stubbed toes and mud pies

@digitS' we looked at things closer today and my brother had his phone and took pictures of the pictures using that and blew them up so we could see them better.

while i have no recollection of ever wearing clothes like those i may have just blanked it out. so they both (Mom and my brother) think that was me in the red plaid... yes, the brain damage was there before i got into weed...

I remember my dad saying that he wasn’t sure if he was born in 1917 or 1918. His mother was adamant, he was born in 1918.

No birth certificate although it said ‘18 on his army discharge.

When your mother is sure about something like that, believe her.

two mornings ago i noticed the first grackles had returned. no robins yet. i hope the many bluejays will continue to make it harder for the grackles as it seemed that last year the blue jays did hold their own. the robins also get mixed in the fray but brouhaha is probably the better word...

We did have those 50° (10°C) days yesterday and the day before. The first day, we crossed paths with a small flock of robins.

This happened a couple of years ago but it was January and quite a large flock. It was like, What are They doing Here?

I noticed a Mountain Ash nearby that flock. I have seen robins feeding on those berries during the Wintertime. They don't seem to pay attention to berries or any fruit during the warmer months but the earthworms are coming nowhere near the soil surface right now.

I don't know where the robins are coming from. There is a river valley (the Snake) about 100 miles to the south. It's well over 1000ft lower in elevation. Maybe they are overwintering there and just making a excursion during warmer days.

Steve

today was rather randomish in tasks and results.

skipping the mundane stuff i got some limes out and got them reduced to a mash of pulp and juice. using the stick blender on them after peeling them. the hardest parts of the limes are the skins and bits of pulp attached to the ends. the stick blender has slots which tend to get plugged up by this stuff and i pull it out and chew on it to get all the juice out of it and then swallow it to add to whatever fiber of my being it needs to join.

[spider hunting comes next - skip if you don't like spiders or stories about them]

washing those dishes up then i could get a break of sorts before doing a bit of cleaning and spider hunting (dual tasks combined into one thing i dislike the most, raising dust...). i did not find any spiders in my room at all, the task was to move and dust a small bookcase and look under it for spiders. i saw the webs, and they were the right (or wrong) kind of webs indicating the common house spider that has seemed to take on the dimensions of the spiders in The Hobbit... i got the stuff off and out of the bookcase and dusted it and then moved it and found an egg sac but no spider. this has been the trend lately. the spiders either move on or they have died off. egg sac removed and discarded, book case restored to where it belonged after all webs cleaned up and floor dusted (it was actually pretty good - i'm proud of myself for how well i've done for the 7-10 years that bookcase has been sitting there at how clean it was underneath).

then i went on to check under the futon for any spiders. all clear other than some dust bunnies and a few webs, but nothing that turned out to be an active spider of any kind. this is good, there's a lot of spots for spiders to hide under there.

and then i went on with hunting a spider in Mom's room which i did find and removed and cleaned up the webs, no egg sac for this one so it was either a juvenile or a male.

[spider stuff done]

there was also some spots on the floor that looked too much like mold to me so i bleached them and will look at it tomorrow.

since then i've watched videos about electrons, atoms, the most ancient names that we think we know are names, a star orbiting a black hole and some other things that might have stuck in my brain, but i wouldn't count on it...

i also read two books the past several days and while i was at first not sure i was going to finish the first book, i did and i'm glad i persisted because then i could read the 2nd which i considered an improvement. i like finding stories which can take me away from this simple life to more complicated places. i need things that exercise my imagination and movies don't do that for me as compared to a good book.

digitS' said:

crossed paths with a small flock of robins.

Click to expand...

I saw ONE Robin about 5 blocks distance from our house, yesterday.

i heard froggies out yesterday but certainly not today as it has gone back to cold again.

Frogs now singing for a full week.
Lots of birds making lots of noise, only we don't hear them bc we still have the house closed up bc it's COLD! 😵
Grass is greening up.

ducks4you said:

Frogs now singing for a full week.
Lots of birds making lots of noise, only we don't hear them bc we still have the house closed up bc it's COLD! 😵
Grass is greening up.

Click to expand...

the birds and froggies are so loud here at times that i can hear them through the walls (even with six inch insulation). cardinals, bluejays, blue herons, canadian geese, grackles, robins and then the mourning doves have a few spots they perch where we can hear them because they are on top of the fireplace chimney and the sound comes down through the chimney.

i never sleep with the patio door open or any windows open because i'd never get any sleep from all the racket. i also leave them closed anyways because of the spring pollen allergies - it really helps. in the spring and late winter when the wind picks up and i start sneezing i know it is usually due to pollen in the air or flowers blooming on certain trees - like the lone lilac bush we have is to the NE from here so if the wind shifts when that is blooming i'll start sniffling and sneezing (even if i can't smell the scent).

flowerbug said:

i heard froggies out yesterday but certainly not today as it has gone back to cold again.

Click to expand...

I have no frogs. Darn city living. Lol

Mary