Baby Robins 2

More baby robin progress.  Here's Mom with the Pushy Big Kid. Baby birds obviously grow into their bills, like puppies grow into their feet.

Family dinner time.  Notice the Pushy Big Kid, the middle-sized baby, and a third baby that looks a little puny.

Please, can we have some more?

Mom, we're still hungry!

MOM!!!!

I'm a little concerned about Puny, who seems much less active in the nest.

(I just looked at last year's pictures. These robins nested three full weeks ahead of last year.)

Baby robins!!

Well, the time has come, and these pictures are not wonderful. I've been fooling around with my "camera studio" (stepladder, footstool, books of various thicknesses, whether the ceiling light should be on. etc). I want to get the camera positioned so that I don't have to frame the picture every time, which is about how long it takes Mama Robin to fly away. I forgot that I was taking pictures through glass and plexiglass, hence the reflections.  Then I opened the house door, so there's only the plexiglass on the storm door to worry about.

Mama has been perched higher on the nest the last few days and I thought she was setting on something bigger than eggs. 

Then I saw Mama peering into the nest in a new way. 

Then she got curious about something (and promptly flew away). 

Then she returned with something in her mouth. No doubt delicious. The camera wasn't ready and she flew away.  But the little tummies weren't satisfied!!

Mother's Day

(An edit about the photos: On my computer, you can't enlarge the pictures unless you are using Internet Explorer.  They won't enlarge in Firefox.  YMMV.)

It was a lovely Mother's Day after all.  I had Sunday Morning Coffee with Thelma, Betsy K. and Beth, feeling low. We bring one another a potted plant on Mother's Day.  I didn't have plants to bring because yesterday's plant-digging included 3 large, well-established hostas (which is the same as digging 40 lb rocks). I severely pulled a muscle in my already none-too-happy back and spent the better part of the afternoon (when I had planned to get the plants) shuttling between the hottest shower I could stand and the very large cold pack that lives in the freezer.  It looks like 3 Advil 3 or 4 times a day will go on for a second week, maybe more.

Then I realized that after the generator goes in this Friday I will have to find a place for the plants I dug up, and I know I will have leftovers.  So I will take those plants to our next coffee.  Thus, in a better frame of mind, I left Thelma's, stopped briefly for groceries, and set off to see my friends George and Gail Africa in Plainfield, because today is opening day of their Vermont Flower Farm.  I see George regularly on FB, but it's always good to see your friends in person.  I managed to limit my buying to three plants, and then on the way back followed a sign down a back road to a farm that was selling plants and seedlings of all sorts, including (ta-daah) well-started delphinium, thyme, and rosemary.  The delphiniums will replace the ones that died in the winter (with the roses) and the thyme and rosemary will replace the ones that I tried to winter over in the house, unsuccessfully.

Seeing friends and buying plants is a nice way to spend a few Mother's Day hours, and I came home to put away the groceries and then plant the newcomers. I opened the base cabinet door to the trash can and saw a mouse. A very small mouse. And obviously a baby mouse because it stared back at me. Ever since Ernie died, I have been bothered by mice, and mouse bait is not doing the job.  For those who want to know, this is the White-Footed Mouse, not to be confused with the Deer Mouse, which is brown.  I looked it up.

 (This is not a picture of Mousie in the base cabinet. Who runs for a camera when a mouse is in your base cabinet? This is Mousie post-capture.)

I quietly closed the base cabinet door and  looked for a container. The only thing close at hand that wasn't a saucepan (yucky thought) was a plastic nursery pot on the porch that had some rocks and a fair amount of dirt in it, and was deep enough that Mousie couldn't climb out.  Armed with the pot and a whisk broom, I opened the cupboard door quietly.  I was truly astonished to find that Mousie was still there, and had retreated behind the Bon Ami cleanser.  I slowly moved the cleanser and Mousie retreated to a spot between the side of the cabinet and the small shallow box containing Windex, Fantastik, the floor cleaner, etc.  I slowly moved the shallow box and Mousie began to get worried.  I carefully put the plastic nursery pot in a strategic location at the bottom edge of the cabinet and moved the whisk broom toward Mousie.

The whisk broom started Mousie in the right direction.  Unfortunately, the whisk broom has tiny bristles (the better to sweep with).  The bristles caught in Mousie's fur and instead of being whisked into the pot, Mousie was whisked onto the kitchen floor.

