Finally, a harvest to write home about

So after a slow ramp-up, our garden has finally started to really come on strong.

This morning we were able to harvest quite a few beans, as well as our largest harvest of pea pods.  Jeannette even managed to snag an almost full-size mini-beet.
 

We may finally have so many garden fresh vegetables that we won't be able to eat them all on the day they were harvested.

Of course, our herb pot also continues to do well.

Even with the strange new additions I found this morning.

And after a seemingly slow start, our tomato plants are finally with tomatoes (though they don't look as though they'll be red any time soon).

And in case you haven't guessed it yet, we have definitely fallen down on the weeding.  It seems that every time we try to go out and weed we are just overwhelmed with mosquitoes and it doesn't seem worth it.

Actually better than usual

So it's been going back and forth between grey and blue skies for the better part of the day.  Just a little while ago, when things started to look particularly ominous, I set up my time-lapse machine to see if I could catch the transition from plain old grey to thunderstorm grey.


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While I didn't manage to capture any lightning, you can see the clouds racing around as well as evidence of the downpour.

And while this video is definitely not perfect, I'm pretty confident that it is one of my better time-lapse clips of clouds.  Hopefully my past efforts won't deter you from watching this one.

And the harvest expands

After returning from the local farmers' market we went out to our own garden and harvested a few things.

I'm particularly impressed with the number of pea pods we found, as well as the two sample potatoes we dug up.  I'm a little bummed with the size of the beets, but apparently they're a mini variety.

Things are definitely coming along and we should have more beans that we know what to do with very shortly (and while they're coming in more peas will continue to come in).

This is definitely pretty exciting.

Apparently a suitcase is also just fine

She really isn't very picky when it comes to picking places for a nap.

A Few Quick Notes 600

-We seem to be heading into another grey and rainy prairie summer's day.  Yum.  If we're 'lucky' we may even get to have a few thundershowers and whatnot.

-I guess it's a good thing that we just installed our second rain barrel below your garage's new roof and eavestrough then?

Unfortunately, our smaller rain barrel is below the downspout that is likely to collect more rain.  Eventually we may have to try to switch these barrels around - but for the time being and as long as I am disinclined to cut up our downspout and then re-attach it to our stucco siding we may have to stick with this less-than-ideal arrangement.

-Oh, and did we mention that we're painting our house?  The process should start in earnest next week.

Maybe the new colour will help with the naming process?  Of course, I'm not entirely sure that I like the idea of naming our house something like "The Eggplant" or some other name that is entirely dependent on a house colour that may not be permanent.

I guess we could consider something like "Jellybean West"?  (For those of you not familiar with St. John's, Jellybean Row are colourful row houses in downtown St. John's.)

-I think I may have mentioned it before, but our cat seems to really like hanging out in boxes.

This shoe box seems to be Marie's favourite, though if she's in another room she'll pretty much take anything that's available.

For instance, laundry baskets are definitely a suitable stand-in.

-Despite the aforementioned risk of thundershowers the sun seems to have just found a slight crack in the cloud cover.  Of course, it's now clear how long this situation will hold.

A Few Quick Notes 599

-So for the past few days it's been pretty hot and humid in Regina.  I'm a little bit bummed about this as I have long been lead to believe that Regina is in the 'dry heat' zone.  Maybe this is just a bit of anomaly?

-Yup, we still have a cat and she's still at least a little bit cute.

Of course, from time to time she's also at least a little bit crazy.  Sometimes she seems to work herself up and then run around and jump off of furniture as quickly as possible.  She also likes running quickly and then sliding into turns on the hardwood floors (sometimes she misjudges the slide and bangs into things).

-I have today off so I walked over to get a nice summer haircut.  Already I feel as though I made the right call.  Maybe I'll have to be on a two or three week cycle for the rest of the summer?  

-If all goes well I be able to take care of some cement patching, aquaponics setting up, and a few other errands before my day-off comes to a close.

-Oh, and because I didn't mention it before or when it was happening, a few days ago I was in Ottawa. And is there a better way to commemorate the trip than to grab a quick time-lapse of the intersection outside of my hotel room?

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Right, I didn't think so.

