Calamity strikes the babies!

After a Worldview camp that I attended with my New York cousin for a week, we headed off to the cottage once more for 5 days, Monday through Friday. In the period of those 5 days, I experienced the deaths of chicks.

     Monday and Tuesday went by quickly and soon it was Wednesday. I woke up and Comet (the golden retriever) and I walked into the orchard. We had a lovely time watching birds and then we started back up to the house. Comet was ahead of me and she was in a very wild mood and jumped right below....THE ROBIN'S NEST. Now the chicks were almost grown but they still didn't have their tails quite in. As I called Comet to me, 2 of the 3 chicks fluttered down to the ground. I scolded Comet thoroughly and tied her up to a tree. Then I went back for the 2 chicks. Imagine my horror when I could not find them! I rushed back to the house and noticed a bird sitting quite still on the front upper lawn. It happened to be one of the baby robins. I ran into the house, stressed my point to Rowan and Rose that they should not go outside for fear of scaring the bird, and then grabbed a rag. I crept slowly up to the bird from the back and gently scooped it up into the rag. I tried to float over the ground so the bird wouldn't be jarred. Placing it carefully on its nest, I searched for the other 2 since the 3rd chick must have flown as well later on. They were nowhere to be found. So I played a game inside with Mom and went out to check on my saved chick after about 20 minutes. It was gone. I have not seen the three chicks to this day. Mom said they were ready. I just hope their tails grow in fast. There are predators waiting.

     Thursday was a fun day except for the evening. The Martins came over! We had not seen them for like 8 months and we were so excited. We had a very good time with them and Conner and I had an adventure with a watermelon which rolled off the counter while Conner had his back turned. It was a long juicy watermelon and we soaked several rags in getting the juice off the floor. While we ate watermelon outside, the boys brought up a mouse. I ran inside to get a book to identify it. I found it was a deer mouse and proceeded to read aloud that it can carry Lyme disease and Hanta virus. We released it into the field. After the Martins left, we found 2 dead chicks and one live fluffy one under the hedge tree. They were white-crowned sparrows and they must have fallen out of their nest? The live one, we tried to make comfortable for the night but I think it must have twisted its neck for its head lay on one side. It's eyes were closed although it opened them a few times. I went to bed, determined to get up at 5:00 to see how it was doing.

     Friday morning, my mental alarm clock woke me up and I hurried downstairs. The baby bird was alive. As soon as Rowan and Rose got up, I ordered them down to the creek for worms. They came up with a few and the chick ate them. Its head still sagged to one side and I worried about it. After breakfast, Rowan and I went into the shed/barn where I wanted to check on the five tiny Pacific-Slope Flycatchers that had just hatched a couple days ago. Tragedy and calamity had stricken that nest as well! The frazzled mama bird was flying around the room and there a chick lay dead on the cement floor. The stool that we had placed to glimpse the chicks stood directly under the nest. I raised myself up and peered inside. Another dead chick lay inside the nest. Three chicks missing! Just then, Rowan, who had been exploring the cubbies on the far side of the wall called me over excitedly. Something was behind the shelves scurrying around. We now suspect it was a squirrel that found the chicks. Or maybe an owl. But anyway, it must have just happened for the mama flew out the window and she hasn't been back. We left that cottage Friday with the living white-crowned sparrow chick on the ground and the dead Pacific-slope flycatcher chicks in the ground (Rowan buried them in our increasing graveyard). We came back to our main home Friday with chores to do and a parade to look forward to on Saturday.

The baby robin I rescued.

The Pacific-Slope Flycatcher chicks before something destroyed them.

Rubber Boa.

The white-crowned sparrow chick.

I seriously did not put that pinecone there or tell Comet to stay. Too bad Rowan is in the picture.

The eight children with broken watermelon pieces.

     Note: All entries hither to are to be written by Avonlea unless otherwise signed.

Babies! By Avonlea

A robin's nest on the left and four little Pacific-Slope Flycatchers on the right looking squished.

     Parkdale is hatching little chicks left and right. I wish everyone could come to the country for a tour of the hatchings and peace and quiet with the birds. Mom had me read a few sections in Madeline L'Engle's book, A Circle Of Quiet. I thought this paragraph was especially interesting: "Why are we so afraid of silence? Teenagers cannot study without their records; they walk along the street with their transistors. Grownups are as bad if not worse: we turn on the TV or the radio the minute we come into the house or start the car. The pollution of noise in our cities is as destructive as the pollution of air. We show our fear of silence in our conversation: I wonder if the orally-minded Elizabethans used "um" and "er" the way we do? And increasingly prevalent is what my husband calls and articulated pause: "You know." We interject "you know" meaninglessly into every sentence, in order that the flow of our speech should not be interrupted by such a terrifying thing as silence."
     In the mornings up at our farm house, I awake and lie for a few minutes thinking how nice it would be to stay in bed for a bit. Finally, I sweep myself up and rush out the door, afraid I've already missed something of the day. We stayed a week and I got to experience the hot dry weather that summer has brought us. The creek has shriveled up, there are no deep places any more. Mosquitos are everywhere but I don't mind them half so much as other years because of my experience in a swamp in Florida for 2 weeks. Everyday we walked to "the snake trail." We named it the snake trail when we found a rubber boa there. Gypsy and Comet are water dogs (especially Gypsy) and I snapped a few pictures of them at the pond on the snake trail.



