Lake Life

Bluebird, babies & mealworms

2011-05-26T18:36:00.004-04:00

This was the first we've seen the babies since they fledged about 2 weeks ago. We knew they were out there ... somewhere. The parents have been coming for mealworms each morning, then flying off in all directions to feed the babies. Now the babies are chasing daddy for food.

Here the fledgling picked up a worm by himself. Looks like he wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

Moo Doo

2011-05-16T20:38:00.000-04:00

Some color on a gray day

2011-05-13T17:27:00.003-04:00

Sparkling coots

2011-02-21T19:35:00.001-05:00

Dressed for the season

2011-02-09T23:09:00.002-05:00

Lake Gaston Boat Parade

2010-11-21T22:12:00.012-05:00

Some blurry photos, but pretty colors...

Road trip sleepy-heads

2010-09-12T07:00:00.001-04:00

Littleton, North Carolina scenery

2010-08-12T22:52:00.004-04:00

Barn swallows

2010-06-10T23:30:00.005-04:00

There are some barn swallows nesting under the deck of our pontoon boat. I guess we won't be going for a boat ride in the immediate future.

Cheep housing

2010-06-09T06:00:00.000-04:00

A new sign for my aviary

Lake Gaston muskrat

2010-06-08T10:20:00.006-04:00

Here are some photos of a muskrat eating his salad, otherwise known as our (crappy) lawn.

A walk around the neighborhood

2010-04-07T23:05:00.008-04:00

Blue & Brown

2010-02-18T10:50:00.002-05:00

A view from Eaton's Ferry Brige - we don't remember ever seeing the lake this muddy...

Hooded mergansers

2010-02-14T17:55:00.002-05:00

I only see hooded mergansers a few times each winter & this is the first time that they've been close enough for a photo on a sunny day.

Valentines Post Office

2010-02-12T20:57:00.005-05:00

We made the short drive up to Valentines Virginia so our cards could be among the 20,000 cards that get mailed from there with the cool Valentine post mark. The post office/general store is very cute!

Check out the WRAL news story about the post office.

Small town sights

2010-02-06T22:07:00.005-05:00

Driving through Littleton a couple of weeks ago, I asked my husband to stop the car so I could take a photo of the horse coming down the road.

The horse was not one bit camera shy. He came right up to the car window for a close up. I'm glad I hadn't opened the window.

The snow

2010-02-01T22:34:00.002-05:00

probably won't last too long with sunny 50 degree days...

Pileated woodpecker

2010-01-29T06:30:00.001-05:00

A neighbor sent these photos of a Pileated woodpecker working for his meal...

The gulls of Lizard Creek

2010-01-27T23:49:00.001-05:00

For a week or so, hundreds (or maybe thousands) of gulls chose our cove for their roosting spot. I took these photos early one very cold morning as they "came to life"...

Gouldian finch collage

2010-01-26T21:59:00.003-05:00

Just playing with some free collage software - fun!

When the weather turns chilly...

2009-11-06T08:24:00.003-05:00

we don't see much of our pups, literally.

Red-bellied woodpeckers eating mealworms

2009-05-06T21:48:00.009-04:00

Our resident pair of red-bellied woodpeckers are feeding babies & it doesn't take them long to go through a couple hundred mealworms...

They left a few for the bluebirds -

Lake Gaston snowman

2009-03-02T18:08:00.002-05:00

I wanted to do this when we had a couple of inches of snow in January, but the snow wasn't sticky enough. Today there was much better "snowman making" snow.

Red fox on a gray day

2009-01-06T11:34:00.008-05:00

When I first saw this red fox this morning he was standing on our dock in the drizzling rain. By the time I found my camera, snapped one useless photo (through glass, plastic & screen), then changed the dead battery, I was lucky to get any photos at all. But he didn't seem to have use of his right front leg and his left back leg, so he didn't move very quickly and he rested frequently. Of the 30 photos that I took, here are the best ...

The Ultimate Bike Lock

2008-10-12T14:36:00.002-04:00

Mealworms - not just for birds...

