Blast of Cold From the Past
Originally uploaded by CrazyMaisy.
For those of you that are hot, this hot, hot summer, here is a photo from 2004, when Winter came LATE for us Georgians, the end of February we had a snow storm, this one photo of my daughter in the “snowy environs” and looking so cool and wonderful to Summer Eyes of 2006.
Go to my Flickr page to see a Fence-Scape picture from the same series.
There is a nest in the back of our backyard, in a tree 
— yesterday or the day before I was back there and looked up and saw a baby Mockingbird peering over the side of the nest, sort of, while Mama Mockingbird watched anxiously atop the nearby Weeping Willow. I knew a Mockingbird was nesting there, and also had heard baby sounds previously.
Today hubby was out cutting the grass this morning and had me go out to see something, it was a baby Mockingbird in the back corner of the yard … and Mama and Daddy Mockingbird were both circling and chirping at the baby and encouraging it to move. I don’t know how many babies they had in this clutch, but hubby had seen “two” and there was only “one” there when I got to the site.
A. and V. both got to see the baby a bit later, and I wasn’t there, but they said it moved down the fence-line and was at the opposite corner now, and I did go out then and it wasn’t there, but the parents of the bab(ies) were going nuts over there, so I guess either the baby in question was hidden under brush, or had scooted under the fence where there was a slight dip in the earth and was on the other side and … whatever the situation, the parents were trying to group their young, encourage them to fly … which my children had said that the baby did flap his wings and try when they had been watching, which is really neat!
I picked up three new “used” CD’s the other day.
The Smithereens: Blown to Smithereens, Best of the Smithereens
Depech Mode: People are People
Rush: Moving Pictures
I looked for something from The Smithereens on purpose, and found a couple of other things, but decided to get the “compilation” as it contained the three or four songs I was most familiar with (from the 80′s.) I had been flip-flopping through the four radio stations in the Atlanta market and found that 99x was playing some better alternative stuff for a bit, and yeah, some Smithereens came on. I hadn’t heard any for a long time, so it was an obvious thing to me I wanted to get what I could find.
An aside to that is, once I came home I loaded my ‘new’ disc onto my laptop, it hit me: “Pat DiNizio” “The Smithereens” which connected me to VH1Classic, hearing in my head the VJ going on about ‘This is Pat DiNizio’ and it was a complete circle. I found that on
I watched a “Hanging with Depeche Mode” on VH1Classic sometime earlier this year, and had wanted to get something of theirs, since I had none and it was just another one of those things, I liked them in the 80′s but never “bought any”, as with The Smithereens, that being the same case.
So I wanted to for sure find a disc from them. I ended up getting what is their “US Debut” –a mix of new and compilation of UK hits, in 1984, that is. There was more there at the store (CD Warehouse) and I’ll delve deeper into Depeche Mode (and their newest CD came out this past year, which looks pretty good.)
I also have been on a “Rush” kick (also hearing them on the local radio stations, well just two songs), not having any of their albums, but liking them from the radio from way back when. So I did look for them and found a few things, which getting “Moving Pictures” was more important to me than getting a compilation of any sort. The album is one that someone around me must have had [back in the early 80's,] it’s familiar, beside the very well known tracks that had air play.
As I stated above somewhere, I was at CD Warehouse, which is a store I really like, finding good used CD’s is a form of recycling that is great. 
We also find DVD’s and Playstation 2 games there. Not that we don’t get any of these things “new” for we do elsewhere, or there. They just have a good flow of used material that is awesome to take advantage of.
What does the world look like once you are in your 40′s? Pretty much like it did, for me, in my 30′s. Granted, it just the matter of a few weeks of comparison …
But aside from that, one can take stock of their dreams and consider what they haven’t accomplished yet. That’s something I’ve done for years already, nothing new to me.
I have spoken to older women on various occassions through my life, and this idea stuck with me that some of them, at least one old lady in particular said to me many years ago: “I still feel 18 inside”
I don’t have that particular age inside, but I do have a “kid” in me, in that I can’t imagine myself ever being a serious old person. I have seriousness, sure, plenty of it, but inside I am a youngster, as I’ve always been.
I’m wanting to get into better shape, and that’s a tough row to hoe at this point in body life. I mean, I move around and my middle isn’t as flat as before I had babies. In fact it got worse after my miscarriage in 2004. I don’t excercise beyond climbing real stairs to get somewhere in the house, and walking around doing things.