Gypsy flings herself in every time, literally doing a belly flop.

Gypsy is very stubborn and determined so when Rowan threw something in that sunk, Gypsy just kept right on searching for it. She was putting her whole head under the water and swimming around in circles for at least 5 minutes without pause.

Fourth of July sunset.

 

 

Fourth of July!

 

Coming up from the creek.

A Quail chick. There were quail everywhere with their chicks.

5 eggs in the barn.





Three Robin's eggs.

 

Two chicks, one egg.

 

The next day, the late egg breaks in two.

 

Three baby Robins.

 We actually got back from the farm house today and this morning I took the pictures of the baby hatching. The nest was right above my head so I had to take a picture then see it. I was so excited! We found another Robin's nest in our Dogwood trees yesterday. Here it is with the robin inside it. She has three eggs as well.

 



Rosetta and Heidi: Bundles of Joy

  

  Kittens are the cutest things. They yawn and snuggle and pounce and play. Rosetta and Heidi are normal kittens who do normal things such as bite an ear so that it bleeds or dash under your foot right as your putting it down. Chloe (their mother) tackles them and Heidi whimpers while Rosetta prances away.

     Rosetta is a mischievous calico with eyes that are changing color so they look like the ocean right now. I love her because she has a two-sided personality that are both my favorite kinds in a cat. When you come into the room, she instantly starts purring a very loud motor. She purrs almost all the time unless she's playing or fast asleep. Mischievous is the other side of her. She's smaller than Heidi but she makes up for it with her quick wits. She's the kind of cat that runs after anything and will jump down off of a four foot bed.
    
     Heidi is a lovely gray kitten with white mittens. Her eyes are quizzical and she has longer fur than Rosetta. She is much more relaxed and hesitant to spring after something. She hardly ever purrs except when she's with Chloe. She peeks around corners and loves a hand that slowly crawls towards her. She gets ready to pounce but then loses her courage and flees from it.
    

I don't think I need to point out to you who's who if you've read my descriptive paragraphs about them.

Chloe tackles Heidi.

Rosetta tackles Heidi.

Chloe and Rosetta both licking their paws.



Anybody Home?

PARKDALE

Parkdale with farmers ready to care for it

Parkdale with the blowing wind that downs trees

In the woods, the pines groan their echos resounding

In the woods, the birds chirp twittering with ease

Rushing, the creek bounces by

Hurriedly, it goes with a song of sound...

 

 And so on.... these I call half poems. They are half poems and half un-rhyming words. I just took these pictures so they are brand new and lovely. The blooms are Bosc, they're the pears that bloom the latest in our orchard.

 

 

 

It would have been even more beautiful if my shadow wasn't in the way of the sun!

 

Comet the dirty dog. She had a bath in that bathtub so beware....

The bees on the farm.

 

This is just a clip from Honolulu zoo.

Kittens strike again!

Slightly blurry but still adorable.

By Avonlea: 
     While in Hawaii, (read my mom's blog for the Hawaii information) we got several frantic texts and phone calls from Ma Glo. On the morning of April 6th, she called to tell us that there was a dead frog in our cage of 15 or so and that she had had to reach inside through the little hole (she said the lid was stuck) and grab the decaying frog. A few hours later (evidently still cleaning up the kitchen), she called yet again to scream that Chloe was having kittens on Rosy's dolls in her play tent. Chloe was not happy to see Ma Glo and proceeded to bite her. When we asked if she could see how many kittens were there, she replied by saying she was on the way to Safeway to get some Neosporin for her bleeding hand. A few days passed and Chloe was still mad to see Ma Glo. Ma Glo said she had three kittens but that soon turned into four when she took a hasty peek at Chloe again. She finally ended up putting just her hand through the flap in the tent and taking a quick picture for us to see. We were gushing over the picture in Hawaii when Mom's sharp eye made out the tiny form of a kitten in the background, fully developed. We don't know what happened but we had a fifth kitten on our hands! Two out of the five kittens survived.... but fortunately they're really cute! And we didn't have to deal with death.....just our Grandma had to.

Hawaiian Monk Seal at Shark's Cove, Oahu

In the play tent on the dress-up clothes (Chloe later moved them to Rosy's room)

The cutest picture in the world! Rosy named her Heidi.



This one I call Rosetta but it's not official. They're both girls.

Adventure Wilderness

 By Avonlea

 

 

I had a lovely Christmas break and I hope you did too. I did manage to read a couple of the books I wanted to read but I was busy getting in twenty hours of physical exercise for school. Which I had no problem doing seeing as how we went to La Pine, Oregon with an ATV and than to Parkdale for a refreshing four days. On the way back from Parkdale, we hit a part blizzard, part nightmare and Dad had to put the chains on and off, four separate times.

Dad putting on the chains with the wind howling

We finally got to Parkdale though, completing the trip in 7 hours instead of 2 and a half hours.

We went ice skating on a pond/lake 10 minutes from our cottage. It was superb up there but unfortunately I got no pictures. I did take pictures of our meager ice on our creek though!



                                      Gypsy on our frozen creek

 

 



 

There were a lot of tracks in the sparkling snow....... and birds at the birdfeeder!

 



Mt. Hood clothed in elegance. (From cottage window)

Gray squirrel track





Oh no....not another bone!