What Cheered You Up? - Deck the Halls...

[Nonny Mouse]

Ooooh, a verdin! A bird I don't have here in the East. Adults have a pretty yellow face. It's fun to watch young birds learning to fly and pestering their parents for food.

I"m pretty sure we have a nest of them in our backyard. Also seen this spring was a Western Tanager and a Vermilion Flycatcher. I think - it was a very red bird with black wings, but I never got a close enough look to be positive.

[Catch-up]

speckled grackles.

Starlings?

My baby owls have been replaced by baby blue jays, baby downy woodpeckers, and baby chickadees. It's a whiny screech-fest out back.

Hmmmm... I thought it was a speckled grackle, but after googling the two I'm now not sure. It's black, with some iridescence, tan speckles and has a very noisy, raspy sound. ???

[steeljam]

My granddaughter is 12 week old, we have not interacted with her or the other grandchildren for all this time.
Today was my wife's birthday and we visited my son and daughter-in-laws house for a meal.
The main present for my wife was a hug from the grandchildren and the first time she could hold Jemima.
It was a wonderful afternoon. I was on burping duty; wonderful. I even rocked her to sleep, a wonderful experience. The third of three.
We played Scary Bingo and Toy Cluedo with the other grandchildren, 4 and 6.
We had a take-away from a local Italian restaurant; almost as good as a meal at the restaurant.
I was on driving duty so I could only partake of a small glass of the excellent Ryan Reynold's gin.
I now have a warm glow; thankfully not a result of the Corvid19 virus.

[Alan]

Delivery from the Emporium
And......i got a........................blue triangle!!!!
first envelope i opened,i am a little bit happy,just need to identify the rest
Edited to add that there was a George Pony sport and a dead letter stamp

[phalarope]

Evil boss retired today. Guess who was tasked to write his official certificate of appreciation for 31 years of service. I guess I was the only one who tolerated him that long.

Shame the new boss is a power mad bully with an inferiority complex. Sigh.

[Sandra]

I decided to 'upgrade' my mini pond - it's been sitting in a plastic barrel for years and it looking it's age. Found a cedar half barrel planter and started the upgrade.

Stage 1 - water proofing - the barrel had a drilled hole for drainage, so using resin and a piece of wood I blocked that off as well as the larger gaps.
stage 2 - spend a week soaking the wood until water proof
stage 3 - transfer some of the plants from old pond

Done

Ha - the plant transfer was messy - separating the rushes wasn't too bad but the waterlily fought back (I now have 4 bits of tuber).

New cedar mini pond has some waterlily (the bit with the most leaves) two pots of rushes, a pot of watercress (not yet rooted) three inches of elodea (the green bits) and a non-native duck weed. Oh and snails - the ramshorns had been breeding.


One text conversation and my niece is getting a mini mini pond (3 inch deep bowl) with the next bit of waterlily tied to a stone, two bits of rush and a piece of watercress in the gravel at the bottom, one inch of elodea and two pieces of duck weed... oh and some snails.

I'm going to be cleaning out the old pond for days - I think I will set up another mini pond in case the other niece/nephew want one and because I hate to see good plants being binned.

[Sandra]

One very happy four-year-old. She is putting her 'Pixie pond' next to her 'Fairy garden'.

The glass pebbles were a bigger hit than the pond snails!

Oh and her 7 week old brother is adorable.

[phalarope]

ComicCon@Home!

Just watched a Red Dwarf panel with Doug, Craig, Chris, and Robert. Apart from Craig's bad internet connection it was brilliant. My very first ComicCon! https://youtu.be/3hFhUk6DbJ8

[Nonny Mouse]

My daughter has adopted a tortoise. It's a completely different kind of animal than we've ever had, so we've had to do a lot of learning to take care of it.

Watching a tortoise eat is hypnotic. They really get into it, in a way they don't seem to be into anything else. And yes I am constantly making the "let there be another leaf!" joke. And yes, they do give you a meaningful look whenever you disturb them.

[hansolobiker]

Had a weird experience this morning when I went out to fill the bird feeder. i had just got outside when a veritable 'murder' of crows descended on me and knocked the peanuts from my hand! I fled inside and watched from the window as this hoard made short work of the nuts. I tried counting them and think there were about twenty and that's when I realised what was happening/ I had just witnessed a Corvids 19 outbreak!

[steeljam]

Had a weird experience this morning when I went out to fill the bird feeder. i had just got outside when a veritable 'murder' of crows descended on me and knocked the peanuts from my hand! I fled inside and watched from the window as this hoard made short work of the nuts. I tried counting them and think there were about twenty and that's when I realised what was happening/ I had just witnessed a Corvids 19 outbreak!

What are you raven about !? It was a rookie mistake to walk around with peanuts.

[hansolobiker]

Don't crow about it!

[phalarope]

[Catch-up]

Wow!! Paul! That must have been so weird!

[Catch-up]

We are very cheered up by the fact that hubby is employed again! He doesn't start until next week, so it doesn't quite seem real yet. Everyone is working from home at least until the end of the year.