Finches this year

This year the finches arrived and claimed the nesting box out front before the swallows returned to the area. I got to watch baby finches grow up instead of swallows. I will say that it wasn't as easy to watch them as it is to watch the swallows. Swallows are bold and the adults will dive bomb you if they don't like your proximity to their nest. The young will hide, but not to any great extent. The finches on the other hand are scaredy-cats. The female will fly away at any tiny sound and the babies hunker down into the nest and become invisible at the slightest provocation. None-the-less, it was fun to watch them.

I almost didn't have any babies birds at all this year. One afternoon right before my traveling started I came home and when I was walking back from the mailbox I glimpsed something brown hanging from the nesting box that isn't being used. I walked over to see what it was . . . and this bad boy in the picture was about a foot away from a tasty meal of finch eggs. This is a small rat snake, maybe about 2 1/2 feet long. What I had glimpsed was the part of him looped below the box. I'm not sure which of us was more startled when I stepped onto the porch and turned to see him there. At any rate, I spoiled his meal by making him go away. No, I didn't kill him, just convinced him to leave with a long stick and persistence. Then I quickly got a step stool, climbed up and took pictures of what was in the nest so I would know what I had just rescued. Then I quickly left the nest to Momma Finch. Surprisingly, she came back immediately after I left. This next picture down is the finch eggs that were in the nest. It still amazes me how close they came to being snake food.

I managed to get one sort-of picture of the young finches. They were very adept at hiding, not at all cooperative like the young swallows. Although I did see them fairly frequently, all I managed to catch in a picture was a little beak, top of the head and a beady black eye. You probably can't see that in the small picture below, but this was all I could do. They were VERY skittish. They've all flown now, which also amazes me. The young birds grow up so fast. It's been just over three weeks between when I took the egg picture and when they flew away.

My poor peach tree is dead. The growth that was on it two blog posts ago, broke off in the high wind a few days after that picture, and there's no other growth. *sigh* Too bad. I suppose it's time to buy a tree to put back there. I'll have to do a little tree research I guess. A couple of the small dogwoods are still managing to survive. They look terrible, but they're hanging on.

This morning I went out and trimmed up the shrubbery out front. It was looking a little raggedy. We're finally getting some periodic rain, so my lawn's beginning to look like a lawn. One of the most amazing things is how strongly the St. Augustine grass is coming back in the back yard. Granted the yard is still about half weeds, but at the end of last year I had two sickly-looking patches of St. Augustine left, in opposite corners of the back yard. The patch down by the fence has spread out and up to the peach tree and continues to put out runners across the bare areas. The patch up by the house is also spreading. And both patches are dark green and thriving. Sugoi. The Bermuda grass in the front yard is still struggling, but beginning to fill in. Apparently early rainfall is really important to Bermuda, less so for St. Augustine.

The cats are being furry leeches. They really hate me being gone for extended periods, and become really clingy when I get back. If I sit still for a minute, they're right there to get attention. Like right now. Zoe is making my leg look like I've been running through briers, trying to get me to stop typing and start petting her. Zoe is not the brightest cat in the world, and despite years of trying, she doesn't get the concept of sheathing claws. When I'm wearing jeans it's no biggy, but with shorts on she's guaranteed to get my attention. *laughing* Yes, yes. Time to call this a short blog and go pet the cat.

Traveling

Here it is as promised . . . my next blog coming in mid-May. Well, okay, mid-to-late-May. So many things have happened that it's hard to know where to begin. I think I'll devote this blog to the traveling.

My travels have been good, but I'm really glad to be home for a while. I started on April 30th with a 7:30 am flight to San Diego. Or so I thought. Being obsessive-compulsive, I called the airline before leaving the house and they had canceled that flight because of "lack of a flight crew to fly it". So they had re-booked me on a 9:00 PM flight. No, no, no. I worked with them to get a 5:30 pm flight which wasn't what I had wanted, but better than a late flight. I went to San Diego for a 5 day review course and had originally wanted to arrive early enough to do a little sight-seeing, which obviously didn't work out. San Diego is a gorgeous place and the weather was just lovely. But of course I spent 8:00 am until 8:30 pm in the review course while I was there, so that aspect of it was a little wasted. *rueful sigh* Still it was a great course. I had a blast giving the lectures I did, especially the evening case studies. The participants were exactly that. Very interactive and questioning, which is a teacher's dream class. As an added bonus, I met some really great people along the way. And I did get to spend lunch hours soaking in the sun and ambiance. Plus I had this really outstanding view of San Diego Bay from the balcony of my 7th floor room in the hotel. The picture above is right about sunrise. Overall, it was a very fun and productive trip.