2008-09-23T19:01:00.003-04:00

I keep my mealworm colony in the attic over our garage. But it's not just mealworms living there. There are also a few of these 5-lined skinks keeping them company. I think of them as my clean up crew. They can't get into the trays, but they will gladly take care of any that drop on the floor.

Her name is "Liz", the same name we have for all of the lizards. The day I took these photos, I was trying to teach her to fetch. I don't think she understood the rules. I would toss her worms, but she never brought them back.

One of these things is not like the others...

2008-08-08T22:54:00.002-04:00

tree swallows

2008-08-05T22:25:00.003-04:00

I took this photo the evening that our tree swallow babies fledged. I think this is one of the parents trying to coax the last baby out of the nest.

I love Lake Gaston!

2008-07-30T16:02:00.004-04:00

View from the car window

2008-07-03T22:38:00.003-04:00

She waited while I zoomed in a little...

I took this one just before she ran away. When she got up, I noticed she was wearing a collar - what's that all about? You can barely see it in this photo - click to enlarge, if you like.

Riding shotgun

2008-06-25T23:30:00.000-04:00

Are we almost there????

No ugly shows here -

2008-06-23T23:20:00.000-04:00

I saw this sign in a laundromat & thought it was cute. It just seems so "southern".

Isn't that my toy?

2008-06-19T23:08:00.003-04:00

The cutie pie on the left is our nephew's 5 month old daughter. She has no clue how badly Pup 2 wants her toy!

Lake Gaston

2008-06-14T22:29:00.000-04:00

Early morning (at least for me)

Flying daschund ears

2008-06-11T22:15:00.005-04:00

Keil's first boat ride - he enjoyed it

and we got a kick watching his ears fly in the breeze.

Reminded us of Sister Bertrille (yes, we were alive back in the 60's)

Could they be any cuter?

2008-05-12T21:56:00.001-04:00

mallard ducklings

Crest white strips?

2008-05-10T21:44:00.000-04:00

This is Maggie, our friendly neighborhood golden lab. She has a great smile.

Not mine, of course

2008-05-09T21:30:00.002-04:00

pretty...

Passing by

2008-05-06T21:52:00.003-04:00

I'm not the only one who's enjoying this warm weather...

Flirting with danger

2008-05-05T21:11:00.005-04:00

Look at them all dressed up in their summer finery. I think they were planning their trip home - I haven't seen a loon since I took these photos last week.

common loons

We've been coughing...

2008-04-12T23:06:00.003-04:00

That floating gunk that he's swimming through is pollen - it's everywhere!

Extra large

2008-03-22T17:40:00.004-04:00

I received this photo from my brother today - his three are a little larger than our pups, but just as cuddly.

Our pups leave a little more room on the sofa for me. On the other hand, I can't use them for pillows.

Welcome to Florida!

2008-03-04T21:51:00.002-05:00

I took these photos when we drove to Florida a few weeks ago. This was our first stop just inside the Florida border. I haven't seen boat-tailed grackles since we left Florida last year. Haven't missed them too much.

Anticipation

2008-03-03T20:53:00.002-05:00

Our pups on the right, cousin Kiel (long-haired dachshund) on the left - may we please have some of your snack???

Yum!

2008-03-02T21:25:00.006-05:00

A little meat...

Then some Zick dough for dessert...

Why is that the little ones take the biggest pieces?

Double-decker squirrels

2008-02-28T22:28:00.000-05:00

Beach art - Don Pedro Island

2008-02-27T21:23:00.005-05:00

On our recent Florida vacation, my husband & I took a long, long, long walk on the beach at Don Pedro Island. Here's some of the "artwork" we saw along the way...

The journey is half the fun...

2008-02-26T21:05:00.002-05:00

Mention the word "ride" around our pups & they practically fly into the car. It's amusing to me that they have no idea where they will end up - a three mile trip to the post office or 650 miles to Aunt Bev's in Florida - doesn't matter to them. Ahhh, life is good!

Florida scrub jay - close up!

