What are U doing today? (Ongoing thread) Showing 8,201-8,250 of 8,509

[Jim]

Glad all are OK, Nina.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Me too.

[Linda]

Hi All,

I'm writing quickly on work computer. For some reason Post doesn't work on my computer anymore. Cannot post.

So, its my computer at home since I can post from another computer. Oh dear!

[Joy H., Group Founder]

Darn computers! LOL

[Linda]

Today, tried again to figure out why I cannot always Post. Well, if I use Internet Explorer I can post. If I use Google Chrome I cannot post. Not sure why this is happening. Usually, IE gives me a problem and not Chrome.

Oh well. At least I can post.

Going to dinner - early bird - 4 miles from home.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

BON APETIT!

[Jim]

I saw our first hummingbird yesterday. I always put out the feeders the first of April, but don't put much in them, just replace the water every 4 or 5 days. I thought the front one was possibly emptied by the storms, but I saw a male Ruby-throat (the only kind we have) on it last night. I was wondering since the back feeder hadn't been emptied. Nice to finally see him.

I hope we have a lot of hummingbirds this year. Last year we started with just 2 pairs, but had almost 2 dozen by the end of the season, IIRC. Some years we start off with a dozen & then they keep me hopping. One year I had 4 feeders out & was feeding a quart of sugar water a day.

[Joy H., Group Founder]

I love hummingbirds!

[Nina]

Could you tell me the formula for feeding Hummies? Thanks.

[Jim]

1/4 cup sugar per 1 cup water, Nina. I make it up in 2 cup batches. I run the water hot out of the tap & put about a cup into a 2 cup measuring cup.

I add the sugar & slowly add the rest of the water to get it mixed in pretty well. Then I microwave it for 3 minutes. With our water temperature & microwave, that just gets the water boiling for 5-10 seconds.

Then I let it cool & pour it into a 20oz Gatorade bottle that we've washed out. I keep a couple of them in the fridge & usually fill the feeders out of them.

[Linda]

Jim wrote: "I saw our first hummingbird yesterday. I always put out the feeders the first of April, but don't put much in them, just replace the water every 4 or 5 days. I thought the front one was possibly em..."

That's great Jim. We put out the feeders last week - haven't seen any but that doesn't mean they weren't passing by.

[Linda]

Yesterday, my husband was by the lake - southern end - near the cruise boats. Raining. Saw 2 loons. I thought it was early for loons. He took a picture from the car - a little blurry but 2 loons indeed.

Years ago and for many years, we participated in the loon census each July.

Love birds! Loons, hummingbirds, birds of prey, all birds - although turkey vultures are rather ugly they are interesting.

[Nina]

Jim, What is the ratio of sugar/water for the hummingbird feeder?

[Jim]

Jim wrote: "1/4 cup sugar per 1 cup water, Nina..."

[Nina]

Red bud blossoms vanishing but azalea bushes in their glory so makes up for missing colorful tree blossoms. Prettiest spring here for as long as I can remember. Cardinals, sparrows, blue jays and morning doves at the feeder. Once in a while a finch. Supposed to rain for next three days. Some of my outdoor plants are soaked even before the next storm. Huge crop of dandelions in field across the road. Seemed strange to think one of the former KY Derby winners ran free where our house is now standing. He is buried a few blocks away from us now.

[Jim]

Our azaleas are doing better this year than ever before. They like acidic soil, so typically aren't real happy, but this year they're outdoing themselves.

[Nina]

Book recommendation from a friend. Says it is very good; "Random Memories," by Earnest Longfellow; son of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It takes place in the late 1800"s and has lots of info on famous writers and artists of that era.

[Jim]

Today is our anniversary & Mother's Day is this weekend. After almost 4 decades together, trying to figure out one gift for my wife is tough, but 2 so close together is about impossible. I'm building her a taller, better mounting block than the portable one we've been using, so that solved one, but what else?

Fate took a hand & solved part of the problem for me last night. She cooked a steak on the grill along with asparagus from our patch that she'd just cut minutes before. She turned off the grill & we sat down to eat. The grill was still smoking & started smoking even more. I finally had to put it out with the fire extinguisher. It's toast. At least it didn't set the table on fire.

I scrape it out each year, but there were growing lumps coating the bottom half & those were burning hot. It was boiling the grease in the pan underneath, so she's getting a new grill for our anniversary.

[Nina]

Happy Anniversary to you "love birds" and may you fly onward as far as us as we are celebrating our seventy second this coming November and fate stepped and provided you the perfect present for your wife.