A little unexpected

When I was walking to work yesterday I spotted what appeared to be a pelican on Wascana Lake.  Since confirming that it was a pelican that I saw I've seen either that pelican or another pelican a number of times (on my walk home from work on Monday, on my walk to work today, and on an evening stroll tonight).

Of course, I think the following photo does a slightly better job of representing the beauty of the evening, though a much worse job at making it overwhelmingly clear that I saw a pelican in Regina.

Definitely didn't ever imagine I'd spot my first wild pelican while living on the prairies.

Harvest progress

In late May Jeannette and I planted our garden.  At the time this seemed a little late, if anything, as Spring was already several weeks behind schedule.

After several weeks of rainy grey weather, if anything, it felt as though we'd jumped the gun and planted far too early.

Now that we're into July things finally feel as though they're catching up (or at least close to catching up).

Of course, the weeds are also growing quite well and we've definitely fallen down on our weeding duties.

Our herb barrel has also really picked up over the course of the past month.

In early June it didn't have much going on.

And now in early July it's damn near full (and that's after a fair bit of chives, thyme, and mint harvesting).

Of course, we've also had our fair share of radishes (actually a full row of them at this point).

And Jeannette's been collecting various greens (beet, kale, spinach, pea, and strawberry spinach) for at least the past two weeks).

So just to round up what we've had so far because I haven't been diligent about photographing the harvest we've managed to get at least a handful of each of the following (in more or less this order):

1) Chives
2) Thyme
3) Apple Mint
4) Radishes
5) Spinach
6) Strawberry Spinach
7) Beet Greens
8) Pea Shoots
9) Pea Pods
10) Kale
11) Spearmint
12) Basil (two varieties)

My recollection of what we have left to come is as follows:

1) Green Beans
2) Edamame
3) Beets
4) Hot Peppers
5) Sweet Peppers (two varieties)
6) Pumpkins
7) Celery
8) Carrots
9) Sweet Corn
10) Potatoes
11) Tomatoes
12) Onions

If all the stuff on this second list works out we may actually manage something of a feed for ourselves at some point this summer.  I'll be particularly impressed with us if we can somehow managed herb roasted potatoes and corn at the same time (and maybe with some edamame for protein).

The kind of day it was

Today has been a pretty weird day.  One minute it seems to be bright and sunny only to be followed by the next minute when it's either raining or overcast.

As you might have guessed, I tried to capture at least some of this experience via time-lapse technology.  And while I have been known to cry wolf when it comes to the quality of my vids in the past, I actually think this one is kind of neat and makes clear that there are at least a few layers of clouds at work.

Enjoy.



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I bet you're all really jonesing for the vid that I'm currently in the midst of filming - how could a sequel to this hot vid not be even hotter?

A Few Quick Notes 598

-So after several months without rain and clouds grey skies and rain have finally returned to Regina.  For the better part of the past few weeks we've had at least grey skies for part of most days and somewhat regular rain.  The upside of this weather is that on Thursday night I got to see my first double rainbow, the downside is that it's almost always not quite as warm or sunny as I was expecting it to be at this time of year in Regina.

-Despite the grey skies, cool temperatures, and plentiful rain the plants we planted in our garden a few weeks ago are mostly growing.  Sure, most of them would probably be doing a fair bit better with a few more hours of sun a day and soil that at least occasionally is a little drier, but that hasn't meant that most of them haven't continued to grow - if somewhat slowly.

Not surprisingly, the radishes are furthest along.  And had this weekend not been as rainy as it was we would have even planted a second and third row so that we can start to have a stead stream of radishes. The peas and beans are also doing well, though, again, more sun would surely help.  

The plants that seem to be growing particularly slowly are our pepper and corn plants.  The corn plants seem not to have managed to make it beyond about three inches while the pepper plants don't seem to be any taller than they were when we moved them from indoors to the garden.

In any event, the fact that most of these plants are even alive seems kind of remarkable given the incredible number of weeds and the high clay content of the soil.  I suspect that not weeds be an annual battle, but so will the soil.  Who would have guessed that in a province known for agriculture that the soil is mostly just clay?  In Newfoundland it's always a challenge to put a shovel into the ground because of the rocks - here the rock-free clay is just to dense and goopy for one's shovel.

