Bird latest

Thursday evening I took Calvin to see the babies. He hadn't seen them up close. All fine. After a quick peek, I put him in his swing. As he was swinging the baby robins bailed out of the nest. They had apparently had enough of our being so close. They fluttered to the ground and did kind of a hop-fly action across the grass. Every other (adult) robin in the neighborhood starting screaming and dive-bombing us! It was amazing how much noise they could make. And the feathers on top of their heads flew up. Pretty cool if it weren't so unnerving. I got Calvin out of the swing and went to scoop up the babies and put them in their nest. They each tried to nibble on my hand, but I got them back in the nest. Today the nest was empty, but I am pretty sure I saw them lurking in the apple trees. I'm going to check right before sundown and see if they are still keeping residence.

Awesome stamp

I was going through some stamps I got from a friend this week and found this.

It was issued by Belgium in 1986 to mark "100 years of the beer." Or more accurately an anniversary of the nation's beer industry. Nice.

Funny, I can look at this over and again and not feel the need to run out and drink a beer. But you won't ever see anything similar on a US stamp. Pity that. Come to think of it though, I think there was a stamp depicting a cask being destroyed on a stamp commemorating the prohibition era. Spilled alcohol we can put on a stamp. More's the pity.

Prost!

Science art

Eli has been studying various systems of the human body this month: circulatory, cardiovascular, muscular, etc. Somehow he had some free time at school this week and came up with this.

He says it consists of the cardiovascular system, the circulatory system, the respiratory system and the nervous system.

The green thing at the bottom is a little robot-thingy that he drew as a bonus.

Beans and peas and carrots! Oh my!

Nine days later everything has popped through the surface! Above are peas, and below are beans. The carrots are also up, but the sprouts are so fine it's hard to see them against the dirt. But they are there, as are the melon sprouts. We'll string line this weekend so all the bean and pea plants will have places to climb. Libby also planted some nasturtium seed along the chicken wire fence. Those will be coming along soon. More later...

Bird update

The nestlings are covered with feathers. They puffed up when they saw me invade their space just now. Momma is still keeping guard. They seem to be doing well. I found this nifty site that describes baby bird development using robins as examples. Wish I had thought to get more pictures earlier on.

Rainy weather

We've had rainy weather the past few days, mostly short, strong storms in the evenings. Today it rained off-and-on for most of the day. By late afternoon, though, it looked like things were going to clear off.

I was leaving to pick-up Eli from Scouts when I noticed this portion of the sky. This hill is south of Interstate 40 from us, and a couple of friends live up there. It's no more than 1/2 mile away. Also, there is a water tank about halfway up the hill. It's hard to tell but fog has settled over the topmost portion of the hill, lopping off maybe 50 feet of elevation. With clear blue skies, just a little further up. The big tree on the left is in our yard.

Eli's Scout troop meets in Montreat, a mere 2 minutes up the valley. By the time I got back, this was the view of the same spot. The clear sky is gone, and the hill across the way is completely socked in. The temperature has dropped quite a bit also. The same tree from our yard, but to give a sense of perspective, the line of trees that borders State Street as it heads toward Ridgecrest. That tree line is about 100 feet from the house. So, as you can tell, the mountain is gone!

I'll try to remember to get a picture in the morning if, as I guess, things are even more thoroughly shrouded in fog.

Click on the images to get a closer look; you should also be able to zoom in. This will help see the detail of the fog on the mountain-top in the first picture.

Cutey

Calvin was heading out into the yard to play a few days ago. It was cloudy, and damp after a shower, I think. Anyway, he came to the door attired thusly. That's Eli's cap on his head and my sandals on his feet (on the wrong feet). But Calvin thought he was something else!