2008-02-25T18:13:00.005-05:00

After a couple of years of saying "we should go see the scrub jays", we finally did it. We were told that the place to see them was at Oscar Scherer State Park, near Sarasota Florida. So on the way to my sister's house on Don Pedro Island, we took a little detour. We asked the gate attendant where we could find some scrub jays. She told us to drive through to the last parking lot, then follow the yellow trail. She said we probably wouldn't have to walk very far down the trail to see some. That was an understatement. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we heard them and saw a few flying around. I took a few photos of them drinking from a small creek, then we headed down the trail.

The park's brochure said not to feed the wildlife, but it was obvious that not everyone obeyed that rule. These birds were downright tame! My husband held out his empty hand and 2 jays fluttered inches above it to see if he was offering any food.

Florida scrub jays are listed as a "threatened species", but it was obvious that they didn't "feel threatened" by us! This guy perched about 2 feet away from my camera lens and posed for me like a perfect little bird model...

Florida scrub jays

A new home for Allie

2008-02-18T09:00:00.001-05:00

Our neighbors' Sheltie passsed away last summer. And from these dog lovers we've been hearing "we'll get another Sheltie someday, but we're not ready for another dog yet". So we were surprised to see a dog in the back of their car as they drove in their driveway last week. Check her out - definitely not a Sheltie! She's a sweet stray that had been hanging around their church for a couple of weeks. Now she has a great home. I love happy endings!

They'll probably return soon ...

2008-02-17T13:16:00.003-05:00

I have a spare memory card for my camera which I rarely use. When I needed it recently, I found it was full of images taken last summer. Here's a sample -

A turkey vulture - for Lynne???

2008-02-07T20:13:00.000-05:00

My BIGBY 2008 list is up to 37 species, but until yesterday, the turkey vulture was conspicuously absent from my list. Sure, I'd see them soaring while I was driving, but that doesn't count for BIGBY. Yesterday we finally saw some soaring while we were walking. Susan's post about vultures last week was for Lynne. Does Lynne like vultures? I didn't know that about her, but if so, this post is for her too!

I took this photo last summer - click to enlarge the photo & check out that hole in the top of his beak. I think I could hook my pup's leash to that!

Road trip

2008-01-30T12:07:00.000-05:00

Driving up Rt. 95 through Virginia, this view always catches me by surprise. It's the National Museum of the Marine Corps, but it looks like the building tipped over.

We drove up to Washington DC to watch my husband's granddaughter play in a volleyball tournament. She's the pretty one with the long legs and long dark hair. Yes, I know, that describes the everyone on the team.

Here she is serving...

This is the closest they came to winning any of their games -

I took tons of photos of blurry motion which I won't post. Good thing she stood still for at least one photo with the team mascot.

Lunch!

2008-01-25T22:14:00.000-05:00

Every morning our birds fly in for their daily ration of mealworms and Zick dough. This afternoon was clear & sunny - perfect for photos, so I put out a second serving to draw them in. The pine warblers and bluebirds always show up first.

Are those mealworms down there?

I thought so!

I love this one - it looks like I tossed a worm to him and he caught it...

As usual, the titmice and wrens were forced to wait until the bluebirds left.

Pine siskin

2008-01-23T21:28:00.000-05:00

Our home was built in the 1960s as a summer lake house. It has a very high ceiling in the living room, lots of glass and apparently not much insulation. In an effort to keep the house a little warmer for the winter, we've covered our sliding glass doors with plastic - you know the kind they sell at Lowe's that you tape up, then shrink with a hair dryer until it's "crystal clear". Well, it's not crystal clear as you can tell by the cedar waxwing photos in my previous post.

For days I've been trying to take photos of the few pine siskins that hang out with the flocks of goldfinches at our feeders. For days, I've taken a lot of blurry photos through that layer of glass and plastic.

This morning I figured I was in luck. The door of our screen room had blown open and a pine siskin had flown inside and couldn't seem to find his way out. Camera! Time for some nice clear close up photos!

Hold still...

Hold still... (Click on the photo below to enlarge and you'll see he looks quite "ghostly" here with a transparent head.)

A little better...

Thank you!

What we've been missing...