-A friend of mine from library school is coming into Regina for a conference tonight and I've offered to give her a ride from the airport to where she's staying.  Not only am I looking forward to catching up after about five years, having someone else in the car finally provided me with the motivation I needed to finally get around to giving the car a quick vacuum and clean for the first time since we've owned it.  Not surprisingly, the back was a fair bit cleaner than the front.

-Now that our balcony rail has been in place for a week we've started thinking about our next project.  As some discussion we finally settled on re-roofing our garage.  Yesterday I picked up most of the supplies, though I still have to snag some flashing.  So whenever the skies clear and the rain stops we'll have to start on this project.  I'm a little worried that this is going to be a bit of a nasty project - but at least at the end we'll hopefully have a garage that doesn't leak quite as much as our garage does currently.

Oh, and then once we're done with the roof we'll have to move on to re-siding it.  Hooray!  

Fortunately, I think we've got the game plan for this more or less figured out - though that doesn't mean that there won't be surprises when we finally get around to it in a few weeks.

Box Kitty

It wasn't long after Marie arrived that it became clear that one of her favourite haunts is Jeannette's desk.

The only thing that seems to have made the location even more desirable has been the addition of a shoe box.

Sometimes she'll spend hours sleeping in such a box while Jeannette works.

Of course, she's not particularly loyal to a particular box - basically any shoe box will do.

And if she happens to be in the bedroom rather than the office she's more than happy to trade a shoebox in for a pair of my pants.

And even then she's not particularly picky - pretty much any pants will do.

Life's certainly a little different around here than it used to be in the pre-kitty days.

Catching up on vids

So while Jeannette and I were in Vancouver just over a week ago I managed to snag a few hot time-lapse vids.

The first I took while taking a break from walking along the Sea Wall in Stanley Park.  It seems that even on a grey day in Vancouver the place is fausty with people.

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Later, when were back in West Point Grey we stopped at a park near where I used to live and I snagged this while we sat and drank coffee.  As you might be able to see, downtown Vancouver can be seen in the background.

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Don't forget to keep checking back for hot new vids.

Working our way up the scale

After some painting and then a few weeks of gardening projects Jeannette and I finally got around to tackling one of the more substantial (maybe it wasn't actually all that substantial - but it was certainly daunting) projects associated with our new house - the construction of a new balcony rail.

Soon after we moved in to our place it became clear that what looked just like a little weird balcony on the back of our house was actually a decrepit little weird balcony.  As this winter's snow began to melt and expose the places where there used to be wood we began to get a sense of the general decrepitude of the rail - and it wasn't good.  As more time passed pieces of rotting wood began to fall onto the patio below.  Sitting nearby when there was even a slight breeze became risky.

As obvious as it was that something needed to be done, I was a little hesitant to act before we were comfortable with our plan of action.  Of course, once it became clear that my unwillingness to even consider developing a plan became was an excuse for inaction, Jeannette scoped out the supplies and forced me to agree to a plan.

On Friday after work we went to a local building supplies store and picked everything up.  And because I was less than psyched about using my mitre box and saw to make all of the cuts we took advantage of the store's cut shop.  For reasons that still aren't entirely clear to me (but that may have something to do with an employee's dissatisfaction with his job) we ended up getting all of our cuts done for free.

Of course, it rained most of Saturday so we had to wait until today to get going.

Fortunately, because the rotting process was so far along the task of clearing the old railing was accomplished in just a few minutes.

Before long we were on to the construction phase.  And because we purchased a few metal connectors instead of relying on nail/screw based joins we were able to move along confidently and quickly (and with zero bashed fingers).

And then not long after that we were able to start adding the balusters (though our original plan had been to add them from the inside and then flip them around to the outside we decided to just keep them on the inside).

And that's basically all there was to the project.  Amazingly, we were done in just a few hours (deconstruction and construction combined).  As it turns out there was no reason for my hesitance - this whole process was shockingly easy and straightforward.  And as Jeannette just pointed out to me, it wasn't particularly expensive (especially after we returned the extra balusters).  I'm just glad my lethargy didn't cause us to try to put it off until next year.

