Please, Oh Please, Just Butt Out!!!

I don't know if you are aware or not, but women don't get along as well together as men do.  The same goes with the female creatures on this ranch.  We have a male rabbit, one gelding pony, two male neutered cats, one male pot bellied pig, and a couple of roosters.  Everything else is female.  There is a female donkey, two female miniature horses, three female horses, two female pot bellied pigs, two female dogs, two female ducks, a passel of hens, and one female miniature goat.  Every single female animal on this little ranch is consumed with jealousy!  My attention to each animal is highly sought after, (I do all the feeding, the sweet talking, and the petting here.)  There are all kinds of little actions they use to show just how jealous they are for my attention, but today, I got so mad at one of them...  She just kept butting in...

I was trying to get some video of all the magnificent wild birds that make their home here every winter.  I put chicken scratch out on the old antique buck board wagon, and a little fountain that keeps fresh water bubbling out.  I had put out a feed sack so the bird seed would not fall through the cracks, positioned my camera just right, and turned on the camera to catch a little close up video of the wild birds feeding.  You can hear the cardinals fussing, and me futilely begging for co-operation.  As per usual, Patti, our Australian Cattle Dog, ran through the woods scaring whatever birds that were feeding she off the ground and out of the area.  She is very clever and will watch where I am staring, or pointing my camera, and then take off chasing the object of my attention away.  Then another of the green eyed girls decided she would be the star of my wild bird video, and she hopped up onto my carefully prepared site...

        

Birds From My Virginia Trip Last Spring

Many have not seen these, and I found a bird photography 

community on Google+ I want to share them with!

How Many Wild Birds Do You See?

There are two...

How Many Wild Birds Do You See?

How many should you see?  Answers tomorrow!

Randy is Home, and We Are Enjoying Spring!

I have been pointing out the blue birds to him.  They are in the backyard every day playing in the water, and sitting on the utility pole.  The female is always with this little blue bird.

    

 

Just How Far Should Professional Courtesy Go Anyway?

My husband is due in tomorrow for leave, and I am "gimpy" right now.  I traded in the original knee immobilizer, and it was such an improvement. Now it just goes from above my knee about six inches to about four or five inches above my ankle, but still getting around is so hard.  When my husband comes home on leave, I want everything perfect.  So I called in my friend Juana, and she came out with her girls to help me.  I hate accepting help, but I can get anything in the middle, but nothing low, and nothing high when it comes to housekeeping right now.  I get to spend Randy's leave having surgery to repair the injured knee.  Sigh... all that said, what I am trying to convey is, I am really busy today, and don't have time for distractions, things have to get done.

 About six weeks ago, after a week of rain Austin County desperately needed,  I made a professional courtesy.  I had been cleaning the back porch when the rain started with lightning and thunder, and I just left the trash can I was using on the porch and went inside.  It rained and stormed every day for about a week.  When I went back to the task, and started to pick up the trash can, out darted a little bird.  In the trash was a beautifully constructed nest.  Of course one mother to another we immediately had an understanding, and I just left the porch, trash can and all exactly as it was and allowed her to finish her project.

 
Every day Rosie, as McKenna dubbed 

her, (she typically names everything Rosie,) toiled away getting her nest just so-so, and then I didn't seen her for a quite awhile.  I have a large window above my kitchen sink and I can observe my kingdom as I work in my kitchen doing everything from canning, cooking, and dish-washing.  Rosie and I became pretty good buds.
I admired her work ethic, and she admired mine.

 Then I saw her coming and going again, now she was bringing rollie pollies, little worms, and other delicacies.  I began hearing little cheeping from her nest.  Still I did not venture out to the porch, well actually I thought one time I would sneak out to the nursery and catch some photos, but her protests sent me back to my kitchen.

Then this morning Rosie began acting so strangely.  She started flying right smack into the kitchen window.  Flying up she would hover, staring straight at me,  fly away, only to come right back, and she was panting.  That really puzzled me.  I maintain a bird habitat, with a stream I engineered that runs into the pond so the birds will have plenty of fresh, shallow, water.  I keep feeders there as well.  This bizarre behavior continued until I realized I needed to at least try to take her water.  When I went to the back porch carefully balancing the bowl of water, she flew straight at me, turned and flew to the end of the porch, then down behind the storage container that sits about three feet from where the dryer vent exits the house.  She repeated this behavior, and then I heard the familiar cheeping from where she was dropping down by the dryer vent.

Well, here she is, Rosie's little chick, we named her Bunnie after we rescued her from the oven like area where heat from the running dryer was definitely overheating her.  She had left the nest a bit early.  Returning her was not an easy task.  As we attempted the rescue, Bunnie, as we had named her, flew off the porch.  It was a lengthy rescue effort then, because she attracted the attention of the barn cats.  (They aren't that big on dry cat food.)

After taking photos, (after all it took a lot of my time and attention to return her to the nest,) we tucked her back in and watched from the kitchen window as Rosie gave her the lecture of her life.  Each of the girls, Maria and Suzanna, wanted their picture made with Bunnie!  She won't be around long if she keeps venturing out of the safety of her nest.  I hope Rosie realizes just how busy I was, and that I only took time out to help with her wayward child out of professional courtesy, one mom to another.  We moms have to stick together.

Genesis 1:20-23
And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." And there was evening, and there was morning-the fifth day.

Job 12:7-10 - But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. 

That was an awesome little experience I would not have believed had I not experienced it, and shared it with three friends...

Our Little Cabins Are a Great Place to Enjoy a Quiet Rest

We Call This Little Cabin "The Cowboy Cabin."

 

This Is the Antique Dresser and the Stairs 

to the Two Twin Beds in the Loft.

 As You Can See They Are Air-Conditioned, 

and This One Also Has a King Size Bed!

 

There Is Also an Electric Fireplace, 

Microwave, and Refrigerator.

The Wildbirds Are Here For the Winter

 The wild birds are everywhere here at Soldier's Heart.  It's just to cold up north, and they are hanging out with me.  That's good for me, since I live in the country, my kids for the most part are grown, and my husband is in Iraq serving the country.  So I feed them and talk to them, and they really appreciate me too, in fact they fuss at me if I don't feed them before I do the horses.   Of course they like the horse feed crumbs that are left as well, but they want their own feeders filled to the brim, and hung high enough that they can eat in peace.  (Cats make them nervous.)

 I find so much peace in watching these little birds.

 This is one of the birds that frequents the pond year round.  He was really cold the day I took this picture, and has one foot drawn up under him at a to keep warmer.

 This guy got too cold, and I thought he was going to die, he was laying on his side down by the pond.  A little warm up inside and he was off  and flying.

Last is the woodpecker, who has caused the power company to have to change  out the pole... twice... just eats right through the twelve in pole.