2008-01-15T20:51:00.000-05:00

Ten years ago we moved from upstate NY to North Carolina, but this is the first winter that we didn't head even farther south to Florida. We're really enjoying the winter here, and the wild birds love having us here to put out mealworms, Zick dough & sunflower seeds. Last week this little flock of cedar waxwings paid us a visit. Prior to this, I'd only seen waxwings at Cape May and my husband had never seen them.

Just 4 feet from our bubbling bird bath, they preferred to drink from a tiny puddle on our deck railing.

cedar waxwings

flames

2008-01-01T21:10:00.000-05:00

Nothing better than a little fire on a cold night...

but it looks like somebody is in the fire - spooky!

BIGBYing 2008

2007-12-30T20:44:00.000-05:00

Most Sundays I keep a tally of the birds that I see at our home and I enter the info in eBird. My rules for this count are that I must see or hear the birds while standing somewhere on our property (1 wooded acre & a dock on Lake Gaston).

For 2008 I'll be expanding my count territory as per the rules of BIGBY, Big Green Big Year - birding without creating carbon emissions. I first read about this on Laura Erickson's blog, then again on Delia's blog. I signed up for the self-propelled BIGBY, which allows the use of a bicycle or a canoe. I love the idea of this - so low-key - perfect for the gal who does most of her winter birding from the hot-tub on the deck. OK, maybe the hot tub is not so green, but in our defense, we keep the heat turned down in the winter & almost never run air-conditioning during our steamy North Carolina summers.

Lil Shirl - memories...

2007-12-29T16:03:00.000-05:00

This is Lil Shirl, a baby northern flicker that we rescued from the beak of a crow a few years ago.

We had no way to get her back to her nest - a hole in a dead tree, 30 feet high. We nailed a box to the same tree and put her in it, hoping Mom & Dad would feed her. It didn't work. After a few hours of watching Mom and Dad fly in to feed her siblings, but ignore her, we brought her into our home.

I wasn't a licensed bird rehabber at the time (working on that now), but I do have a lot of experience hand feeding my own baby finches. And I do have an NC Wildlife permit to rehabilitate small mammals, so let's just pretend that she has fur instead of feathers, shall we?

She was easy to feed and grew like a weed. We cut down a couple of trees, brought them into our screen room, and she was right at home.

She would join us for dinner...

Hey, this stuff doesn't look half-bad!

A few weeks later, her siblings emerged from their nest and I decided it was time to set her free. Here she is, outside of the screen room, but not too anxious to go anywhere.

Finally she left my husband's sleeve, hopped to the ground, ate 100 ants in a matter of seconds and I knew she would be fine. We have lots of ants! She climbed a tree and flew away without a backward glance.

Oh, but she came back - again & again over the next month. She liked to hang out with us and she loved the mealworms that we fed her. She was a very sweet bird with very sharp claws!

Our screen room has a plexiglass roof. Here she is looking down through at us. Hey, where are my mealworms?

Northern flicker

Finch Friday

2007-12-28T20:22:00.000-05:00

For the season...

society finches

A Christmas visitor

2007-12-22T22:50:00.000-05:00

Mommy, I'm not really sure about this...maybe you should put down the camera and pick me up!

Tall hair

2007-12-21T23:08:00.001-05:00

Savannah & Sage -

Hairstyles have sure changed since I was a teen...

Reminds me of Cindy Lou Who ...

2007-12-18T20:30:00.000-05:00

During the non-Christmas season, we limit Pup2 to three toys at a time. So she really loves it when I bring out her sack of Christmas toys...

OK, I got it off the table...

Look at all this stuff!!!

I think there may be one more in here...

Yep...

I knew it!

Finch Friday

2007-12-14T22:05:00.000-05:00

This is why they're called society finches - the more the merrier and the closer the better...

society finches

Passing through

2007-12-09T23:14:00.000-05:00

Amazing that there are no collisions!

Canada geese

My petunia plant in December

2007-12-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

The plant doesn't look very good, but there are still some pretty blossoms...

Finch Friday

2007-12-07T23:48:00.000-05:00

If you want to take twice as long to accomplish a task, just let a pet help...