I’m not an ‘exerciser’ type, but I am a lift-weights sort of person [I've never been a gym goer, so I haven't actually "lifted weights"] and we do have a Bow-Flex machine, have for years, but with DH traveling for work for all these last 9 or so years I’ve not gotten into using the machine, I can say we did once, and it was awesome, we both loved it, but to do that “alone” I can’t.
So we got another machine for abs a year or so ago, and it’s one that I’d prefer a buddy to start it with. I don’t necessarily ‘need’ a ‘spotter’ but it would be a decent thing to have.
I woke up this morning with the TV on and an infomercial was on for yet another great exercise piece. It looks a do-it-myself sort of thing, but I looked it up on the web, and it’s $200 give or take depending on how you pay. Hello!??? Too bad.
So I’m going to have to bite the bullet and drag out what we have and make something work out. Yeah, me. Just three times a week, nothing overly strenuous. Actually I find the bow-flex idea to be my ideal, it’s refreshing, it’s great stuff.
I’m not talking about this due to “wanting a svelt waistline” but only talking about strength I need and lack of “I feel fat”-ness to go along with it, with the facts being that I’m not able to wear certain clothing I own due to a “pookier than it should be” middle, which is quite tiresome.
DH needs to work out too. He needs to worse than me. All those years I had babies, he gained for each one, similar to me, but I lost most of it each time, whereas he didn’t. :rolleyes: He knows this stuff. So let’s be motivated to firm up the muscular structuralness about us hubby!
My birthday is tomorrow … so this is the last day for me to write when in my 30′s :veryshocked:
I’ve had the ability to get a few “b-day presents” ahead of time, with me saying the other day “every day from now thru my birthday is my birthday” –meaning to “treat me nice” the whole time and “make it feel special” –so then DH decided to make it that something would be gotten for me every day, mostly — so let’s see:
A nice little list. The Sansa’s don’t use bookmarking, and I would like it if they did, but as it is, it is nice to finally have a device to listen to Pride and Prejudice, or other Austen e-books, as well as other stuff I have, like: Prydain Chronicles; Chronicles of Naria; Eragon, Eldest (Inheritance Trilogy); Atlas Strugged; etc. an I have slim but great hope to have Audible Ready-ness added to a firmware upgrade for the e200′s.
Another thing I’ve had for my birthday countdown week is DH watching “Cold Mountain” with me last night. It’s the first time he’s seen it. I saw it so long ago, and it really affected me, and I have been trying to get DH to see it too. I did see it as a rental first, when DH was out of town. He later bought a used copy of it for me, but wouldn’t watch it. I MADE him under Her Majesty Declaration last night, and after the about 3 hours, he declared it a good movie, though through out it he struggled with it the length and that is understandable since we watched other movie first, “Must Love Dogs” which was OK, cute, but too long and drawn out and filled with stuff that could have been left on the cutting floor. We saw that as a rental, DH trying to get something for us to watch and NOT have to watch Cold Mountain. I declared the movie to be watch to BE C.M. but DH wouldn’t and only caved after I insisted for having gone through “Must Love Dogs”.
It’d be nice to have seen it only, Cold Mountain, but how it happened worked out OK.
I really enjoyed seeing the movie again, and cried sticky tears many times. It is such an emotionally engaging movie, it really is good to see a deep look at that time in The South. There is no glory in war, not really. It’s all man-made sophomoric stuff
[Wikipedia: Sophomore - Folk-etymologically, the word is said to mean "wise fool"; consequently sophomoric means "pretentious, bombastic, inflated in style or manner; immature, crude, superficial" (according to the Oxford English Dictionary). While it appears to be formed from Greek sophos, meaning "wise", and moros meaning "foolish", it is in truth from the word sophumer, an obsolete variant of sophism; ]
[Online Etymology Dictionary: sophomore
1688, "student in the second year of university study," lit. "arguer," altered from sophumer (1653, from sophume, archaic variant form of sophism), probably by influence of folk etymology derivation from Gk. sophos "wise" + moros "foolish, dull." Short form soph is attested from 1778. Sophomoric "characteristic of a sophomore" (regarded as self-assured and opinionated but crude and immature) is attested from 1837. ]
I was sitting at my laptop (which I am also doing right now) and noticed that it had been getting rather much darker … so absorbed in looking at something I didn’t notice it starting, as I usually do. It’s been a hard last few days, with DH out again, and him not supposed to get back until late tonight.