And if you're curious to know how we passed what would have been rail construction time on Saturday it went as follows:

I installed a new cord on this lamp.

With Jeannette's assistance I installed some box shelves on the wall in Jeannette's office.

Assembled a new patio bench.

All kinds of shopping related errands (including the purchase of new sheets, plants, and deeply discounted linen clothes).

Three hot kitty vids

So, as promised, here's the kitty jumping in a box supercut.



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I also managed to snag a clip off her visiting three boxes in quick succession.



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Then, last but not least, here's a quick clip of her cleaning herself with a lick-the-paw-and-then-rub-it-on-her-head manoeuvre.


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Had the angles worked out I would have had a time-lapse kitty getting a bath vid to share, though, sadly, as foreshadowed earlier in this sentence, the angles did not work out and most of the shot was my above butt-crack region.

As always, keep checking back for an unending stream of less-than-stellar kitty vids.

The Birds III

After a first round of nest removals a few weeks ago I thought I had vanquished our pigeons.

Of course, it only took me a few hours to figure out that I hadn't done a good enough job to really prevent our persistent pigeons from returning.

Now, several weeks later, I am again in the position of thinking that I have permanently eliminated the possibility pigeons infesting our eaves.  Though, as was the case last time, my hubris will surely lead to my defeat.

One eventuality that I was hoping to avoid by removing the nests so early after the melt was that I would be removing a nest filled with eggs.  Not surprisingly, when I did the first round of nest removals my wishes came true and there were no eggs in the nests.

Yesterday, almost immediately, I learned that I wouldn't be so luck the next time around.  The pigeons, in just a few days, had not only constructed a nest but also deposited an egg.

For some reason I was careful with the nest and egg as I removed them.  I managed to get the whole package down the ladder without much disturbance.  For no apparent reason, I then handed the egg-filled nest to Jeannette

The sad reality is that as soon as I removed the nest from the eaves the egg was doomed to never come to fruition.  Of course, as much as Jeannette knew this in her head she very much disliked the idea of throwing a more or less fully formed nest with egg in the trash (even though the handless pigeons could do nothing save the already doomed attempt at offspring).

Once I went back up the ladder to continue the twig removal I learned that I was not removing one nest, but two.  It seems that the pigeons had actually built their nest over the nest of much smaller birds. And had it not been for the pigeon nest I would likely not have been motivated to remove the second, smaller nest (this one with two eggs).

These too went in the trash.

Once these nests were removed I added the new chicken wire.  Hopefully my aggressive application of the stuff will be enough to keep future potential residents away.  In reality what it will likely do is move birds from this site to other sites in our eaves.  Maybe once we've finished this game of musical nesting sites I'll have wrapped all of my eaves in chicken wire and staple gun staples.

My ladder-loaning neighbour's sake I hope it doesn't come to that (though it is definitely the case that he and his wife are very much in favour of my attempts to rid our house of pigeons).

Though considering that as of last night the pigeons were on our other neighbours chimney across from their former nesting site surveying the situation does not really suggest that they have accepted defeat and are looking for new, distant nesting site.

The fact that they were there again this morning really doesn't bode well for the "they'll move far away once their nest has been removed" hypothesis.

Oh, and then later in the day when I was dealing with our newly established compost bin I found another dead bird.

As penance for the last post

Perhaps not surprisingly, my cute kitty posts seem to be a little more popular than my dead bird posts - so here's a cute kitty post.

After what seems like an eternity I've finally posted another video of 'Sweet' Marie playing.  This time she's checking out the inside of a box.

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I kind of think that she likes it in there.

If you're lucky I may even have a box related 'supercut' for you later today.

The Birds II

It seems that my pigeon deterrence installations of a few weeks ago weren't quite as successful as I'd hoped.  Over the past few days what had just been hanging out under our eaves has reverted to a major nest building operation.

Obviously I will have to initiate a nest removal operation later this morning or early this afternoon.

Another worrying trend is that the appearance of dead birds in our backyards, at least as of a few days ago, has continued.  On the same day I even found two just feet apart from each other.

Of course, it took me a little longer to spot the one hiding in the fence.

On a more positive note, aside from the bird nest removal project we're also hoping to finally get around to planting our garden (after we add another few bags of peat moss and topsoil to the clay base that is Regina soil).