My beautiful female gouldian finch, Pippa, a few years ago. Gone now, much missed.

gouldian finches

Lake Gaston sunset

2007-12-01T23:53:00.000-05:00

View this evening from Eaton's Ferry Bridge...

Lake Gasston

Finch Friday

2007-11-30T21:26:00.000-05:00

We were working on a project in the aviary this afternoon & as always, my curious little finches came to investigate the "new furniture" in their room...

Hmmm, what's this thing???

Photon didn't join them - he just posed pretty for me...

gouldian finches

Osprey nesting platform

2007-11-25T19:53:00.000-05:00

We took advantage of our guests and put up the osprey platform last Tuesday. My husband had a whole system of attached ropes to help us raise it and to keep it from going too far, but it turned out that the ropes weren't necessary. His tall & strong son-in-law was able to raise it with very little help.

Ready & waiting...

Finch Friday

2007-11-23T19:11:00.000-05:00

Time for some finches in a Christmas setting. This photo is a few years old. Daytona, who passed away last year, was the first gouldian finch that I ever hand-fed. Taffy is on the left. He's one of my tame society finches. He's living in the aviary now & doing great.

tame finches

A happy & WARM Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T22:40:00.000-05:00

Always fun to have the kids visit...

Extra nice when November weather is warm enough for jetskis & boats...

Diamonds and Ducks

2007-11-20T22:19:00.000-05:00

Pretty...

Mealworms for sale

2007-11-18T21:44:00.001-05:00

And now a word from our sponsor: my college student nephew that lives with us has expanded my mealworm colony into a business: NCMealworms.com. We now have hundreds of thousands of mealworms that are just waiting to fill the tummies of your favorite wild birds. So if you need mealworms, we would really appreciate your business. Our website accepts Mastercard, Visa, AMEX, or Paypal.

This is my nephew Patrick - he bought his first car a few months ago, a 1994 Nissan Sentra. Any mealworm business that you could pass his way would help him pay his car insurance bills.

mealworms

Finch Friday (yes, on Saturday again)

2007-11-17T22:07:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to taking some updated photos of last week's featured finches, those gouldian finch babies that I hand-fed from day 1. The following photo shows ,my favorite (yes, this mommy has a favorite) of the babies. His name is Duncan & he really is pretty special. He weaned at 4 weeks old (probably a record) - a full 2 weeks earlier than the other three. And if that wasn't cool enough, this baby who had never been fed by a bird, started feeding his less independent siblings. In the past, I've seen a couple of juvenile gouldians help their parents feed newly fledged babies of the next clutch, but by that time, those juvie helpers were at least 10 weeks old. Little Duncan was only 5 weeks old when he began to help feed his brothers and sisters of the same age. Here he is, just starting to get some of his adult colors:

Here are his two brothers. Speck is on the left. On the right is Color Boy - so named because he has more of his adult colors than the others, unfortunately not viewable here since he's not facing the camera.

gouldian finches

A dog for all seasons

2007-11-15T22:13:00.000-05:00

Once the daytime temperatures dip below 70F, our pups don't have much desire to go outside. A leash in my hand will send them "deeper undercover".

So it's nice to have a neighborhood black lab join us for our morning walks. The cold doesn't bother him. His name is Meany. He doesn't live up to his name.

Making do

2007-11-11T18:15:00.000-05:00

In her post, Sharon was lamenting the fact that she had no way to cook up sulphur shelf mushrooms with just a coffee pot in her hotel room. Maybe so, but I did make use of my motel room coffee maker in Cape May to reheat my delicious leftover pasta primavera.

Finch Friday

2007-11-10T22:31:00.000-05:00

Lately it seems that photos of my gouldian finches are few & far between on this blog. So I've decided to start "Finch Friday" where I will post photos of my gouldian finches each Friday. If this sounds suspiciously similar to Somewhere in NJ's Mid-week Bunny Fix (which come to think of it, I haven't seen lately), it's because I shamelessly "borrowed" the idea from her. And try not to let the fact that my first "Finch Friday" was posted on a Saturday distract you. I will try to be more timely in future weeks. In my defense, I did upload some of the photos last night.