A mature mouse would have disappeared in an instant.  Mousie led me on a chase across the kitchen floor and behind the computer room door, with me unsuccessfully wielding the whisk broom.  I cornered Mousie behind the door, Mousie sniffed the whisk broom and climbed aboard, and  was unceremoniously dumped into the pot. Needless to say, there was a fair amount of nursery pot dirt and a couple of rocks on the floor by this time. 

Outside we went to a corner of the yard.  I put the pot down and Mousie just hunkered down and sat.  I went indoors to get the camera and when I came back out Mousie was still there.  So I took the pictures posted here, of Mousie in the pot. The pix are a little out of focus because I didn't have time to figure out depth of field, etc.  Then I moved the rocks (the largest, which Mousie is not on, is only 4" long), and Mousie went out one of the drain holes and sat in the grass.  That last picture is REALLY out of focus but you can see how tiny the mouse was.

Some readers will suggest that I should've whacked Mousie with a shovel, and considering that mice are disease carriers, and are vectors for Lyme Disease, I guess I should have.  But Mousie sat in the base cabinet and looked at me.  Couldn't do it.  Couldn't even think of doing it.

I'll sweep up the dirt, but before the floor gets washed, I must get those new plants in the ground. We just had a thunderstorm, the ground is soaked, there's no better time.  The floor gets washed later ...

SPRING!! Look quick or it may turn into summer

Blog posts on rainy days are pretty dispiriting, and there have been lots of rainy days. But today is a perfect day - bright, sunny, temps in the low 70s, projects to do - time for a blog update.  Although two weeks ago we had a hard frost, which destroyed the daffodils that had bloomed, we think Spring is really here.  This was April 29.  (Oh wow! If you click on a picture, you'll get an album, like on FB. And the pix look great.)

This was today.

On to Mama Robin.  She has been sitting diligently, but we're still waiting.

She is very skittish. Friday early evening and this morning I mowed the lawn (Spring is here for sure), and she flew in and out of the nest, perching on the fence or in the box elder tree, fussing and fuming the whole time.  But before that, we had rain, and cold, very windy days. When it was cold, she really hunkered down and snuggled into that nest!! I've already said that I had to take down the yellow tape because its flapping frightened her.  Well, the wind whipping the daylily leaves around had her really worried.  Here she is, looking left and right and wondering if the leaves are really coming for HER. 

Next Friday I'm having a whole-house generator installed.  A very expensive investment, and perilously close to making a silk purse out of a sow's ear.  But it will protect the house, the pipes and the well from a long power outage in winter - over Christmas break, for instance, when I'm away for several days, or for a long storm-related outage (heaven forbid). I have to get out to the fence and lift the plants  that I don't want destroyed by some digging tool.  The violets and spring bulbs and forget-me-nots willl come back, but not the gorgeous hostas and astilbes and columbines that I've given TLC to for quite a while.  So today is the day for serious digging.  I borrowed a small water tub from Berta to keep them all in.

Mowing the lawn gave me a look at what really happened to the back yard after the last stream bank work.  Stan Wheatley made a long swale so that if water comes over the bank way in the  bank,  most of it will drain back into the brook instead of into the house.  But this means the back yard almost has a terrace on it, and it will be hard to mow.  Looks weird, too.  Be careful if you come to visit.  You may be put to work extending the vegetable garden.

Friday I was surprised by wonderful loving Mother's Day gifts.  Alice sent me note cards and memo pads with cute, colorful flower sketches. How Alice finds such distinctive and thoughtful gifts - always just right for me and my life and my tastes - always astonishes me.

Tim and Mike (da Boyz) sent a beautiful box of flowers to the office, so several of my colleagues folllowed our custodian as he delivered the box ("Who's getting flowers??") and there was oohing and ahhing. They're just beautiful. I loved being able to enjoy them over this whole weekend.  And I loved having my "mom-ness" called out.

Tim and Danielle's wedding anniversary was this month, and Alice and Pat's, and now it's Mothers Day weekend.  May is a month full of love. (Not that September isn't, too.)

The 2012 Robin watch begins



 Well, I had my doubts.  The robins started a nest, a truly sloppy, crappy nest of long skinny pieces of stems and leaves that blew off the eaves boards.  Then a nest appeared around April 15 (and I don't know how the babies will fit in that corner) that they decided was going to be home.  It took a while to finish (new parents??)