[Jim]

We've been using a portable mounting block that's only 22" tall. We're getting older & fatter, so some extra height with a bigger & generally sturdier platform on top made sense. I cut my raised vegetable garden in half this year, so I had 2- 2x10-12 for the project. The buried edges were a little eaten up, but basically they were in good shape. Other materials were a couple of 2x4s & some treated deck screws (TDS). It took most of the morning to make, but I had it placed by lunch time.

There were a few things about it that tickled me. I was able to find my framing square buttons & laid out the stringers properly on the first try. Neither should be a big deal, but it's been 15 years since I last made one & we've moved since then.

I only had a couple of feet of the old 2x10s left. I cut the 2 stringers & one tread out of one with the 2' of waste. 4 treads used up the other completely. Great use of recycled materials.

I used up most of my odd TDS. I keep a 5 gallon bucket with dividing trays in it filled with assorted sizes of TDS, drywall screws, & nails. Lately each time I buy more TDS, I get a different head. Phillips used to be the standard, but one batch was Torx, & now the standard seems to be #2 square drive. It's a PITA to constantly change bits in the screwgun. I've pretty much got them all down to square drive in all the sizes now, though.

[Nina]

Looking good. Is anybody reading besides Jim? Just finished "Parisians," and it is gripping. I recommend it. Wish it was required reading in high school.

[Jim]

I've been reading, but nothing of note or interest to this group. I've abandoned a couple of books, too. Life is too short & they weren't doing anything for me.

Here's a picture of me on Red, my new horse, & the mounting block. The height is perfect, as you can see. We haven't put a stick on Red, but I guess he's 15.2h, so it's nice to be able to step into my bareback pad from a 28" platform. My bad foot loves the ability to dismount that way, too.

[Nina]

Oh, I love the look of that horse. Congratulations.

[Nina]

Looking at the rain and reading a book inside the house. So far today it's five inches of rain in the gauge. More predicted tonight. Even if it is May, it is cool enough for chili tonight. But, ending the meal with very good strawberries and pound cake from Costco.

[Mary JL]

Hoping everyone is enjoying this Memorial Day weekend! I am planning to stay home all weekend. Rest and read that's what I need. A safe happy week end to all

[Jim]

I'm recovering from bronchitis & think I might be pretty much back up to speed, thankfully. it was a long, tough week. The only real fix for it is to rest &, except for Tuesday, I had to work over a half day every day. Plus I've barely kept up on the major chores during the week, so I'll be trying to catch up on some others today. Unfortunately, temps are supposed to be about 90, so that limits my time outside. Well, I'll get done what I can & won't sweat the rest. They'll all still be there when I'm fully better & the weather is nicer.

I do have some fencing to fix, though. Guess I'll go do that now. It's light out, finally.

[Nina]

Take Care, Jim. My daughter started out with Bronchitis and ended up by not taking good care of herself with being in the hospital last week with pneumonia; seriously ill. She is now home and still on antibiotics so do be careful.

[Jim]

I guess the first set of Ruby-throated hummingbirds is out & about. The feeder on the back porch went from barely being touched to being swarmed. I saw 6 or 8 on it at one point tonight. They look like mostly females, so I guess a lot are juveniles, but they're as big as their parents already.

[Nina]

Jim, Can you put a picture of your feeders on goodreads or email it to me? The one I have nary a hummingbird comes near it and most of the ones I see in the nursery's or hardware stores are quite similiar. They all have small plastic type flowers on the bottom with tiny opening.

[Jim]

I can try to email you some pics, but I have some with big flowers, one with tiny ones & have found hummingbirds will eat out of just about anything, Nina. I doubt it is a problem with the feeder itself. They all have tiny holes or the water would come out. The big issues for getting them to the feeder are:
- Space around the feeder. They don't like it when the feeder has bushes & stuff too close, especially other birds.
- Bad food. I sometimes have to change it every 3 or 4 days. If it gets cloudy or ants in it, they won't touch it. Also, the feeder has to be super clean. I soak mine in bleach water every fall & wash it really well a couple of times each year. On some, I poke bristles through the holes. I have an old toothbrush for that.
- Steady, early supply. I put mine out a couple of weeks before they're in the area & keep it up until cold nights force me to bring them in. I always keep at least 2 filled. My neighbors often don't have them or many while we always have some due to the steady supply the entire season.

[Jim]

I sent you the pics, Nina.