Then May 5th around noon I left San Diego and flew to Charleston, SC, arriving about 11:15 pm, which put me at the hotel around midnight. I was surprised to find that they didn't have a room for me . . . which probably translates into, they gave my room away, even though I had notified them that I would be arriving late. They ended up putting me into a suite and moving me the next day when a room came open. I didn't really care. I was so tired I would have slept on a couch. But the next morning I had no hot water in their fancy suite, which I kind of DID care about. So that particular downtown Charleston hotel is not high on my list of favorite places. The meeting was good though. It was my second Board of Directors meeting and the meeting and the post-meeting socializing were both very good.

Then I flew home on May 8th and on May 11th I flew to Berlin, Germany. Hmmmm. Well the flight was scheduled to fly on May 11th at 9:00 pm, but since we were delayed 3 hours by storms, I think we technically actually left the ground on May 12th. Very luckily for me, I had a four hour layover in London Heathrow, so I made my connection, unlike a lot of people on that flight. I arrived in Berlin around 7:00 pm on the 12th, met a friend for dinner and then slept for 12 straight hours, getting up in time for the Opening Ceremony of the Congress I was attending. The Congress was great. Great speakers and talks, and again I met some really cool people as well as hooking up with some colleagues I don't get to see very often. The Congress Dinner on Saturday was a boat tour through Berlin on the Spree River. The boat tour was a blast although it would have been better for sight-seeing if it hadn't been raining pretty solidly. You can see from the picture above of the Oberpfarr that taking pictures wasn't very productive. Still, the boat was enclosed, so the trip and the company were lots of fun, and the food and drinks were superb.

Monday May 17th I flew back, arriving about 8:00 pm and I've been trying to catch up ever since. Basically, the trips were good, the meetings were good, the people were great, but I'm really glad to be home now for a while. The only real regret I have is that I really had no time at all to do any shopping . . . at any of the places where I went. *sigh* Maybe in the future my travels won't be so clustered within a two week period and I'll be able to spend a little extra time sight-seeing and shopping.

Rain! Yay!

Yes, it's true. I'm happy about the rain. As a general rule I'm not all that fond of rain. Considering our serious lack of it this Spring though, I'm pretty delighted when it happens these days. So even though it's overcast and generally gloomy outside, I'm glad it rained last night and hope we get a little more today too.

As you can see from this picture, that one spot on one side of my peach tree continues to grow. I don't think it will be enough to save the tree, but I'm kind of glad to see that fairly exuberant growth, if only in one spot. The little dogwoods continue to struggle to grow also. Believe it or not, they're not dead yet. I put a frame with a black plastic bag to protect them from the late afternoon sun. It's not pretty, but for now it seems to be helping a little. At least they're still marginally alive. Now if the frame doesn't just fall and crush them, maybe they'll live. I've also been spraying all my growing things, including the peach, the little dogwoods and my roses. Something is seriously munching down on them all.

I have a group of grackles (is that right, "group of grackles"? 4 seems too few to be a "flock of grackles") that spend a lot of time in my back yard. These guys are big! They're known variously as keel-tailed, boat-tailed or large-tailed grackles. There's a big blue-black male and three brown and black females, all with yellow eyes. The male was doing mating show-off stuff for the females for quite a while yesterday. I don't know what they're eating out there. They find good size bugs of some sort in my lawn and then they like to bring them to the bird bath, drop them in and then fish them out and eat them. Washing them off? Whatever the insects are, they seem to have a fairly hard shell because the grackles have to work at eating them. 17-year locust (cicada) grubs, maybe? I never would have guessed that there would be so many out in my lawn. I wish the grackles would eat whatever is eating my peach and dogwoods. Hmmmm. This morning there are two males out there, so maybe it is a "flock". The pictures of grackles in this post are borrowed from the Internet. I'm particularly bad at taking pictures of birds. This picture is the male and the picture further down in the post is the brown and black female.