I like storms, but not electrical outage due to electric storms, though I love the lightning and thunder … any way, I was on the computer and didn’t want to have a zappy situation so I went out back to check what was going on, not having a decent window to peer out of, and wow, it was pouring already! I ran out to put a cover on the bantam australorp, and then let the dog out of his kennel to go into the house.
Doggie got upstairs and I had my eldest get food for the dog, and charged him with watching him 100% –he was habitually peeing, the dog, on things since the adoption dog had been here. It seemed at first it was “boxes” that the other dog had no doubt rubbed on or chewed on. But once that situation was reversed, he kept going over there to that area and lifting his leg and letting loose on other things. Please understand this is a place with nothing, just some boxes on our newer wood floor, and my scrapbooking armoire in the corner, windows with blinds on them on the wall, just some stuff there, not major stuff, just a few boxes to go through (still sorting things out!)
I’d done some work there and gotten the “offending” boxes out, and had a small stack of my overflow of scrapbooking materials that had been in a box … but never touched by that other dog, or any dog for that matter … the stuff had been IN a box that had been peed on, but … it’s just a stupid thing. In any case, I was watching the dog too, but the dog ate, and then stopped eating and started to wander around. This was all just the first few minutes in the house. I re-charged my eldest more than twice thereafter to watch the dog, watch him close, don’t let him out of your sight and don’t let him PEE in the house on ANYTHING!.
So I got busy for just a few seconds, forgot about the dog and the boy, and then “came too” and the dog wasn’t there in the kitchen and I ran around the temporary “island” to inspect the areas where the dog might be and there he was, over there by my scrapbooking pile, with his back left leg lifted high into the air … %!!$#!$@!$#
I have no idea what to do with that dog now. He was a decent dog inside the past several months since he’s grown up more. Now he’s a pee machine on my stuff, all seemingly due to the dog we tried-out in adoption. This dog of ours we’ve had since he was about 9 weeks old, when he and his sister came wandering down our street and we just happened to be out front … the sister eventually died after a scuffle with the dogs behind our house, but Lothar was fine, and continued on as a solo dude. He’s been an inside/outside dog, mostly outside in a kennel (10×10 chain-link fencing) during fine weather, and used to come into a crate at night, not always, but usually most winter long, during storms, and when he wanted to be in the crate during the fine times after some bad weather times, habitualness … but then times when we’d forget him before bed he stayed in his kennel and never complained, it’s a dog place, afterall. But I’ve always WANTED to crate him at night full time.
We got this new dog the other week, and got the crate I’d always wanted, and now we don’t have that dog, but do have a nice crate, but now have a doggie that is peeing on my stuff. I don’t know if he’s going through a phase he’ll quit eventually, or if it’s something that can be trained out, or if it’s a forever problem. I don’t have the energy, right now, to even think of it. I hate pee on stuff, but I HATE dog pee MOST OF ALL! It goes all over, ugh. And they pee on STUFF. At least a cat will usually pee in a puddle ON something soft, when not going where they are SUPPOSED to go. :rolleyes:
Good news is, DH is coming home earlier, he was able to get to the airport way sooner than expected and will be flying home very soon. Bad news is, the storm we had is part of a bunch of little things popping up all over the place, but those storms are also growing, which often affects airplane schedules.
Happy Birthday to my sister Debbie!
July is a big birthday month, we have other relatives with July birthdays, and in my family growing up it was our dad on the 9th, sister on the 11th, me on the 18th, and then there was my dad’s brother on the 4th, then one sister married another July 4th-er, and I married a July 10th-er, and he has a niece in July and on and on it goes.
I can’t keep up with birthday cards and such, haven’t for years, but I will try and post a birthday post for the biggies, my closest relatives …
My dear sister Debbie is the eldest of us Siblings. She turned 9 just a week before I was born. I can’t imagine what that birthday must have been like for her, July in eastern PA, must have been hot and her momma was due anytime with a 5th baby. That was 40 years ago. Time sure does fly!
Happy Birthday again Debbie! May God bless you richly this coming year.
A Virtual Birthday Cake, just for you Debbie!
My Hawklady went through a horrible time this past month, with first an egg-bound-like condition that I helped her get over (with attention and warm baths, in a cat carrier away from the others entirely) and then she went back outside to her normal space acting like her good old self, very chipper and active, and a day later found her lying on her side “totally out of it” with ants crawling all over her.
I didn’t write about any of this.
I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be, so I just waited, and waited.
Short story is: Hawklady is outside and doing better and better.
