The robins are still cute. They sleep in a pile and constantly wiggle. They open their mouths when I approach because they want me regurgitate food into their mouths, which I almost never do.
Their mother is away more often now as she’s constantly searching for their diet, making them easier to record.
The baby robins have hatched. I am so glad we left this piece of the old fence standing so these critters could enter the world. I’ve never seen freshly-born robins before. They look like dust with a beak. This picture was taken within 12 hours of their birth, as they were still eggs when I went to bed one night, and I woke up to these little fuzzy blobs of cute:
Note there’s still one egg. That last egg showed up in the nest a few days after the first three, so that makes sense.
Here’s video:
I find everything about birds, the nests they build, and the way thew grow totally amazing.
It seems spring has sprung.
Post-work, I found myself in a keenly alive and exuberant mood and decided to prove it with photographic evidence of spring’s springiness. I used rhyme to emphasize the season’s egregious sense of whimsy.
ahem.
First I saw a strawberry plant hung like a king, a setup I didn’t know existed prior to spring.
I walked around the yard all rooty-toot-toot. Then I spied these tulips looking pretty cute.
Hostas get large, and grow really fast. These hadn’t even sprouted yet, week before last.
The trees don’t have leaves yet, but try hard they do. These red ones will be sexy in another day or two.
One thing you can find without using a map – everywhere you look, a bird has made crap.
Ahoy there geraniums, backyard color’s main course! Geraniums, geraniums, this rhyme was forced.
…Dandelions are stupid.
So much mowing ahead, at that I do scoff. I also hack, sneeze, wheeze, sniff and cough.
It’s spring inside too, you old scuttlebutt. The birds got a new swing made from a coconut.
Another new fence project, it’s certainly spring. Wood piled around can mean only one thing.
Holes dug in the ground, they wait to be filled. A beautiful fence extension I soon will build.
The old fence remains, but just that one piece. That seems sillier than a car made of geese.
Why would that happen? Well, haven’t you heard?
…because in that little section, bird is the word.
That’s right. It’s spring, and I made bad rhymes. Drink it in.
I’m putting up 5 more fence panels to extend last year’s fence up the side of my back patio. When tearing down the old fence that was there, we found a lady robin had plopped out four little baby blues into a very well-constructed nest. Despite the fact I really want to get this fence built so I can get it out of the way and continue focusing on the babies’ nursery inside, I can’t destroy this bird’s babies to do so. That seems like a karma fail. Plus, look how awesome that nest is. BRILLIANT.
I hate writing responses to unpleasant current events, but I don’t know what else to do to quiet my mind about them. My outlet is the keyboard. I’ve been following the tweets of @amandapalmer today, and it’s been awesome to watch her positivity.
I like to think people are generally good. I like to believe that someday we will evolve past our mental, cultural and social infirmities. I like to hope we will eventually advance and unify as humans, even if it’s unlikely. It may be unnatural for a species to achieve homogeneity the way sci-fi shows often depict humans hundreds of years from now, but it’s still a thing worth shooting for. The world isn’t sad and humanity isn’t hopeless. Only a miniscule few individuals are garbage.
When a terrible thing happens, it’s great to see people taking care of each other and helping one another- but it’s always clouded by the awful. Even more potent than the joy felt from seeing people working together is the disappointment in the actions of the select few that caused the problem. Even though thousands, millions of people collide to bring peace and order, everyone’s emotions stick with the negative effects of the handful responsible for the chaos. It’s a twisted play on the human condition.
The best people can do is keep promoting the good.
It would be easy to be weary of bringing new people into our world. Crap is always happening. We live among frequent, repetitive bouts of violence and fear. There are always things to be scared of… but that much is not new. There always have been, and in the foreseeable future, there always will be terrible things going on. We just need to keep showing people how to be good. We need to listen, think and educate one another. We need to take responsibility. It’s up to the 99.99% of us who aren’t monsters to continue to teach one another, and especially our youth, about harmony and peace, so that one day we can endure in that world of futuristic unity that now only exists in fiction.
I was folding some laundry. Tons of it. Enough that I was drinking beer while folding. Folding laundry is awful, particularly when 98% of your wife’s clothes are inside-out because that’s just the way she does things.
Across from the foot of our bed is our poodle’s crate. She likes to take naps in there during the day and sleeps there at night. The crate gets in the way and smells weird, but it serves as a splendid pedestal for resting one’s basket full of laundry during the folding process. It’s also great for smashing toes into at 4am when you get up to urinate.
Anywho… I was folding some laundry. Luna walked into the room and looked at me. I returned her gaze and we both stopped in time.
She took a few steps towards her crate and halted, staring into it, as if to examine the emptiness. I watched her closely and wondered what she was doing. She became statuesque, and I gained an opportunity to use a snobbish “-esque” word in context.
Seconds later, a sock fell out of the laundry basket and landed in front of her on the rug. She looked at it curiously.
My sci-fi brain kicked in something special.
“Did you know that was going to happen?” I asked. She turned to me and tilted her head, the way the Observers would look at characters on Fringe when they were seeing the future or reading their minds.
I grew slightly frightened and excited.
“…September? Donald? Is… is that you?” I asked. “Did you stop because you knew that sock was going to fall, and you wanted to allow me to pick it up?”
She un-cocked her head. I picked up the sock. I examined it, finding it to be a normal sock. For a moment, I thought I saw it fade, as if not from this universe. But it could have been the beer.
I came to the conclusion my dog has powers. Her behavior was curious, and timed perfectly with a seemingly unpredictable event. There’s no other explanation than some sort of psychic, evolved brain function. I mean… coincidence is an explanation, but that one is less interesting and wouldn’t have forced you to read 500 words about essentially nothing.
As I threw the sock in the pile, Luna walked into the crate and started chewing on her leg.
I will check the back of her head for an implant later. Something tells me she will read this in the future and knows I’m going to do that, giving her a chance to hide it from me. Assuming she can also read. Who would know, really?