The cats watch the grackles and make little cat hunting noises, but don't go after them much. Both my cat girls are getting older and stiffer and, in Zoe's case, lazy. I suspect that when the grasshoppers come back this year, Zoe will go after them. She loves chasing grasshoppers and other small creatures that try to escape her.

I've been trying to get organized for a trip that begins next Saturday. It's a nine day business trip and I have to be professional the whole time. I've been figuring out which suits, which dresses, which semi-casual, and which accessories to wear with which outfits. I'm doing this so I don't take extraneous stuff. Usually I pack thinking: "I'd better take this outfit too in case I decide I might want to wear it." I'm just not going to have the space to do that for 9 days of professional travel to opposite sides of the country. So I made a Table, and the rows are: day, schedule for that day, clothes (more than one set if a change will be necessary given the schedule), shoes, accessories for each change of clothes. I've been filling the table in and making sure I have everything and it doesn't need to go to the cleaners first.

*laughing* People who know me would just say that I'm always this anal-retentively organized, but I think I'm usually not on trips. Other things in my life (especially things I collect) are organized to an extreme. I can hear my friend arguing: "Oh, yes you are this organized on trips!" *throws up hands in surrender* Tabun ne. I've already admitted I don't do spontaneity well. At any rate, I should be ready for the trip by next Saturday.

I thought I had seen a swallow already but I suppose it's a little too early for them still. They should be back soon. Instead, there's a pair of house finches that I think are nesting in the old swallow nest. They're certainly hanging out there a lot, but they scram pretty quickly when I open the front door. Well, so did the swallows, but they hovered around unhappily until I left. The finches just fly away. I don't know whether I want the finches to nest there, or want the swallows to displace them when the swallows return. Actually I don't know whether the swallows can displace them if they decide to nest there and are already nesting. I guess I'll see. Birds are so interesting to watch.

Anyway this is short today and I won't be posting again until probably after mid-May when I get back into town and recovered from travels. More when I return.

Spring?

Yes, yes, I know. Texas doesn't really have a Spring as such. We may get a few days where the weather is fairly pleasant before we dive headlong into summer. This year has had some weird weather. We got no rain at all in March, so I've been watering my lawn to get it to grow. We have already had a few days that hit 90, and then this morning it was 50, with a forecast for 41 tomorrow morning followed by 80s during the day. Typical ups and downs for this time of year I guess. I could wish the temperatures were a little more consistent. Of course periodically in the blog I feel required to post pictures of Addy and Zoe. You can see how my lawn's struggling by this first picture of Addy. She likes to lay in the grass and so here she is, mostly surrounded by weeds. You can almost see her saying, "This is less than acceptable!" This pic was about a month ago though. The grass is finally starting to grow up amidst the weeds. I've even got some St. Augustine runners coming back in areas that were totally dead or weed-covered late last year. I'm delighted to see them. There may be some hope that St. Augustine will take over the back yard again. I'll be a little more proactive if I see chinch bugs out there again, now that I know what to look for. Last year when the St. Augustine started dying, I just waited for the Trugreen people's normal scheduled visit. The front yard is slowly coming up Bermuda.