If you put it in front of me I'm going to take a picture of it

For whatever reason, I am definitely inclined to take pictures of the dead fish I see on my walks to and from work.  As it happens I encountered such fish on both Thursday and Friday.

On Friday afternoon I finally saw my first partially consumed fish.

I can't help but wonder why I keep seeing all of these dead fish.  Is this just part of a normal Spring die-off, or is there something else at work?  While most of the fish don't seem to be injured, I can't help but wonder if this last fish died of a different cause - maybe an animal attack?

As always, this blog is engaged in providing its readers with small-n cutting edge ecological monitoring.  And isn't this what such a blog should be doing (when I'm not posting vids of kitties or snow melting)?

It didn't take long

So after complaining about not seeing Marie fall asleep and then even going so far as posting a video with nothing but clips of her falling asleep I didn't have to wait long to see Marie fall asleep.  Basically just after I made the last post she fell asleep behind me.



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I'm starting to get the sense that Marie's inclination is to spend as much of her day as possible sleeping.

Of course, when I arrived home from work today nobody was taking a cat nap.  Instead my arrival was being eagerly awaited.  Jeannette, in particular, was quite keen to show off some of her handiwork.

I'm still not entirely sure what to think of this kind of thing, but as far as I could tell Marie didn't seem to mind the hat.  Jeannette suggests that she didn't mind the hat because it was made to measure.  My thought is that maybe she's just super laid back and not inclined to knit pick.

And as much as I am loathe to say it, I do think she looks kind of cute (but I don't want this to be taken as an suggestion that I think new outfits should be regularly procured/created).

Ok, I get the message...

...you don't want to see pics of dead birds.

What about live birds?

I saw this duck on my way home and I have no idea what kind of duck it is.  Any guesses?

Oh, and I also saw a dead fish on my way to work.

And then this one on the way home.

Do you think that they might actually be the same dead fish just in different locations?

Oh, and because I just uploaded it I might as well post Jeannette's Marie vid from today (and in you've noticed, I'm definitely having issues with the vid I thought I loaded last night).  This video was made because I claimed that I hadn't seen Marie fall asleep, despite that every time Jeannette turns around Marie seems to be asleep.



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One for the road

So after some dishes I threw together a little toy with some string and had some fun watching Marie go in circles.  Maybe with a little more practice she'll know just to chase her own tail if she wants to amuse us humans?

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Hands up if you're tired of these yet?

Some of you are probably so tired of these you want me to bring back the dead bird pics.

More animal updates

What does day two of a new kitty mean?

Supercuts of kitty vids of course!



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I'm assuming that once she's fully familiarized herself with the house tomorrow it will be non-stop imitation Maru.

Oh, and I also found another dead bird in our backyard.

Bummer.

Hopefully this is the last of these that I find for the time being.

Probably the worst news ever

I'm starting to think that that whole thing about kitten videos being internet gold (or at least copper) may have something of a basis in fact.

 

While it is certainly not the case that yesterday's cute kitty vid is getting nearly as many views as PSY's Gangnam Style, it is at least doing relatively well compared my last year's worth of YouTube offerings (meaning that it got more than 10 views in the first day/ever).

 

Guess this means that a non-stop stream of 'kitty jumping into a box' or 'kitty gets her little head stuck in a thing' vids are what the public demands.  And what are this blog and my YouTube channels if not attempts to meet the internet-based needs of the masses?

 

 

Obligatory cute kitten vid

So a few weeks ago Jeannette made it very clear that she wanted a kitten, and that she wanted this kitten sooner rather than later.  While I was very disinclined to acquire a kitten, I was eventually talked into the proposition.

Of course, even though I'd agreed to the idea of a kitty I hoped that I might be able to talk Jeannette into holding off on the whole thing for a few weeks/forever.

Not surprisingly, I was wrong about my powers of persuasion and about two weeks ago Jeannette found a pound kitty that she immediately liked.  The next day I was dragged kicking and screaming to visit the prospective kitty.

As Jeannette promised, the kitty (already named Marie) was incredibly cuddly and not the least bit scrobby.  We then made arrangements to acquire the cat as soon as the required medical procedures were completed.