Details of the second problem (first one being the egg-bound problem that she seemingly recovered from):
The day I found her on the ground with ants all over her I had seen her earlier, and she was fine. I admit she was near to where a large ant hill was located, but in the past ants have never messed with my hennies in any case.
My DD had also seen her at a different time later that morning, and from all accountings Hawklady was fine then too. It was eary afternoon when DD came to me to say that Hawklady had ants on her, lots of them. I wasn’t able to discern what she meant, and was busy with something, so I didn’t get out right away. When I did get the idea rumbling around in my head that she might be bad off I quickly ran out there expecting the worst and getting there I could see she wasn’t dead. Relief.
I quickly picked her up and picked off the ants that were pickable. I got water on her to see if maybe she was too hot, or dehydrated or something like that. She barely responded to anything, had her eyes locked shut, and was like jelly-boned almost.
This is the hennie that was the worst beat up as I talked of them in earlier posts. Her feathers were still coming back in. So I say it’s needless nearly to say how bad she looked now. So very bad.
Me, the trooper, decided effortlessly that it’s worth it to try and save her, comfort her. I put her in a basin with warm water and let her just sit in there for a long time. I tried to get her to drink, but she was so out of it, she was able to sit up in the basin after a bit some, but her head lollied around often, as if she was coming in and out of sleep, she’d droop and droop and then when she couldn’t droop anymore she’d pop her neck back up, over and over this happened. She found a way to prop herself on the side of the basin and that work well, so I left her, coming back to check her often.
All this time, her eyes were locked shut.
After a day or so she seemed to have more stamina, energy to stand and hold herself up, and I put her in and out of water for awhile longer, but she never did pass an egg, but didn’t decline, only improved bit by bit by bit over time. I had her in a cat carrier with hay (dried grass) for over a week long after that, and she kept her eyes closed and didn’t eat or drink really, the first week, and maybe did a little after that. I determined to get her outside then, and after DH’s last trip I had him take our old dog crate, plastic with a metal gate front, it had a hole in the top from some 5-year-old-boy-incident this past year, therefore it was a perfect candidate for my latest and greatest hennie-pennie idea: use a jigsaw to cut out the middle of the top, and turn it over to allow one bird to be “on the grass” in a stable environment with air flow slits on the bottom half of the sides, a metal gate front that makes putting things in and out easy for humans, and the whole thing is easy to move, provides fresh grass under hennies feet when moved, and protection from most sun and rain, but allows natural light and fresh air flow. Into this system my dear blind Hawklady went. She sort of pecked the earth at times, but didn’t have any eyesite and didn’t go for food or water, though she seemed to take something in, for goodness sake it’d been many, many days since she had collapsed and not really attacked any food or water as a normal birdy does.
A few days into this and one of her eyes opened. It was something I wasn’t sure would happen, it wasn’t clear that she had any eyes for certain, until then. That was her left eye. So at that point by feeding her I just had to get her attention on that side and she went right for the grain and water I offered. Whew! What a great feeling that was.
Her right eye continued to stay shut, almost looking like the skin around the lid area was swollen. I contemplated what I could do, but didn’t want to intervene if it would be natural for her to recover alone like how she was in the New Hennie-Pennie-Solo-Unit, and she was quite chipper and easily too squirmy for an attempt at some sort of surgical procedure to be handled easily, and not knowning what the case of it all was, not something to dive into as I am so inclined to do with things often.
A few days ago I went out to greet her in the morning and wouldn’t you know it, her right eye was partially opened! It continued to open up more and more ever since, and she is getting around much better. I am not sure that she has good visualness in her right eye, or yet, but it seems her left eye is A-OK in how it looks and how she acts with vision on that side.
Her feathers are still coming in. Her comb and teeny wattles are dulled, they dulled down the day after her collapse. A good thing, since she had that softshell egg before, and I didn’t want her to be going into more production problems. The thing is her comb stayed red through the egg bound situation, until she collapsed that second time, the space of, a week, perhaps. She last laid a hard shell egg on June 18. The soft shell egg was passed on June 21. So she was OK on that Sunday with the hard shell egg, but I had noticed a bit of extra panting occuring on Monday, and that went on until on Wednesday she couldn’t walk and looked bad, so I took her in and she passed that soft shell egg after baths in the early evening. Her second collapse came sometime after that, and I got her outside again like on June 30 or July 1 after the “new” pen was created for her.