The weather vagaries this year are clearly demonstrated by following my attempts at growing things. Of course I probably can't blame it all on the weather. I've never had a green thumb, despite having two sisters who can grow anything and everything. One of those sisters brought me some little dogwoods and a small holly from east Texas, which my friend and I planted in my back yard on April 2nd. The holly will probably live. If it does it will be due entirely to it's own hardiness. I can't say the same about the dogwoods. They looked fairly good the day after we planted them, but have gone steadily downhill since then. This first picture was taken the morning after they were planted. Not too bad, I thought. Then the wind blew hard that whole day. The next morning before sunup we had a major storm. It was like all the March rainfall we didn't get in March hit us within about a 2 hour time period that morning. Plus I got hail. Needless to say, the little dogwoods didn't do well. Then for the last two weeks it's been windy and warm with no rain, and yesterday it was 60-mph-gusts windy. There's a picture further down in the blog on the right where you can see what the baby dogwoods looked like this morning. Poor things. And those cracks in the ground are not due to dryness. Water runs off out there right now. From the looks of them, it's pretty amazing that they're still alive at all. So even though I'm still trying, I'm not expecting too much from them. Truthfully, I didn't pick the best spot for them. I know dogwoods like the protection of other trees so I put them close to the fence where the neighbor's tree hangs over. Except, I had that tree cut back so it's not hanging over. And that spot gets late afternoon sun and heat right now. The poor little things have sun-burned leaves, and also I noticed this morning that something is eating them! I sprayed them, so hopefully that will help. I'll keep hoping they somehow make it. I may also go to Home Depot or Lowe's and see if I can find some sort of something to place out there to block the late afternoon sun and maybe some of the wind from hitting them for a while.

The peach seedlings I transplanted into pots are doing well, and so are my roses. So I'm not totally incapable of growing things. *laughing* Although I probably shouldn't speak too soon. They could all still curl up. The peach tree itself continues to struggle to survive also. Some of the budding limbs came off in the strong winds we've had, but at least one area of growth is now looking like true limbs rather than a few leaves. You can see how it's doing in this picture. So the peach continues to try to keep growing.

Seriously, anything around me that grows . . . it's due entirely to it's own ability to grow and thrive. I have the exact opposite of a green thumb, whatever that may be. Black thumb, maybe? But I do love Spring and growing things. I'm not so happy when things are dormant and skies are gray.

I thought I'd better get a blog post in because I'm about to start some traveling. The first two weeks in May are hopeless. San Diego for 6 days, followed by Charleston for 3 days, back here for 4 days, then Berlin for 4 days. Can you say jet lag? I suspect that by May 16th when I get back home, I'll be TIRED. Still. I enjoy the stuff I'm doing, and my colleagues. The traveling will be worth the meetings and the socializing. These are all people and associations I'm fond of working with and for. Then the third week in May I start teaching my Summer Biochem class. I've already started putting that together and updating lectures since it starts so close to when I get back from my travels.

I had a period of time in March where my stomach was seriously bothering me, almost all the time. I've had reflux for years, but this was the first time I couldn't control it with antacids. (well, it wouldn't be me if I didn't discuss my medical issues at some point in a blog). So the Monday that I was hurting all day and had been for most of the weekend, I gave up home remedies and made an appointment with my doctor. The upshot is, I probably have an ulcer (very positive test for H.pylori), so today I'm doing the antibiotic therapy. Hopefully this will clear it all up. I also had a sonogram since the pain was in a gallbladder-like position. The sonogram showed a possible cyst or polyp in the gallbladder which we'll follow up if the antibiotics don't work. Easy fixes first, I always say. Actually I'll have a follow up ultrasound in 6-ish months even if the antibiotics work, just to make sure. If the antibiotics don't work, my Doc wants to follow up sooner.

Here's the prerequisite picture of Zoe in one of her favorite places, inside the coiled up hose. I'm not sure why she likes that but she does. This year the birds are disrespecting her as much as ever, but she never gives up trying to be the mighty huntress. She's a little more handicapped this year without the overgrown peach tree to hide in. Hard to believe that tree went from massively overgrown and healthy last year at this time to barely, maybe surviving this year. Interestingly, I found out peach trees are difficult to keep alive anyway, having a relatively short life span for a tree. The life span for a peach is 10 - 20 years and I've been in this house 10 years now. So I suppose my little peach tree's demise is not entirely my fault. It may have just been it's time. I guess I'll see if I can grow some more from the little seedlings, and in the meantime consider what type of tree I might want to replace it with if it completely dies.

My weeds in the backyard need to be mowed again already, but I'm not going to do it yet. The front yard doesn't need it, and the grass in the backyard (what there is) needs to grow some more before I cut it. I'll just have to struggle getting the mower through the overgrown weed areas when I do mow.

I guess that's all for now. Later!