These are babies that I hand-raised mid-August through the end of September. The parents dutifully sat on six eggs for 14 days, then abandoned them. Gouldian finch eggs usually hatch 16-18 days after the start of incubation. Since they were so close to the hatch date, I moved the eggs to an incubator, not giving much thought to the hours I would need to spend feeding the babies if they hatched. Four of them hatched on a Friday. Here's their first baby photo -

The next day another one hatched. And then there were 5 -

I continued to feed and they continued to grow-

The little sweetie on top of the penny didn't make it to day 10.

We took a road trip over Labor Day weekend and I started to get lazy with my daily photos, so this was the last baby photo that I have.

They're almost 3 months old now & I still don't have any more photos of them. 3 boys and a girl - sweet, tame & starting to get their colors. They live in a cage in my computer room, but spend lots of time out of the cage sitting on my shoulder and yanking my hair.

the lava lamp

2007-11-08T20:55:00.000-05:00

I am so easily entertained! (and I have no idea why most of the photos are crooked.)

lava lamp

Our next project - Osprey Platform

2007-11-06T13:17:00.000-05:00

Here's a photo of my husband getting started on the next project on his crazy wife's wish list. Yes honey, we do need an osprey nesting platform... I searched the web for plans and we decided to go with those of the NJ Dept of Fish & Wildlife. Our progress so far - choosing a location and buying the materials.

osprey nesting platform

Sunset Beach, Cape May NJ

2007-11-03T23:40:00.000-04:00

I returned home from Cape May almost a week ago, but nobody has ever accused my blog of being timely, so, here are a couple more photos from the trip. After 2 days of rain, I was practically giddy when the sun started shining on Saturday evening. After our birding and beach walk at Cape May State Park, Laura suggested that I head to Sunset Beach to watch the sunset. Beautiful...

Great black-backed gull

2007-11-01T19:56:00.000-04:00

I drove across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge last week on my way to Cape May. Sitting on the top of almost every street lamp was a great black-backed gull - pretty cool! Sometimes I'm able to get some pretty good photos by pointing the camera out the passenger window as my husband is driving. But this trip I was alone and it was pouring rain, so I didn't get any photos of the gulls on the lamp posts. But I did get some photos a few days later from the Cape May Ferry.

In flight...

and enjoying a bubble bath...

Cape May State Park

2007-10-27T22:40:00.000-04:00

I'm blogging with fellow bloggers Susan, Delia and Laura at Cabana's bar in Cape May. No wireless at our inn unless we sit outside & it's cold and late. So we thought we would be dorks and take our laptops to a bar.

I'm guessing that they will be posting photos of birds, so I thought I'd go a different route - kids, a dog and a crab -

Sleepy Hollow

2007-10-20T23:49:00.000-04:00

Notice the cobwebs across the entrance. Empty for the past two years, but that's now how it used to be. For four years in a row a pair of bluebirds raised multiple clutches in this house. It hangs from a shepherd's hook on our deck and we loved watching the parents and the babies. Maybe it's our shabby duct tape repair job on the roof that caused them to move to the Frank Newell bluebird house down by the lake.

Head shots

2007-10-09T23:46:00.000-04:00

Native to Asia, but I took these photos at Sylvan Heights Waterfowl Park -

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

2007-10-08T23:05:00.000-04:00

A boat ride with friends...

This was Travis's 2nd boat ride. On his first ride (the previous evening), he never stopped shaking. But he looks quite relaxed here -

My husband's fan club

2007-10-05T23:29:00.000-04:00

OK, I'm his biggest fan, but he has some groupies...

Here's our favorite girl - we call her "Beakless"

Not totally beakless, but if you click this photo to enlarge, you can see that she is missing a piece of her bill, making her appear that her tongue is sticking out.

I like how the next photo turned out - the pink is a geranium flower on our dock.

The turtle pad

2007-10-01T21:01:00.000-04:00

Remember that fancy turtle pad that my sister made for me?

The turtles are loving it!

Here come #4 and #5. Maybe they will fit on the pad,

but I don't think there's enough room for the geese.

Watching...

