Chat About Anything Thread (quote, sunday, believe, Eve)
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Early in March and throughout April, I hosted a flockin' lot of finches. I'm talking more than a couple of hundred every day. I told all and sundry about them and found quite a few local bird lovers were also entertaining large numbers of what I presumed to be goldfinches in their drab winter coats.
I was wrong. They ARE finches but not goldfinches. They're Pine Siskins, a wee bird some have never heard of. Anyway, with the onset of warmer weather, many have dispersed but there's still 30-40 of the little beggars hanging about.
Below is a pic of my nyjer feeder. The activity you see taking place there was nearly-constant during the entire daylight hours for about 6-8 weeks. At any given moment, a couple of dozen birds would try to alight on the feeder. I shot the pic from indoors.
In the next, you can see the feeder in the upper right corner and scattered about that part of the deck are a few others. What can't be seen, are the many dozens of them on the other parts of the deck and on the ground, feeding on spilled seed.
I really enjoyed their company during the loooong 2nd-half of winter and hope a few nest nearby. I'd love to see their fledglings in a few weeks.
Guess I'll toss a few more up since I'm at it.
Sparrows don't get a lot of love but I like having some around.
I think the flyer below is preggers.
A little red being curious.
I collect bits of art and oddities from antique and 2nd-hand stores. Often, I'm on the lookout for a small vase or bowl, made of clay or wood to hold my ever-growing collection of feathers. Mr. Aztec, below, is one such.
If anybody needs to mellow out a tad, I'll close with yet another rosy sunset shot. That's Son #1 doing his mellowing on the dock.
Great pics, your front yard looks like mine with all those birds eating, people are always stopping in the road to watch my birds. I am getting a lot of red birds lately which is really cool. But the sparrows are like the sands of the seas, a cloud of them swarming all day.
Early in March and throughout April, I hosted a flockin' lot of finches. I'm talking more than a couple of hundred every day. I told all and sundry about them and found quite a few local bird lovers were also entertaining large numbers of what I presumed to be goldfinches in their drab winter coats.
I was wrong. They ARE finches but not goldfinches. They're Pine Siskins, a wee bird some have never heard of. Anyway, with the onset of warmer weather, many have dispersed but there's still 30-40 of the little beggars hanging about.
Below is a pic of my nyjer feeder. The activity you see taking place there was nearly-constant during the entire daylight hours for about 6-8 weeks. At any given moment, a couple of dozen birds would try to alight on the feeder. I shot the pic from indoors.
In the next, you can see the feeder in the upper right corner and scattered about that part of the deck are a few others. What can't be seen, are the many dozens of them on the other parts of the deck and on the ground, feeding on spilled seed.
I really enjoyed their company during the loooong 2nd-half of winter and hope a few nest nearby. I'd love to see their fledglings in a few weeks.
Guess I'll toss a few more up since I'm at it.
Sparrows don't get a lot of love but I like having some around.
I think the flyer below is preggers.
A little red being curious.
I collect bits of art and oddities from antique and 2nd-hand stores. Often, I'm on the lookout for a small vase or bowl, made of clay or wood to hold my ever-growing collection of feathers. Mr. Aztec, below, is one such.
If anybody needs to mellow out a tad, I'll close with yet another rosy sunset shot. That's Son #1 doing his mellowing on the dock.
I have a 600 year old Ecuadorian cup that looks a lot like that Aztec thing. It has an official stamp inside the cup but I have no idea what that stamp was used for but it is 600 years old from Ecuador. When I was a kid, my mother took in an exchange student and his father was some high official and they were quadrillioniars or whatever, extremely wealthy and he gave that 600 year old cup to me, I bet I could sell it for 10,000 bucks, who knows.
I have a 600 year old Ecuadorian cup that looks a lot like that Aztec thing. It has an official stamp inside the cup but I have no idea what that stamp was used for but it is 600 years old from Ecuador. When I was a kid, my mother took in an exchange student and his father was some high official and they were quadrillioniars or whatever, extremely wealthy and he gave that 600 year old cup to me, I bet I could sell it for 10,000 bucks, who knows.
So, Chat About Anything People--who is doing something exciting for Memorial Day weekend?
My excitement is planting a few tomato and pepper and herb plants. I only have a small area, which is fine Less work. It's hot and sunny, though, and I keep coming in to take breaks and drink water. Pulling up weeds and digging up the ground before I can put the plants in.
Would like to go to the beach, but I live about five miles from the ocean and it gets packed this weekend, which is when the beaches open. However, school is not out yet, so Monday they will leave until the end of June, and I will be able to go to the beach one day next week. I love swimming in the ocean, but the water is still pretty cold at this time.
Invited to a barbecue tomorrow that I can walk to.
I know right, I was keeping it above my water heater and one day the water line burst and started flooding my room. I just happened to have plastic over it but boy was I scared. I have no idea how much it's worth, it could really be a lot.
So, Chat About Anything People--who is doing something exciting for Memorial Day weekend?
My excitement is planting a few tomato and pepper and herb plants. I only have a small area, which is fine Less work. It's hot and sunny, though, and I keep coming in to take breaks and drink water. Pulling up weeds and digging up the ground before I can put the plants in.
Would like to go to the beach, but I live about five miles from the ocean and it gets packed this weekend, which is when the beaches open. However, school is not out yet, so Monday they will leave until the end of June, and I will be able to go to the beach one day next week. I love swimming in the ocean, but the water is still pretty cold at this time.
Invited to a barbecue tomorrow that I can walk to.
I like to take the kids in my family to Galveston every time I get a chance. The kids around me are extremely lucky because I am always burying stuff and letting them find it. One time I put a treasure in a 1950 lunch box that was worth 100 bucks itself and it was filled with antique toys. I put a chain on it and sunk it into a nearby creek and made a story about all the kids searching for a lost treasure and he will always remember that. He was two and he remembers it like yesterday and he is 7 now.
If I lived that close to the beach, I would always be making up stories and treasure maps to find hidden treasure. That memory will be the oldest memory my grandson will ever have.
We avoid hitting the the road on holiday weekends. Too congested and too many people who think drinking and driving is a good idea.
The beaches close in NJ/NY? How do you close a beach?
LOL, OK, not exactly. I go to the beach all year round I took this at sunrise on New Year's Day, 2011, as a matter of fact:
But I meant the beaches open for swimming. The official beach season in NJ runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. During that time, there are lifeguards on the beach during the day. You are not supposed to swim when there are no lifeguards, although people still do. And usually four or five people each year drown doing so.
But, basically, the economy at the Jersey shore runs between those two holidays. The summer rentals begin. The businesses in the towns with boardwalks are open with the shops and the games and mini-golf and whatnot, and many restaurants that are shuttered for the winter are back in business full-time. Some start to open up on weekends in April, because that's when all the festivals start--seafood festivals, beer festivals, ice cream festivals, etc., to stretch out the season.
The fishing party boats are all running, and they usually start before dawn so the little divey breakfast places at the marinas open up. As a matter of fact, a section of our newspaper kicks back in for the summer--it's called Hook, Line, and Sinker, and it has fishing information and locations of what's running where off the shore.
Good or bad weather over the next three months can make or break a business for the year.
Our holiday weekend was last week. Which is also the traditional opening week for cottagers who spend much of the summer on the lake.
I'm at my old house in town for a couple of days to attend a nephew's wedding. Haven't seen my sibs in several months so it'll be catch-up time too.
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How do you close a beach?
