirds finally decided to close escrow and move in. They were indecisive house hunters that kept coming back every month, fly in and out of each apartment, look like they were going to buy and then they'd disappear.

But to my surprise, I saw some grass sticking out of one of the apartments when I was mowing last weekend and then closely monitored and found the shy little birdies coming and going in the mornings and evenings. It's been really hot the last few days, and with no air-conditioning in this upscale apartment built by Dad, the homeowners (dedicated nest sitters) are sitting the nest with their beaks out to catch the occasional breeze.

Awwww how cute!