A New Toy

We have a new toy:

We've talked about getting a canoe for a while. Last week we went on a "babymoon" and spent a couple days at a Bed & Breakfast at a state park. The B&B has a private lake and a few boats guests can take out at their leisure, so the afternoon we got there we took a canoe out on the lake. Hubby sat in the stern and paddled while I sat in the bow and enjoyed the ride; it was wonderful. So I said okay, we could get a canoe. Hubby had actually already seen this one on Craigslist and when we got home it was still available, so he called the seller and made arrangements to check it out, and on Friday morning he came home with it. (He also prepared to get it by getting a paddle and a car kit to carry the canoe on his car's roof rack, since a 14-ft. canoe isn't something you can just throw in the back seat.) One thing hubby particular liked about this canoe is its paint job: In case you can't tell from the picture it's camouflaged, and hubby plans to use it for duck hunting. (Apparently the seller's son did the paint job, he used some stencils and it came out really well.) It also came with an attachment for an outboard motor, which hubby may get someday down the road. (UPDATE: Hubby read my post and said it's an attachment for a trolling motor, not an outboard motor. Whatever.)

So we now own a boat, and I agree that we'll undoubtedly have a lot of fun with it, especially once kidlet gets big enough to enjoy it, too. Someday we'll probably even get a second paddle for me to use. (I have paddled in a canoe before, it's just been a while.) I told hubby that its first use is going to be him taking me out to putter around the lake at the park where he works—as soon as we both have the same day off and have time to do it. Right now that's looking like next Saturday afternoon, after I get home from a baby shower for someone at church who is having her first child (also a boy) five weeks ahead of me. So far it looks like the weather next weekend should be nice so it should be a good time for an afternoon canoe ride on the lake. It sounds lovely.

Lizard Season and Other Stuff

Forget about pregnancy—hubby thinks I should talk about lizards on my blog.

This little guy showed up on our porch recently:

He hasn't been there the past couple days but as the weather gets warmer I imagine he'll be back. Hubby looks for him all the time.

We also have a finch nest in a tree right in front of our porch, the nest is right at eye height so we have a good view of the babies. Hubby says he thinks there are four babies in the nest; when we got home from church this morning we looked at them and I saw at least three fuzzy heads, and two pairs of eyes and little beaks looking at us. They're really cute. (Sorry, no picture yet, maybe later.)

In other news, I'm still getting over the cold I talked about in my last post. It's been two weeks now and I've developed quite a cough, which I think is actually getting worse. I can barely breathe without coughing now and I'm barely sleeping at night. (I have to sleep on three pillows now to help with acid reflux, too, and sleeping on three pillows just isn't comfortable, I've found. I don't sleep deeply and I wake up a lot.) My cough is so bad I called the doctor (ob office) when we got home from church this morning and the midwife on-call called me back. She said it sounds like I might have a respiratory infection and could need an antibiotic. She suggested I call the office for an appointment first thing tomorrow morning. At the very least if my lungs are clear and I don't need an antibiotic they might be able to give me something for my cough, which I assure you isn't pleasant.

Last but not least, if you live in the south you probably experienced it and if you don't you probably heard about the storms that came through here over the past few days. I was at an all-day training session and hubby was at work when the storms came through our area; thankfully, the brunt of the storm seemed to go around our particular area, but not by much. I haven't seen it, but it's strange to read about the devastation that happened when tornadoes touched down only 20 miles or so from us. I was concerned since doggie was home alone during the storms, but hubby left her in the house when he went to work and she usually isn't too bothered by weather so we thought she'd be okay. And she was: She was very happy to see me when I got home but that was probably more because she'd been alone for several hours rather than her being bothered by the storm. Doggie isn't a fan of being by herself for more than a couple of hours, she prefers company.

I Want a Toad Hole

The other day hubby and I were walking the pooch one evening when it was actually a little cooler and we didn't see many toads; hubby commented that "toading season" may be nearly over and the toads may be settling in their toad holes for the winter. I thought that sounded lovely—a nice cozy toad hole to curl up in. I want one!