2007-09-25T13:41:00.001-04:00

One day last week, the sunlight was shining nicely on our bird-feeding-table, otherwise known as our deck railing. I thought it would be a good time to take some nice photos of the bluebirds eating mealworms. We put out mealworms daily, ring a bell, and the birds come flying in. Usually nuthatches, titmice, chickadees and 2 families of bluebirds show up within seconds of the bell ringing. For whatever reason, the Carolina wrens haven't caught on to the bell signal. Instead, they tend to check the railing all day long, just hoping that there will be worms. Often they show up just after the mealworm bowls have been emptied by the rest of the gang.

So that day I was happy to see a wren show up first,

before all the worms were gone.

Then I waited, camera ready, for the rest of the birds to show. And I waited...and waited. For the first time in my memory, the feast of mealworms lasted more than 10 minutes. I rang the bell again - no response. Then I looked up and saw this guy waiting, just 15 feet from our railing. I'm glad the bluebirds were more observant than me.

Carousel of color

2007-09-15T19:54:00.000-04:00

It's been awhile since I've posted photos of my gouldian finches, so here goes...

gouldian finches

Sugar addicts

2007-09-12T20:22:00.000-04:00

Day ...

and night...

This is what happens if I forget to bring in the feeders at night. I don't mind too much if they just drink from them, but sometimes they chew off the plastic yellow flowers.

away from home

2007-09-10T19:52:00.000-04:00

Mommy, I'm a little homesick...

but I really like Aunt Gail's polka dot pillows.

chihuahua

Gray fox

2007-08-23T21:02:00.000-04:00

seen under our bird feeders, in the middle of the afternoon...

What is this bird?

2007-08-21T21:05:00.000-04:00

I'm having trouble identifying this bird that showed up on our deck yesterday. Can somebody help?

Relaxing at Lake Gaston

2007-08-21T07:03:00.000-04:00

My young friend Stephanie (on the left in the photo below) and her family have been visiting us every summer here at Lake Gaston since she was 3 years old. Through the years we have pulled them for miles and miles on a tube.

Now Steph and family have their own place down here and their own boat, which is much faster than ours. Our old pontoon boat could never give them a tube ride like this...

They're down!

Wait, is somebody still holding on???

Not anymore!

the view from below

2007-08-10T16:37:00.000-04:00

Hey, what's going on up there?

Oh, never mind...

lucky!

2007-08-07T16:41:00.000-04:00

Found this while walking the pups yesterday - see #1 of my 8 random things post

Bad hair day

2007-08-04T23:16:00.000-04:00

I mean bad feather day. Here's Bug...

after this...

bluebird

Eight random things and a cute photo

2007-07-31T12:41:00.000-04:00

Better late than never, I suppose. I've been tagged by Delia for the eight random facts meme, so here goes:

1. I have a weird talent for finding four-leaf clovers. As a child I found hundreds of them. Not so much lately, possibly because I don't spend enough time wandering around outside, or maybe it's because I spend more of my outdoor time looking up rather than down.

2. I'd rather eat cookie dough than baked cookies.

3. My husband is 20 years older than me. When he retired, I retired, which was 3 weeks before my mother retired.

4. I may be the only Democrat in our church.

5.I have a masters degree in computer science, but I only recently learned how to turn my cell phone to "vibrate".

6. My mother is the nicest person in the world. Anybody who knows her will agree. Actually there may be a tie between her and my husband.

7. I used to drive sports cars. Now I love my minivan - great for transporting pets.

8. I just read on Mary's blog that she, Delia, Sharon, Laura, Susan, and Lynne are all going to the Cape May bird festival in October, so I'm going to go too. Can't wait to meet all of them!

I'm not going to tag anyone else for the meme. I'm so late doing it, I'm sure most of my favorite bloggers have already been tagged.

Now for the cute photo - our church hosted the community Vacation Bible School a couple of weeks ago. Temps were in the 90s every day that week. I had it easy - an indoor job helping with crafts. The snack & recreation leaders had it rougher working outdoors. Here's a photo of some of the kids finding shade wherever they could...

cooling off

2007-07-28T21:02:00.000-04:00

A favorite place

for these girls...

and these girls...