Summer

Lisa, the Villas Girl, and I celebrated the first day of summer yesterday. She called and asked me if I'd like to take a ride to see if we could find the osprey nest she'd heard about. Of course I would.

We took the scenic route, getting there. I love being a passenger instead of driver. I get to look around more.

The ospreys are nesting on boxes placed in the wetlands fairly close to the highway. I am surprised at the proximity to traffic, but it certainly makes for easier photography. When we reached the spot, both parent birds were on the nest. When we stopped, papa got agitated and circled us the whole time we were there.. Mama continued to feed their three chicks, and I got some fairly decent pictures. Lisa's camera is better than mine, and she got some really stunning shots. I'm sure she will post some soon.

When we decided to move on, I told Lisa that we were not far from Hereford Inlet. We decided to go there before heading home.

The gardens are well established now. I think they will be lovely, as usual when they have a chance to do some more growing. Right now there are lots of lilies everywhere. There are also some hollyhocks - one of my favorite old fashioned flowers.

We also got an added surprise. Lisa started climbing the steps to the lighthouse entrance, when she said, "Is that a duck?" It was. A female mallard was walking back and forth in the garden under the steps. Lisa continued into the gift shop, and spoke to a woman there, who immediately grabbed a bag of grain and ran out to feed the duck. It seems that Mr. and Mrs. Mallard appear there every year. They never bring their babies, but one at a time shows up for a hand-out.

The duck enjoyed her meal for a while, and then walked over to a garden hose which was coiled up near the building. The woman called a gentleman to come out, and he went to the hose and turned it on, making a puddle for the duck to drink from. She was very territorial, chasing away the pigeons who tried to join the party.




We had a lovely afternoon.



As always - click on pictures to enlarge.

Random Stuff

"Firefox cannot find a server at my.yahoo.com" - and I couldn't figure it out for myself? Had to call Villas Girl, who asked me if my modem was on. Oh yeah - the modem! I'd turned it off along with the computer last night when thunder started to rumble. - Duh.

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And speaking of storms - How come we get a Weather Bureau ticker on the TV screen at 3:19pm to warn us that there is a severe storm watch in our county "until 3:30pm:? (and the sun shining brightly all afternoon) - Duh, again.

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Kitty and family are home again. She promises to try to blog soon about Cape Cod. Can't wait. Hope she adds pictures - although she's already posted a lot on Flickr. I'm always hungry for more.

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I have a crabby old lady question: Why do parents let their children scream? I don't mean yelling. Children yelling back and forth and laughing at play - that's fine with me. I mean shrill, blood curdling screams, as if they're being killed. If they're allowed to do that constantly, for no good reason, how are we supposed to know if they are really hurt or in danger? It's only certain children who seem to do it, and they're usually all in the same family.

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It's very hot. And they say hotter tomorrow. Good Lord! It's only June!

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Can you tell, it's been a quiet Sunday and I'm a little bored? I don't like being bored. It's a very uncomfortable feeling. Glad it doesn't happen often. Maybe I'll just play another game of mah jongg.

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Still 218 more days.

MORE OF THIS AND THAT

I like this new scheduling we can do with our blog posts. It lets me set up Sky Watch Friday ahead of time.




Do hope you're considering a post on something to do with Human Rights on the 15th.





Here's a thought. It's been making the rounds of emails for a while now and it seems to make sense to me. If we're really concerned about the price of gas - just stop buying it from the biggest producers - and they would be Exxon/Mobil. Go elsewhere for it. If enough of us did that to the Big Guys - it could hurt them enough that they might lower prices.



Here's a good one. Villas Girl, as you may have figured out, is sort of like a second daughter to me - Well, I guess that should be a fourth daughter. She kind of looks out for me, which I do appreciate. Now she's complaining because my son repaired my car too well. She used to be able to hear my car when I went off somewhere or when I came home. Now she doesn't hear me. I'm driving The Stealth-Mobile!



My son was here the other night, putting in my a/c. As he was leaving, he got dive-bombed by one of my hummingbirds who had headed for the feeder, but was side-tracked by Joe standing too near it. He went buzzing past his ear, then swooped off. It was pretty comical.



The seeds I threw into the little extension of my garden are sprouting faster than I would have believed. I will have wild flowers for my butterflies in no time at all. And this time I do not have my neighbors nasty cats using the garden for a litter box, because I laid wire mesh over the whole thing. The plants can grow right through it, and the cats can't dig. In the past I've tried hot pepper and every other suggested deterrent, but nothing has worked. For now, my only complaint about the cats is that they continually walk through mud and then over my car, leaving their paw prints over the hood, windows, top and trunk. I've about given up trying to keep it anywhere near clean.


If I keep posting odd little things like this, I'm going to have to find a better title than "This and That" aren't I?






Well, at least today I managed a decent photo of one of my hummers.

Googling

Villas Girl,

First - aren't these lovely? My friend, Lisa, the Villas Girl, sent them to me by email this morning.


What a nice way to start my day! Thank you, Lisa.

And check out her blog to see what else she did for me.

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Have you ever Googled yourself? I'm sure most people have.

Some time ago I decided to see if I could find a high school friend with whom I had lost touch. She and her husband had moved repeatedly all over the U.S. This woman has what I think of as an unusual name, and her husband's name is definitely odd, so I didn't think it would present much of a problem. How wrong can you get? I found six women with the same name and their husband's names were also the same. Since I didn't want to contact six people and freak them out be asking all kinds of questions, I gave up the search.

But this started me wondering how easy it would be for someone to find me. Believe me, this can get scary. I found me, with many entries for Flickr and blogs. But I couldn't believe how many other people there were with my name. There is a woman who is involved with the Girl Scouts, one who is a notary down in Boca Raton, another entry in Spanish that I never did figure out. And finally, the scary one. This gal not only has my name, but lives in the same general area. And she has been investigated concerning the deaths of two small children. Do you think if any old friend decides to look me up, they just might decide to back off?

While I was at it, I decided to Google my children. They were pretty interesting. For two of them there was nothing about them personally, but all sorts of nice other people with their names. One of the others did have an entry for herself. Then the fourth, Kitty, has dozens of entries concerning her writing, poetry, hosting on NPR, etc. I didn't even finish reading hers to find out if there was anyone else with her name.

It can be a fun way to waste some time. Try it, you might be surprised at what you find. But if you're looking for a long-lost friend, don't believe everything you read.