Life has been ridiculously busy since I started working and I've barely had time to breathe (or sleep), let alone cook, clean, watch TV, or any of the other things people do in their daily lives. On days I have class I go straight to class from work so that makes for 12-hour days for me; over the past two weeks I had other things going on that made for several other 12-hour days in addition to just class days. (Class days are only two days a week.) I guess a lot of people live this way all the time but I'm not one of them, and I don't think I want to be long-term.

I've decided for the rest of my time at this job (it's only for a few weeks) I'm going to work M-Th and take Friday off completely, rather than work shorter hours all week. I'm not working full-time so dedicating M-Th to work gets the hours in, then I can have a three-day weekend to catch up on other things I need to do, like keep up with my one-and-only-class this semester. (This particular class is on the heavy side and feels like a full-time load itself sometimes.) On the bright side, the extra activities that overloaded my schedule for the past two weeks should be subsiding now; hopefully things will quiet down to a dull roar so I'll have a few hours each week to feel like a normal person again. "Normal" being a relative term, of course.

Little Guy

Yesterday while hubby and I were walking the pooch we came upon a stray dog. He's smaller than our dog so I called him, "Little Guy." Since he was in our subdivision at first we thought he was lost, particularly because he had a collar, but he had no tags and now we think he's probably a stray. He's very old (probably 14 or 15 I'd guess), thin, losing hair on his back and tail, walks stiffly, it looks like he has cataracts, and I think he may have trouble hearing, too. When we found him his toenails were so long he could barely walk. We wonder if he was abandoned because he's old, as terrible as that thought is. Yet he's a very sweet dog: We brought him home and fed him, and hubby was able to clip his toenails so that helped, at least. Our backyard is fenced in (for our dog) so he's safe there. Our dog was interested in him at first but since he isn't playful she just ignores him now, which is fine.

Little Guy was quiet at first but now he wants to be with us and we're not letting him inside, so he's been barking; he barked off and on for a good portion of the night (keeping us awake) and he's been doing the same through the morning. I don't blame him but unfortunately there's nothing we can do about it, we just have to hope he quiets down on his own and our neighbors don't lynch us in the process.

Our subdivision has an e-mail list so I sent a message to it about him, but we aren't surprised that we haven't had any responses. We aren't prepared to keep him so we'll take him to the animal shelter as soon as we can; of course it's not only a weekend, it's a holiday weekend, so we won't be able to take him to the shelter until they reopen on Tuesday. We have to take him to the county shelter and we live at the edge of the county; naturally the shelter is all the way on the other side, about as far as it can be from us and still be in the same county (about 25 miles away). Naturally.

Getting through the next two days is going to be tough (hopefully he'll quiet down and we'll get some sleep). The thought of stray animals always breaks my heart and makes me sick to my stomach. I hate the thought of taking him to the shelter where they'll probably end up putting him to sleep, but we know it's the right thing to do. At least he'll be taken care of and die humanely there, rather than starving or being hit by a car. In the meantime we'll deal with the inconvenience and keep him safe, fed, and give him attention when we can, which I guess is the best we can do.

More Pics

I thought I'd post a few more pictures I've taken of things around the house lately. Everyone likes pictures, right?


My roses are doing a lot better this year; last year some of them got blackspot and lost most of their leaves. This year I gave them some food and medicine, which seems to have helped. The large rose in the foreground was pretty resistant to it last year even without treatment and this year it's gotten even bigger with lots of blooms. The one in the background isn't nearly as big though it has had some blooms, so I'm happy.


This little rose was given to me in the hospital when I had surgery last year. I planted it and it's done very well this year with lots of blooms.


I've planted herbs in a planter on the deck for a couple years now and this year they're doing really well; giving up on seeds and starting with small plants definitely helps. I've got more thyme and basil than I know what to do with. See that chive in the background? (It's on the right behind the tall basil.) That is from a seed—from two years ago, I think. It's dormant in the winter but now it just keeps on growing and won't quit. Nice for the rare time we want a chive.


