For the birds

Lots of bird activity here at the ranch! First, M/M Bluebird have started nesting!! This is just about 2 weeks ahead of last year. I didn't get a chance to clean their box, so I'll have to do so today, carefully replacing the material they have been adding.

Mr. Pheasant...poor fella has been strutting, wing-beating, and calling for a Mrs. for weeks, to no avail. I don't know what happened to the ladies that he had been escorting around early this spring. Are they being coy or are they coyote victims. But, let me just say that I haven't slept past 5am in those same weeks. He starts his job early in the morning.

A flock of white-crowned sparrows is blowing through. They are so lovely and a nice change of pace.

Of course, the red-winged blackbirds and magpies are prolific.

Update: As I sit here completing this post, what comes to the feeder out my window but a future Mrs. Pheasant -- there is hope for Mr.!!!

There's a first time...

...for everything. It was bound to happen, it was only a matter of time. Kylee met a porcupine. Fortunately, it seems her indoctrination was pretty mild -- well, milder than it could have been. You see, the quills were teeny baby size. Only half an inch or so. And there were few, maybe a dozen or so.

I Google-d porcupines and learned that they bear young in the Spring and that the tykes are born with quills which harden within hours of their birth. I'm not certain they were baby quills, but what else could they be? Not only are they short, they are thin.

I was able to remove half a dozen quills; however, once she saw this thing in my hand (a tweezer) and put it together with the pain that immediately followed, she was onto me and wouldn't let me take any more out. Even after 2 sleeping tablets (the vet said they wouldn't do a thing for a Lab, but couldn't give me suggestions for what would!). So, it was off to the vet for $100 worth of general anesthesia. So I decided to get my money's worth and had them trim her nails while she was out.

What gets me down sometimes is that I'm the only one here. There is nobody here to help me--nobody to hold Kylee still while I pull out quills and nobody to hold it while I climb a 20' ladder to replace a bulb in the fixture up the Ponderosa pine down at the gate. I'm afraid of heights, and afraid of the dark. Sigh.

Easter Lilies