And after a nine day wait this afternoon we learned that as of this afternoon the wait was up - Marie was ready to be picked up.  And unbeknowst to me Marie was already at home by the time I returned from work.

Anyway, one aspect of kitty ownership that I was promised if we got a kitty was that I could make all kinds of hit internet vids.  So here goes nothing - here's my first attempt at kitty based internet superstardom (or at least kitty based hit internet vids that do well enough to pay for a new bathroom/baby needs new shoes/$3).


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I presume that kitty vid was every bit as cute and as good as you expected?

The Birds

Just after we moved in to our new house we noticed that several varieties of birds have, at one time or another, nested in our eaves (because they are particularly suited to nesting).  Based on some bird dropping patterns I was relatively certain that at least one or two of the nesting sites were still at least partially active.  Even worse than the presence of some kind of generic nesting bird is that there was a fair bit to indicate that the droppings leavers were in fact a pair of pigeons.

Unfortunately, because of the snow and ice that we've had until quite recently (and still have in a few areas of our backyard) we were unable to do much about rendering our eaves less inhabitable until quite recently.

Yesterday, just as we were thinking of tackling the problem, we noticed that what we hoped was a dormant nesting site was actually active and growing quite quickly.  Somehow in the hours since we'd last been through our back door the pigeons had carried all kinds of sticks and twigs to the nest (and quite a number ended up on the ground below the nest).

Clearly this was something that did merit our attention immediately.

Of course, once we had our extension ladder in place it became clear that it was hilariously short and was clearly not going to be of much use when it came to removing the nests and affixing chicken wire to prevent the return of any future nests.  Fortunately, our neighbours, who were just about as anxious as we were to not have pigeons roosting in the neighbourhood, loaned us their taller extension ladder.

First I had to remove the previously installed pigeon deterrent mesh (that was obviously no longer serving its original purpose).  Once the old mesh and nests were cleared away I had to add new chicken wire.

Fortunately, I soon discovered that we were removing the nests before any eggs had been laid or all that much work had gone into nest preparation.

Anyway, in total we shut down about four of these nesting sites around our house.  We had to leave one that we could not reach with either of the ladders and decided not to tackle another that had non-pigeons.

While the project generally went quite smoothly, it was less than pleasant to have to deal with ancient bird excrement while on a ladder trying to juggle chicken wire, a staple gun, and a utility knife.  Fortunately I had work gloves, a mask, and safety goggles to make the process a little less unpleasant.

Ideally we might have cleaned the beams before we affixed the mesh, but unfortunately that just wasn't in the cards yesterday (though by the end of the day we did have a hose).

Of course, the real bummer of the day was that as we were preparing dinner on our barbecue we noticed that while the pigeons were no longer able to access their old roost, because of the way I'd installed the mesh on one of the alternative roost sites they were able to kind of hangout, even though it seemed to be less than idea.  Crap.

I did some more chicken wire installation today but it definitely wasn't enough - and I couldn't reach the really high parts.  Maybe when our neighbour has his ladder out I'll be able to borrow it again and fix up this beam.  The only good news is that I now have a much better sense of how I need to install the chicken wire so that the birds won't be able to make use of the site.

Of course, removing nest sites wasn't nearly the end of the bird related activity we've had this weekend.

While doing a backyard inspection and attempting to guess what be growing in our previously snow-covered yard I found a small dead bird under an evergreen.

Then, a few minutes later, while continuing my yard inspection I came across a bird skeleton that had more-or-less been picked clean by something.  I was definitely much more curious about skinned and de-fleshed bird than Jeannette.

It just seems obvious to me that one would want to know how it came to pass that this bird was left without wings, skin, feathers, or flesh, but was left with feet and tufts of down around its feet.  And does the redness suggest that the gorefest was recent?

Of course, while I may be curious to know the cause of this avian destruction, I hope that bird skeletons picked clean are not a common occurrence in our backyard.

Oh, and we've been almost overrun with all kinds of other birds, particularly robins.  At one point this evening there were about five types of birds in our backyard at the same time - and throughout the day we saw quite a few other varieties in addition to these four.  Definitely a birdy time of year.