Magical Moment

Today I had a wonderful experience. A nuthatch ate from my hand!

I was bringing out a suet cake to the red star, which was empty. The square cake was still in the plastic container but I had taken the outer label off. I was about 4 feet from the tree and a little nuthatch was forlornly picking at the empty star. She saw the suet I was carrying and evidently recognized it and wanted some, because she started flitting back and forth from branch to branch in the tree, but not flying away as I crept closer and sloooowly lifted my hand up the the closest branch... she flitted over to a twig and leeeaned over and I could feel her *peck peck pecking* the top of the suet cake. I was completely enchanted. I held very still but she flipped upside down and hung from the twig (like they do) and tried to peck the *side* of the cake, which of course meant she was pecking the hard plastic case it came in. I tried to gently tilt it, but she got spooked and jumped to a further branch. I waited, then when she wouldn't come back over I went ahead and put it in the star, and then she took off. Isn't that amazing??? :)




On a related note, we have a nesting pair of nuthatches in our tool shed. There's a chipmunk hole in the top right of the shed and I noticed a big pile of leaves up in the rafter but didn't think about it until yesterday, when Jim and I spent about an hour or so sitting on the deck with binoculars (we each had a pair), watching the two nuthatches pop in and out of the hole in the shed, and also show up with green things and beat them (audibly) on the roof of the shed for a while before bringing them inside. As I approach the shed to get something, a nuthatch runs up and down the tree trunk nearby, which makes a little scratching noise and seems like an agitated reaction. I try to get away as fast as I can. We're wondering how long we can let the lawn grow without having to get the (riding) lawn mower out of the shed!

JimE is gone for a week to a work convention and then meeting up with his brothers to finally empty out their Mom's storage unit and bring the stuff back up to Marion. We went to Dave's birthday party last night and despite trying very hard to leave at a reasonable hour, Jim's flight was at 7 am this morning so he got a miserably small amount of sleep and better go to bed early tonight. I miss him already! But as a nice distraction, the chickens come this week and I just finished building the brooder base today, galvanized grid wire over a wood frame to sit in a plastic bin. Chicken pics will be posted when I have any! :)

Cute Animals! :)

Awwww!... and Ewwww! :)

Progress!

Well I have lots of cute kitty pics to post - but let's start with what I've been slaving over: the office. It is now a startling shade of green, with a caramel ceiling ("flan", actually). Papa is working on the built-in desk for the back wall (I think), but here is how it is so far.

And Kagan and Alexe are in India right now and I hope they are safe and enjoying the famous bathroom facilities.


So many choices!









ceiling's done!



Maybe a little greener than I thought, but look ,it glows in sunlight! :)

I bet you're all wondering...

How's my butt? :)
Well, good news, while it was *very* tender for the first few days, basically whenever moving in any way or also sitting still (so bite me Natalie, 'cause your needles don't require an xray to get them right next to your *bones*) it seems to have helped. Knock on wood. The tenderness from the shot has mostly dissipated, and now I have only the slightest of tenderness in my tailbone region, every now and then. Of course I'm coddling it like it's a calcium-deficient DDT egg, but all the same I had been in an increasing amount of pain lately, and now it seems a lot better. Not to jinx it or anything.

Plus temperatures are in the high 60s! Look at the kitty, checking out the smells of Spring! (the hole in the screen, if you can see it, is because Skeff the Great Dane got tired of being on the porch on Saturday night during Adam's birthday party, reared up on his hind legs, and busted the screen out of the door with a large bang! that scared everyone in the kitchen half to death. Frank was outside trying to get the screen back in the door and telling the dog "Uh-Oh!", which had the dog looking all worried and sheepish. So we knew about "Nothing here for dogs!" and "lay down!" and "eat your kibbles!" but "Uh-Oh" is new. =) )

Shot in the Ass!

Today was a very bad day. Let me essplain - no there is too much. Let me sum up.
I went to the pain center (in Burlington), which Jim drove me to because part of the deal is that I must bring a driver. Of course I was all worked up and stressed out over getting this done - they thought a shot of steroids might help with my lower back (butt) pain from that time I fell down the stairs and it still hurts two years later. I go in & they put me on a table and xray my butt to see exactly where the needle goes in and swab it and put in a local anesthetic and give me a squishy grenade stress ball to squeeze because I'm really starting to freak out and shoot me in the ass with a big needle and I'm going "ow ow ow ow!" but it wasn't as bad as, say, a bee sting and then they're done and I'm unbelievably stressed out. This is all right at the coccyx so right at the top of the butt crack.

So the doctor's like "see, we barely go in there" pointing at the monitor and I'm like "that's three inches deep! That better be magnified!" which it was. I'm so stressed out the nurse won't let me cross the hall she puts me in a wheelchair and wheels me over to a different room and goes to get Jim. So Jim wanders in singing Bonjovi - "Shot in the ass, and it's too late, darling you give looove - a bad name!"
So we leave and if anything weird happens like I get a fever or anything I'm to call back right away. In a few days after a possible flare up of pain, this may block all the pain I've been feeling. But it's been VERY STRESSFUL!

On the plus side, we stopped in at Mr G's to wander around and take my mind off it, and they get all the costco returns so I got very excited finding work shirts and pants for Jim for less than half the *costco* price. Stuff we've liked enough to pay the full costco price, such as a silk hawaiian shirt that was $20 for about $7. Very awesome.

And look at this: last night it was pouring snow and we made a fire and fondue from a packet which was not bad, and (I) drank wine & we watched a movie. The great train robbery, with Sean Connery & Donald Sutherland. It was pretty good, a little slower paced than today's heist movies, but fun anyway. Look at the perfect cheese spiral!



And this is for you Alexe, unless that "Anonymous" was Kagan, then it's for Kagan: the yard this morning, on April 5th in Underhill Vermont.

Sometimes it Snows in April

Hey, we're due to get 6 to 8 inches of snow today, and it took me almost 50 minutes to get into Essex to meet with the money cherub today. So I hope you are all enjoying your sunny, spring weather in NOT Underhill.

And here's a little history lesson of what it's like living with Balthazar, as evidenced by these two photos of our mantel, from November and again just after an "incident" last week. Click to enlarge if they're too hard to read. =)

Poodle Rampant!

How do you like the doggie's sexy spring haircut??? :)