We miss having a garden. We had a small one in California but here in North Carolina we chose a house with a backyard full of trees and there's nowhere to put a garden. We really miss tomatoes, so since the deck is the one place that gets sun we thought we'd try a tomato in a pot. As you can see it's doing really well! It has over a dozen tomatoes-in-progress on it now and lots of flowers so we're expecting a good crop. Fresh tomatoes—yum.


This is a baby bluebird. (Well, probably a juvenile bluebird, more accurately.) Since I got home from church today I've been watching this little guy and his (or her) sibling come to our suet feeder with their parent. They're really cute.

And, last but not least...


It's toading season! I found this little guy at the bottom of our deck steps; I've seen him there several times lately so I think he lives there. Since I name all of our toad friends I've named him "Hoppy." We have to make sure we (and the dog) don't step on him when we go down the steps. It's always nice to have a resident toad.

Snow!

It doesn't snow very often in our neck of the woods so when it does we have to take advantage of it. For me, that means breaking out the cross-country skis I got when I lived in Oregon. (After I'd learned to ski in Alaska... Long story.) Below are pictures of our winter wonderland, some of which we took as I skied around the neighborhood and hubby followed along with the dog. One of these days we'll have to get hubby some cross-country skis so he can join in the fun!

A pile of snow greeted us outside our back door when we woke up this morning. Doggie wasn't sure how to get through it!

Snow piled around the dog house.

Can I come in now?

Our roses buried in the snow.

Hubby and doggie out for a walk.

Skiing down the street!

We saw this snowman as we were going around the neighborhood. It was so cute I had to have a picture.

Our happy family.

Critter Returns

Our resident flying squirrel returned to the feeders the other night.

We've named the little guy Zippy. Shortly after hubby took this picture Zippy climbed to the top of the feeder tree, opened his arms, and sailed off to a nearby tree. Hubby wants to get a picture of him flying sometime—that would be cool!

Goin' Toading

My computer connected normally today (vs. yesterday)—yeah! Now I can get to work.

One of my husband's and my favorite activities here in North Carolina is what we call "goin' toading." On summer evenings the toads come out (they're Fowler's toads, my naturalist husband tells me) and when we take our dog for walks we look for them. We've even made up a song for our outings (sung to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell"):

A-toading we will go,
A-toading we will go,
High-ho the merry-o,
A-toading we will go.

In our travels around the neighborhood we've identified three categories of toads. We call them mini-toads, mid-toads, and mega-toads. Descriptive, huh? My favorites are the mini-toads. They're the hoppiest and hardest to catch sometimes but they're the ones I usually go for. I'll also pick up mid-toads but I let my husband pick up the mega-toads if he's so inclined. Our dog just likes to try and pounce on whatever she sees. (I'm happy to report she has pretty awful pouncing aim and has never actually caught a toad that I know of.) Most of the toads we see are mini or mid; we've only seen a few mega-toads this summer. We also occasionally see nano-toads; they're really tiny and pretty much impossible to catch. When we catch a toad we just say hello to it, then we put it back where we found it so it can get back to catching its dinner.

Here's a picture of a mini-toad we found by our house one evening:

Isn't he cute?

Here's a picture of a mid-toad—this one has more stripes than others but he's still a Fowler's toad.

Last but not least, here's our resident mega-toad:

Ribbit.

This particular mega-toad is a real character. He (or it could be she) is always out in front of the same house at the same time almost every night. We've named him Megs (short for mega-toad; yep, original, I know). It took several tries to get a picture of him; I'd see him when I took the dog for her walk then my husband and I would go look for him to take his picture after he got home from work. When we got there after 10 PM, though, Megs would be gone. We finally figured out that I usually see him before 9:30 and he must go to bed (i.e. retire to the bushes) by 10:00. One evening when my husband was off and could come with me for our walk we went out at 9:00 to look for him and there he was, right in his regular spot. My husband even got an action shot of him hunting down a bug:

Right after hubby took the picture Megs caught the bug and ate it. Unfortunately, that happened too quickly to capture on film (or digital camera, in this case).

