Now for Something Completely Different

We’ve had some funny surprises out here lately.  We’ve been spending lots of time outside gardening, cleaning up, enjoying the sun and birdwatching.  So far we’ve seen blue (jays and indigo buntings), yellow (finches), orange (orioles), red (cardinals, grosbeaks, woodpeckers and robins), gray (titmouse) and lots of brown (sparrows, etc).  We have been trying to find their nests so we can watch for babies.  We came home from breakfast the other day to find a particularly industrious robin building away…

…on our wheel!  The second picture is what is left of the nest that was being built on the wheel of the car we took to breakfast.  We’ve been watching for mama robin to try again, but she seems to have found a more suitable place to rebuild.

That evening we drove home through swarms of what we thought were gnats.  Turns out the mayflies have matured (it happens all at once each year) and there are what seems like millions of the buggers swarming around any land within a half mile of the river.

The black specks aren’t dirt or ash, but mayflies.  They don’t bite, and they only live a few days, so it was interesting to see them.  Apparently they are very pollution-sensitive, so our water must be clean (good to know since we drink from a well!).   There are still a bunch outside today, but nothing like the pictures show.  Julie D, aren’t you proud of me for not being freaked out like it’s a plague?

Speaking of plagues (just to make you laugh a bit)- M and I have been reading her children’s Bible lately and just read about Moses and the plagues in Egypt.  You probably all remember how the male children were “taken” in the final plague.  The picture in our book showed a very sad Pharaoh and I tried to explain that he was sad about his son leaving.  M asked me if Pharaoh had brothers or sisters.  I said probably, but I didn’t know where they were and she said, “Probably in Canada.  Shopping for food.”  Such an imagination on that child.