Packing It In

 

Those of you who have been following me for a while are probably surprised I kept the Christmas stuff up this long. I thought I might last until New Year's seeing that I just put it up a few days ago. 

I can blame the rain and the mud. It's warm out. Too warm. We could hold a mud wrestling match in the foyer. 

I needed some breathing room so it all got packed away. I enjoyed every minute of it.  

Due to the weather I did not do a major cleaning event afterwards. No sense in that but I did tidy the place a bit. Goodbye Santas, see you next year.

And.....look who came to visit. My handsome vulture baby stopped in for a meal of some leftover cat food. I always have leftover cat food it seems with my finicky bunch. I haven't seen any of the vulture family in ages. The white deer also came through the woods yesterday morning but again-no photo. I'm just not fast enough. 

A Very Little Dividend

 

Remember Boris, my friendly Black Vulture? He/she showed up right before lockdown, disappeared all winter and then came back in the spring. 

Last week he/she has been showing up for its scrap meal with a very shy little friend. At first I thought the little thing was mangy. It wasn't sleek and black like Boris, it had white tufts all over it.

It sort of has this vibe going on. Did you ever see The Giant Claw when you were a kid? My sisters and I loved this movie. It might be one of the reasons I have a fear of flying lol....

After watching the two birds behavior over several days I realized that this weird little thing was Boris's offspring. After a little research I discovered that baby Black Vultures are white when they hatch. Baby Boris hasn't quite shed all of its baby feathers yet giving his head that odd Mohawk look to it. That means that for part of the past eight months Boris has been out in the woods sitting on a nest in his/her spare time. That also means, since they mate for life, that there is a Mr. Boris out there somewhere or have I been seeing two different birds each taking a turn getting food to feed the little one? I dunno..but I'm sure getting an education on vultures. 

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

I always look forward to the change in the weather from summer to fall and then it's always terrible. The chilly damp days give me a constant headache and Pup's allergies kick in so I spend more time bathing and medicating her than I do anything else. I can't take my eyes off her or she'll chew herself right up. That's why I don't have much to show this week stitching wise. I did finish the banner but that's it. 

On the nautical sampler I only finished a few more letters, a few bits of rope and some white cloud behind the sails.

What I did do yesterday was get some of my knitwear unpacked and washed. I love my new washer's rinse and spin capabilities. They all came out intact and practically dry. Ditto for some shawls and some sweaters. I've got damp knitwear hanging all over the house to dry and couldn't be happier about it. It's usually such a sloppy, wet chore.

Yesterday was also supposed to be counter measuring day so I got up and took everything off the counters and cleared the floor in anticipation only to have them call and cancel because the measuring guy is sick. We'll have to reschedule when they find someone to take his place. It's always something with this kitchen. 

And the mystery is solved with the Black Vulture family. They all showed up this morning. Mama, Papa and Baby on the right. So I guess I had been feeding two different birds while they cared for Baby Boris back at the nest.  Now that baby can fly pretty well I wonder how long before they all take off for warmer places. It's getting pretty chilly at night. 

Wednesday WIPs

 

Truth be told, not much is getting done here this week. It's all floor, all day. By the time dinner rolls around I've got nothing left in the tank. I put a few inches on the fronts of the blobs and call it a day. 

I haven't been very far either so this is as much as I've gotten done on the travel socks this week. A few rows here and a few there is all I could manage. 

I did get the yarn for the Sheepish Little Sweater wound up early one morning but that's as far as that went.

Baby vulture has been hanging around a lot lately without Mom or Dad. It was showing off its wing span yesterday. There's a big flock of baby vultures down at the marina right now. I'm not sure why this one hasn't joined them yet. Shy, maybe?

A Very Tall ( and very long) Tale

 

I've posted many times about the trees that surround our house. They are tall. Over 100 feet. They are big. Almost 100 inches in diameter. Nasty old poplars that somehow survived our terrific ice storm of 91 and are still littered with broken branches from it that will come down in the slightest wind. 

Recently I posted about the tree that took off the back of my neighbor's house. They haven't even started repairs and the insurance company stops paying for their rental in June. Their children, whose bedrooms were narrowly missed, are terrified to come home. It's been a nightmare for them. This wasn't the first house to have a direct hit from one. My neighbors on the left had one cut their house in half a few years ago too. 

Last year I posted about the tree that came down on my other neighbor's company truck. Totaled, as were all of his tools. 

I bawled like a baby when one murdered my beloved Mini Cooper in 2022. I waited 6 months for her to arrive here from Germany. She was one of the first off the assembly line. She would have gotten her historic tag in just a few months. I'm lucky I wasn't in it. One of these trees killed a man in his car on the road in front of the little grocery store down the street just last year. 

Then there is the work and the upkeep on them. they fall over for no reason from time to time and we have to cut them up and move them. Our woods look like a graveyard for tulip poplars. It's so sad. We're a forest fire waiting to happen.

So we finally said enough is enough and in early March we called the tree people. We told them to show us the trees that could kill us and we'll have them taken down. They marked off 24 and even found a company that would take the wood and that was that......we thought. 