Good News

I named this blog "Any GOOD Reason" because when I started it, I really didn't have any reason to be blogging, let alone a good reason. That's probably still true, but I like doing it. I think it's that 'talking to myself' feeling. I really don't care if anyone reads it. *laughing* Maybe I secretly hope nobody does. For me this blog is a nice way to sort out my thoughts on various subjects, to mourn things I need to mourn and to celebrate things I want to celebrate.

Today is a celebrate day. After last week's mourning for Japan. They still need help and prayers and probably will for a while, but the Japanese people are strong. They will come back.

I've had a week full of GOOD news, which gives me a good reason to blog. Actually some of the good news happened last week, but I couldn't celebrate at this time last week. The news from Japan was too frightening. Anyway on to the good news:

My niece is home in America, safe and sound, after a long and tiring week of travel and limited amenities. Her place in Japan is inside the radiation zone from the nuclear plant, so she opted to come back to the US until things are to the point where she can return.

My other niece matched at the residency program she wanted, so she'll be starting residency after graduating from medical school in May.

My promotion went through. YES! My overall reaction has been a huge sigh of relief. I'm so delighted that after all the political nonsense, my promotion went through. As of the new fiscal year, September 1st, I'll be a full Professor. It feels good. I personally thanked every one of my colleagues, here and around the world, who gave me references, both in the form of letters and actually speaking with the Promotion & Tenure Committee. I'm very grateful that I know and work with so many wonderful people. I'm really a lucky person.

So those are my big pieces of good news. On top of that, Spring is finally here. My grass is beginning to come up, my roses are leafing out like crazy, and the side of my peach tree that was minimally alive last Fall is trying to make a comeback. The picture at the top of the blog is from last Sunday. Tiny new leaves can be seen coming out. The picture at the bottom of the blog is from today. The alive side of the peach is continuing to grow, so maybe there's hope. I just need to try to prevent whatever killed the other side from killing the living side. This morning when I was out there looking at the tree, I found two little peach seedlings coming up, no doubt from a couple of the thousands of peach pits that litter that area. I transplanted the two little seedlings into pots. Maybe I can keep them alive too. I've never grown a tree from a seed before, not being very good with plants. Luckily I had pots and potting soil so I could plants the little things. I bought the potting soil recently for some baby cacti I'm trying to grow, and I cleaned out two of the big pots that held aloe vera until the snow killed them a year ago.

I'm probably going to need to mow my lawn this week. That'll be the first time this year, which is about the same time I began mowing last year I think. I also de-wasped the bird boxes out front. The little boxes I hung up there for the swallows to nest in also attract wasps. In another month or so the swallows will be back, so I stuck Bounce sheets up there to keep the wasps away, and removed a large red wasp nest that was built up there last summer. When I pulled that nest down I stuffed Bounce sheets around the edges of the bird box, and a large red wasp dropped out, nearly on my head! Serious adrenaline surge. If I hadn't been standing on a step stool I probably would have been running. It was struggling and buzzing on the porch, and before I finished the Bounce sheets and moved it was gone. They really hate whatever is in those Bounce sheets. Works for yellow jackets and honey bees too. They just fly away from it.

So, not much to bog about today. Just puttering about the place and I wanted to post briefly about all my good news.

Tsunami

I'm sitting here this morning thinking about "normal". It's a 'normal' Sunday and I'm doing 'normal' Sunday things, normal laundry, normal cleaning, normal everything. And through it all at the back of my mind is my niece, who's life is anything but 'normal' right now. Sarah is in Japan. Specifically that area of Japan that just went through an earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale. That area that was just totally destroyed by a 23 foot tsunami wave. That area that they are estimating 10,000 people died in.

Sarah is lucky or blessed or both. She "normally" lives just north of a nuclear reactor that is now in partial meltdown. Thanks to an efficient Japanese government with lots of disaster planning and experience, Sarah and the people around her were evacuated much ahead of the explosion and the partial meltdown. Thanks to the townspeople at the center where she was evacuated to, she has food and blankets for warmth, and finally a way to charge her cell phone and tell her family that she's okay.