Happy Toading!

More Critters

The other night we found a new critter on the suet feeder:

Who, me?

We always suspected there were flying squirrels around but hadn't seen any yet. This one was amazingly unskittish: When my husband went outside to get better pictures the critter jumped off the feeder onto the tree but then he just hung there, letting us get pretty close to get a good look at him.

I blend in pretty well, don't I?

Coming home from a walk one evening we found this little critter on our front porch:

Here I am posing on a leaf...

He stuck around (literally) for quite a while, too.

Last but not least, one more critter picture I can't resist:

Our dog pulling stuffing out of her latest chew toy, in this case a teddy bear we got for her at a thrift store. She makes a hole, pulls out the stuffing, spits it out, then goes back in for more. Do all dogs act like this? I'm not sure if her behavior here is normal or yet another of her lovely quirks.

Backyard Birding

Hummingbirds at our feeder in California.

Dan and I love to watch birds in our backyard. When we lived in California we had a hummingbird feeder hanging under our roof outside a picture window. CA has quite a few hummingbird varieties and our feeder was very popular. Sometimes we even had birds lining up for a drink!

Waiting in line.

We also had two special visitors to the feeder, a pair of Bullock's orioles. With their bright yellow plumage they were also so pretty to watch.

Bullock's orioles

Here in North Carolina we don't have the same type of house as we did in California and we can't hang feeders under the roof like we did in California. So Dan built a feeder stand for our deck instead. I can see it from the kitchen window and I love watching the birds while I'm getting dinner ready or washing dishes. The hummingbird feeder is pretty popular here, too, but what's really popular is the suet feeder. Some of our "customers" that enjoy the suet include:






Catbirds:

Downey woodpeckers:

Red-bellied woodpeckers:

(This one is an immature bird that we've named Red-belly junior. He's a regular at the feeder.)

We've also seen wrens, mockingbirds, and robins at the feeder so it definitely gets a lot of use. Unfortunately, we also have a few unwelcome guests, including these fellows:

I know some people like to have squirrels come to feeders but we'd much rather leave it for the birds. When the squirrels come they hog the food, scare the birds away and make a HUGE mess. They go for the suet, the seed, and we even find them regularly trying to drink out of the hummingbird feeder, which explains why all the squirrels around us are so fat! They also perform amazing (or ridiculous, take your pick) acrobatics trying to get to the various feeders. I haven't been able to get good pictures of them doing it because they always see me coming but here's one I caught; it's not the best picture but it's definitely illustrative of what our squirrels do:

Pesky little fella!

Since creating the stand Dan has been at war with the squirrels, trying to find a way to keep them away from the feeders. He's tried putting the feeders on wires that the squirrels can't pull (when the suet was on a string the squirrels simply pulled the string up and muched away) and putting them far out from the railing so the squirrels can't stretch to them. The squirrels always find a way, however, resourceful little critters that they are. Now Dan has taken to leaving the hose on the deck with the water on and he tries to spray them as they run away. It doesn't deter them from coming back, of course (and they're usually faster than Dan can get to the hose and spray them before they get out of range), but it makes him feel better when he's able to make one a soggy squirrel.

Last but not least recently we've had an unwelcome nighttime visitor:

I took this picture at 2:50 a.m. one night so that explains why it's blurry. I was having trouble with the camera, or at that hour the camera was having trouble with me.

While squirrels are a nuisance raccoons can do real damage, including to your dog if you're letting her out at night and don't know the raccoon is there! Now we always make sure to check for raccoons before we let the dog out at night. We even take the suet down at night to try to discourage them, though as you can see some raccoons will apparently eat seed just as well!

Regardless of the challenges we always enjoy the feeders and watching the birds that come to them. It's our kind of reality show!