Then the city stepped in.  We couldn't do anything without a permit. There are strict rules about what trees can come down. They sent a team of arborists to look over our property and make their recommendations. They sent the town tree board to look us over and make theirs. Then we had two hearings to see if we could get a permit. It was like being in court. The last one was on Monday and the minute they asked us if we had any comments before they had their final vote I jumped up to the podium and pretty much went hysterical on them. I'm tired of sleeping in the basement when the wind blows. I'm tired of wondering whether I should be going to bed with my bicycle helmet on. According to a very chagrined Mister I was pretty, um...animated while stating my case and......drum roll please. I won. Sort of. We can cut down our giant trees but we have to replace each and every one of them with something they approve of in order to preserve the "town canopy". We have to work with the town arborist to get this done and of course, none of this will be cheap. Sorry about your inheritance, kids. 

But....the real kicker is that because the process took so long we now have this to deal with. My black vulture friends all have babies that look just like this in those woods now so we can't do a thing until they leave the nest. That won't be until late summer which means we have to endure another storm season under those swaying monsters. 

It's always something dammit.

Hot Stuff

 

It's been interesting trying to find shady spots to walk Pup during this heatwave. 

The boardwalk is too hot so we're always looking for grass. 

We hadn't been to the wetland park in a while and we discovered they have a new cute little nature center. 

And a big butterfly out front. 

The waterlilies at the koi pond across from the beach are all in bloom but the sidewalk's been too hot to walk on. We run from shady spot to shady spot.

That doesn't stop these crazy people. The beach was packed. The water temperature is 84 degrees right now.  They had a cooling station set up which was a mesh tent that put out a mist of water. I'd never seen anything like it. I want one. 

My black vulture friend has also been feeling the heat. She/he showed up with two white tufted babies again this year and I've been keeping plenty of fresh cold water outside for them. They are not shy about coming for a big drink and a tin of leftover cat food every morning. My little flock will be flying away at the end of the summer but until then it'll be fun watching those babies grow. I know I'm in the minority but I think they are the cutest things.

Boris

 

Look who's back. Boris the turkey vulture was most likely down south for the winter but he/she found his way back here a few weeks ago. 

He shows up every morning for a bowl of left over kitty food. I don't know about your cats but mine just lick the juice off their wet food and leave all the chunks behind. Six cats leave a lot of waste. They never finish anything not even their pate.  Boris happily eats the leftovers and then goes off to do his birdy thing sometimes coming back for the dinner leftovers. I swear this guy must have been raised and released by a wildlife rescue. He's got no fear of humans or other animals and sometimes just hangs around for the company. 

Wild Thing

 

In case you were wondering what ever happened to Boris that black vulture that used to camp out on my deck-she's still here. In fact, she brought me two babies this week. Last year she brought me one and this year she's got two to care for. 

She's teaching her babies how to scavenge for food so she's pretty insistent at meal time. She's learned to go up on the skylight and tap on the glass to get my attention. I toss a plate of food scraps out to them and then off they fly. The babies are not great fliers yet. They've fallen off the roof more than once when they try to land on the gutters. 

As if that wasn't enough, I've also got Yertle the Turtle showing up for a meal on a regular basis. I noticed our Prime delivery guy standing on the porch for the longest time the other day. He was watching Yertle tackle some leftover kitty food. I have no idea how it manages to get up onto the front landing but it does. I've also seen it fight the vultures for that food. The same vultures that chased a large fox into the woods are terrified of a little turtle and keep their distance until he waddles away from the food. I'd love to know the story behind that level of respect. 

The Difference a Day Makes

 Wednesday I thought I was going to die from the heat and humidity but today we had a breeze and temps in the 60's. The humidity is still off the charts but it's an improvement so we ventured out for a walk.

The beach was deserted. It could have been the middle of winter.

 Well, it was almost deserted. The birds were having a feast in the low tide.  I don't think I've ever seen a vulture hobnobbing with the seagulls but there you have it.

It was a good day for bird watching.

 The osprey nests were empty. They must have taken off on their long trip to South America where they spend the winter.

 They never had to put the nets up for the jellyfish this year. The Bay was not salty enough for them. That has the environmental scientists very worried as the food chain has been disrupted pretty drastically.

 It was a cloudy day but you could see all the way across. That's Tilghman Island which is right off the Eastern Shore.

 We even had the koi pond all to ourselves. I know the town needs the tourist money but I am so glad they've all finally gone home.

Wild LIfe

My rolling garden experiment is working pretty well but adjustments had to be made when we finally figured out just what the sun was doing up there. 

My plan was to sit my cucumbers on this stump and have them grow down it. The Mister trimmed if off to make it level but then we realized there would not be enough sun for cucumbers in this spot.

As you can see the cukes have been doing just fine in the cart following the sun so we needed to figure out how to keep them in there.

They were sharing the cart with the kale and the chard but since they don't need as much sun as the cukes we did a switcheroo. 

The kale and chard are now under their bug and varmint net on the stump which gets about 6 hours of sun a day. 

The cukes now have the wagon all to themselves. Now they've got plenty of room to spread out.

The tomatoes have really taken off too. We've already got several flowers so we take their varmint net off during the day so the bees can do their thing. 

Speaking of varmints....look what is happening to my hostas.

The poor things are ready to bloom and the deer have eaten half of them to the ground already.

As if that wasn't bad enough meet Boris. He/she is a turkey vulture that's been showing up here since the lockdown every day for a meal. If I forget, it knocks on the door. At this very moment it is knocking on the skylights in the living room to remind me to bring it out a plate. It even joins in with the outdoor kitties if they are eating at the same time. They pay it no attention at all. I am thinking it must be from a wildlife rescue situation. It doesn't seem to have a flock and is way too comfortable with humans. After its meal it sits on the roof and spreads it wings in the sun and looks quite content. Crazy, right?