In this context, I'm struggling with 'normal' this morning. There's so much I want to do, and nothing I can do. So I'm doing the normal things, laundry, cleaning, and also periodically checking the news from Japan and the family Facebook pages for updates. And struggling with the dichotomy. My life is so 'normal' here, and the news from Japan is horrific. I have no way to imagine the anguish of my brother and sister-in-law as they waited to hear from Sarah or news of her whereabouts as more and more reports came in, as the world watched the tsunami roll over everything in it's path, as property crushed and burned and no doubt took lives with it.

Sarah is fine this morning. I find myself reminding myself of that fact over and over. I'm not religious. While I often believe in God, I don't believe in religion, in any of it's myriad forms. But I thank God for keeping Sarah safe and ask Him to watch over all the survivors in Japan and all the people rebuilding their not-so-normal, shattered lives.

Tax time!

Well, actually it's not tax time yet, but given that I used to do my tax return on February 2nd, I'm a little late this year. Hmmmmm. I think last year I was a little late too. Partly that's because ever since I can no longer do the EZ form, it's taken me longer to decide to sit down and do them, and partly I'm waiting to make sure I get acknowledgements from all the charities I donate to. Anyway this weekend it's too cold (again!) to do anything resembling yard work so I decided to do my taxes. For the first time ever, I did them electronically.

That wasn't by choice though. I'm so old-fashioned that I've been doing them by hand and mailing my return in by snail mail every year since I started doing taxes. This year I got a little notice in the mail that the IRS was no longer sending out the paper books with everything you need to file your return, and to please get with the program and file electronically like most reasonable people. *laughing* Well, they didn't use those words, but that's essentially what they said. So I was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and I used Turbotax and e-filed my tax return yesterday.

I hate to admit it, but it was actually easier than my old, hand-written method. Plus I got almost $1000 more on my refund than I would have gotten doing it the old way. Turbotax knows what to look for and leads you to it, does all the calculations, and makes sure you don't miss anything. Very nice. I suppose I'll be e-filing from now on because it seems like one of those things that once you start using, you can't live without it. Like microwaves or online banking.

Interestingly, as much as I like online banking, I probably wouldn't have missed paying that bill last month if I were still writing checks each month. The statements for all my bills would be there, I'd write checks and check them off, so I always knew what was still pending for the month. Now I don't keep track of that. I just pay my bills as I get emails that they're due. I'm still trying to figure out HOW I missed that one last month. When the bill comes due, it turns red in my online banking account and sends an email to my email address. Usually I don't delete that email until after I pay that particular bill. But even if I had deleted the email, the bill should have stayed red until I paid it. It was never red last month, even though obviously I didn't pay it. I really don't know how it happened, but I do know that I need to stop relying quite so heavily on the electronics to keep me up to date on things. It makes me wonder. Do I really need to check off each bill on a list as I pay it each month, so I know what's paid and what's not? Or am I getting even more anal-retentive and obsessive-compulsive than usual?

The temperature this morning when I went out to get the paper was 34! And the little birdbath was frozen! I hope my aloe vera didn't take too much more damage. I didn't see anything in the news about freezing temperatures last night although it was damn cold yesterday. Mid-40s with a strong north wind. I took my car and had the oil and filter changed and some minor maintenance done and it was COLD outside. Things are starting to bloom around here though because it's starting to be warmer in general. Bradford pears are all in bloom and redbuds are starting to bloom as well. My peach, if it lives, won't bloom this year. I think I had it cut too far back to survive. It's hard to believe that last year is was so overgrown that my cat hid it it. This year it's a "Y" shaped stump. Here's a picture of what's left of it, with my neighbor's bradford blooming in the background.

The trees aren't really starting to leaf out much but if we'd get some rain and just a little more warmth they'll all leaf out with a vengeance. I really like the times of year when things are green better than the winter. Although it is nice to have a few months of not mowing the lawn.

Addy went out today and rolled in the dirt over by the peach tree. I think sometimes her skin is itchy and maybe that helps. Addy has really thick fur and often has dandruf. She likes rolling in the dirt when she can get out there, and lately they're both getting a little braver about being out there. Plus of course it's been a little warmer. I'm ready to have leaves on the trees and grass in my yard. Zoe's been sitting out there watching, waiting for the first grasshopper to come by probably. She's in stalking mode right now so I guess she thinks she saw something move. Anway, guess that's it for today. Later.