This hennie has had some life. She had an eggbound condition after her first couple of eggs laid when she was a Pullet a couple of years ago. I took her inside and gave her baths in the kitchen sink for half-a-day and she passed a softshelled egg. A friend had thought, via a phone conference at the time, that maybe she’d eaten a poisonous something-or-other and said in any case we should “cull” her. I couldn’t do it. I knew it sounded like “maybe it was egg bound” related, she was down in a crouching position, couldn’t stand on her legs at all, but was alert. She perked right up after I bathed her a few times, and then she passed a softshell egg within 12 hours or so. She was back at it after that, my best colored egg layer, compared with the brown egg layers ever since.
She’s went since then, whatever year that was, I can’t recall some things about the early 2000′s — it’s too open numbered I get facts jumbled up, so accustomed to the 1900′s of the second half of the century that I was born in … FWIW — the distinctiveness of events I know, but I have to look up the data somewhere to correlate it to a year … so it was two or so good years of egg laying, I could venture to guess that it was last year, 2005, and 2004 and that she was a pullet in 2003. That makes sense thinking of it backwards that way. So now she’s looking better, getting feathered out after two more horrendous bouts of similar and not similar conditions that she started out with. I hope God sees fit to get her healthy and into laying safely again. She’s my favorite by far. Something due to her looks, her eyes, her eggs, her attitude in general. All of that prompting me to go above the call of duty for caring for something, as some would see it, and she’s rallied every time of the three major occasions, and her years of service endear her to me all the more, and she deserves a fighting chance. I give her that chance again, and will continue to do so.
The Others
Now then about that little Bantam Australorp we have now: She laid 4 eggs after we got her, then nary a one since … until yesterday, when she laid a nice bantam sized brown egg. That was a nice surprise. Her comb and wattles have stayed red all the time we’ve had her, and she continued in the same way of talking and eating and basic hennie stuff, except for the lack of eggs. The first eggs she laid though were larger than she should have laid, IMO, her being moreso a bantam if compared with my Black Australorps, who are giants compared to her. I mean I know she’s a bantam due to the fact that she looks like the ones I’ve seen online, bantam australorps, and that is one breed that does exist — was made, in fact. So since I know nothing of her past, maybe her first eggs with me were her first eggs and just part of the process of “getting the plumbing working” as pullets of standard size, which I am familiar with, often have issues of larger than normal eggs for them in the very beginning, then things standardize out if they get through their early pullet stage alive, and continue into hendom, where their egg size increases with age some and again some more for some. The tale will play out in the coming days for little bantam miss.
The Wyandottes are doing alright, laying at least one egg a day usually, if not two occassionally. FWIW
The Australorps are not doing so good. We get one a day if that from those four. FWIW rare days we might get two. It’s been awhile since we got more, actually it was June 21, the day Hawklady was down and out, that the Australorps last laid 4 in a day. The 23rd of June they gave 3, and since then it’s none, one, or two at the most. FWIW
All the W’s and A’s have nice red waxy looking combs and wattles. It’s been hot. It’s summer, it’s not Spring anymore. Their flush is over. I hope they’ll produce a bit better soon though. They don’t quite give as many eggs as I prefer to have for the family, so I’ve slacked off on usage for now. 
I was outside “checking nest sites” –bird nests in trees in our backyard. One nest that was in the very back has a Northern Mockingbird sitting (on some eggs, most likely) –it’s a high nest, too high to see into without a huge ladder.
The Robin’s Eggs that I posted on June 29th are done and history. I checked the nest and there is a body covered with ants in there. Ugh. It was horrific.
I did see the American Robin in the nest just the other day … so what happened, I don’t know. There are no egg fragments around, no other birdy-body parts near or far discernable on the ground. So very sad, but it’s how nature is. Success and defeat.
The Eastern Bluebird nestlings seem to have taken flight, last week. I saw them one day early morning in the box and later they were gone. Hurray! I know that wasn’t on Tuesday, July 4th, since DH’s dad arrived that day. He was here on Wed, and Thurs. and left on Friday afternoon. I think it must have been on Thursday, July 13th that the babies became fledglings, with things that happened here that week I was busy, not feeling good and blah, blah, we talked about the birds and I wanted him to see them, but it didn’t work out right away, and later they were gone. I hope to see some new young Eastern Bluebirds flying around, perching, picking up worms, what have you.
I wanted to let anyone who knew that we had a new dog that we gave him back to the adoption folks. He wasn’t working out in our home.
Thanks