Mama started nesting around the 18th, so I got "crime scene tape" from our custodian and put it across the door to remind myself and delivery people not to use that door.  She flew away on the 22d and did not return. Such disappointment!!  So yesterday morning (Thursday) I took the tape down. When I got home from work, she was on the nest.  The flapping tape must have scared her.  And I have to park close to the road or the car scares her off. 

I am now in robin-watching mode. Many lessons were learned last year.
The watch length is about 2-3 weeks.

Robins need a security blanket: I have taped a shawl across the lower part of the front door window so I can walk about in the living room and not have her fly away.

Pictures of birds require a very steady hand: I set up the 6' stepladder again so I can pictures leaning at least one arm on a ladder step.

Today I read the camera manual and discovered that early morning low-light pix need to be taken with the aperture set at 1/25.

Fuzzy but properly exposed.  I was steady. She moved her head.

Watch for updates!

Spring is either here or on the way

Note to self: change the blog picture from winter to spring!

In mid-March we had a couple of days in the 80s - amazing weather for March.  Then for two weeks it was really really cold and snowy - but I was on vacation in Florida visiting Tim and Danielle and getting a lot of beach time - which meant that when I returned to Vermont I looked healthy again..

Now it's really trying to be spring here.  The trees are not leafing out yet but the forsythia is blooming in Norwich, some early flowering trees are in bloom in Barre, and some early spring bulbs are out in the yard.  With luck it will rain all weekend - we need rain very very badly.  January through March was the driest first quarter in 40 years.

But the big news is that the robins are back.  They are making their nest by the front door, like last year.  It is the sloppiest, messiest nest I've ever seen, or else it's modern art.  So the front door is off limits once again. 

Details and pictures to follow.

An extraordinary movie for you

Today you might say “Spring is here”, but in Vermont, before Spring comes mud season. That’s reality and there was plenty of mud underfoot, but today was a beautiful warm day. The snow and ice are melting away. The sun was warm and I spent the late afternoon on the porch, reading the Sunday paper and knitting.
***

It goes without saying, IMHO, that everyone should love Shakespeare. So if you love Shakespeare as you should, and dramatic movies, and extraordinary acting, here’s a Netflix movie for you: King Lear, in Russian, released in 1971, directed by Grigori Kozintsev, with a screenplay/translation by Boris Pasternak and a score by Dmitri Shostakovich – two other giants of the arts in the Soviet Union. I kid you not. This is not a stage-director's Lear. This is a movie-maker’s Lear, in a bleak and ugly setting surrounding a play full of bleak and ugly relationships. Kozintsev survived Stalin’s regime, noted for the Gulags, the purging of artists and intellectuals, and Stalin’s egomania and ruthlessness. The movie certainly draws some parallels to those days.

If you don’t know the play you need to read a basic plot outline of it – Wikipedia would be your best choice – or you will be lost (thanks to inadequate sub-titling, and an assumption that a viewer will know the play). You will be especially lost if you don’t know about the subplot of the Duke of Gloucester and his two sons, Edmund and Edgar.

Briefly, a selfish, contemptous king turns his kingdom over to two daughters (and exiles the third one), and those two daughters rain the same contempt upon him that they had experienced at his hands. Lear loses his mind, then regains it, and is eventually reunited with his third (loving) daughter, but nothing goes well for anyone in this great tragedy.

Yüri Yärvet, the Estonian actor who plays Lear, is extraordinary. (Wikipedia says he was a tall man. If you look carefully at the film, you’ll see he is quite short.) Lear demonstrates every emotion a human can experience and this actor brings all those emotions to life. By the middle of the film this Lear has learned compassion and at the end, impoverished and a prisoner, he has learned gratitude. When he and Cordelia are being led off, surrounded by soldiers, he talks to her about how they will live their lives in prison and you would think he and his daughter were the only two people in the world. It is stunning acting, and could bring you to tears. If I told you about all the stunning moments I'd spoil the movie for you. All the fine acting is enhanced by extraordinary (B/W) cinematography.

The first DVD that Netflix sent failed in the middle of the play. I sent it back with my fingers crossed, and the replacement DVD was perfect. You should see this movie. It’s an amazing experience.