I had to hang another feeder out back. The male started defending the feeder against all comers. While a couple are keeping him busy, several others found the new feeder in a couple of minutes & are sucking it down.

[Jim]

We lost Amber, our 14 yo Jack Russell, last night. She had a stroke or something, so she's now buried in the garden next to Munchkin & Harley, 2 other JRTs. Sigh. It's very weird to be able to stretch my feet out under my desk, roll over in bed, sit on the couch, or walk around the house without checking to make sure I'm not going to squish her.

She never had a lick of sense, but was always sweet as can be except to critters that weren't part of the family. She often went into brush piles after prey. One cold, snowy night, I had to spend over an hour cutting & chopping into a brush pile to get her out. At 10 or 12 pounds, she was small for that, but one afternoon she went in after a coon almost twice her size. She emerged a few hours later with half her lower lip chewed off, but the coon didn't. Small, but tough as a keg of nails. I'll miss her.

[Nina]

Oh yes, you'll miss her. Can't get away from the sadness of losing our loved ones. But it's worth the hurt to have had them with us even for a short time or longer, as the case may be. You have my sympathy.

[Nina]

How is your new horse working out? Always a fun challenge, isn't it?

[Jim]

Red & I aren't really getting along nor have I had the time/energy to ride him much. This past month's battle with pneumonia has set me back way too far with chores. I have some major fence repairs & changes to make along with trying to keep up with the mowing, weeding, & spraying, so I don't know when I'll find time to ride him. He's had a cold, too.

The hummingbirds are booming. I might have to break out the big feeder, a 32 oz one. I'm putting out about 24 oz in 2 feeders in the back daily & finding them both empty in less than a day. The front feeders aren't getting nearly the same traffic. I think one is guarded & the other has to do with the way feeder is made. The holes are straight up & I think it catches too much rain water which dilutes it.

We've had horrendous rains here over the past week. Several days have seen 3" or more back to back usually in downpours like an inch of rain in 15 minutes. Lots of flash flooding going on around the state, but we're high up. Still, places in my yard are holding puddles of water where I've never seen it before. Except for Friday, it looks as if we can expect rain every day for the next week. Not good for getting chores done.

[Nina]

You never know with predicted weather as it was supposed to be raining one hundred percent but so far it's not a drop. Good luck with Red Not a fun Father's day as I spent three hours in ER with heart problems/irregular heart rate and mostly almost passing out several times. Trip next day to cardiologist and now on a heart monitor for a couple of weeks to get to the bottom of the problem and husband must have hernia surgery. Not a good month so far.

[Jim]

Hope they figure it out, Nina. Good luck to your husband, too.

[Nina]

Thanks, so far no more scarey episodes. Fingers crossed.

[Nina]

Wondering what anyone did on the Fourth. It rained off and on that day here but stopped long enough to have fireworks although we spent a quiet night watching them on TV of NYC's. When I was a child there were no fireworks displays. We just had our own and it was fun.

[Jim]

We treated it like another day, except kind of worried about the animals at night. They did OK, though.

[Nina]

At least we didn't experience an earthquake. Dogs seem to know what that is coming.

[Jim]

We had a good, short vacation in MD with the grandmonsters, kids, & Mom. Our oldest adopted daughter now has a horse farm with a pool, so we wound up there 2 evenings with the other kids & Mom swimming & eating dinner. Good way to keep the kids occupied while we all got to talk & cool off occasionally.

My last remaining good friend from school has a small farm with a pond. We had a great time talking with him one morning & I brought my son & Colin ( 5 yo grandmonster) back the next morning to go fishing. Colin caught 8 bluegills, my son 4, & I got 2, one on my fly rod which I haven't had out in decades. The other was inadvertent; I cast out the line for Colin & had a fish on before I could pass over the rod.

Great time, but better to be home. I had to add a couple more buckets of stone dust to the newly graded area around the mounting block & put cinder blocks inside its legs to keep the damn horses from pushing it around.

Then I hopped on Cloud for the first time. He's my new pony, a flea-bitten gray that came into the Humane Society with Pumpkin, Marg's pony. He's 17, 14.2h, & narrower than I like. He's quiet, but I'll have to add a pad under my bareback pad for both our sakes. Even on the short ride, his back was doing a number on my perineum. Despite his narrowness, I could get a decent leg on him. With Marg feeding him, I expect some of that sharpness will go away, but I doubt he'll ever be a bareback pony for me. While we were gone, Erin took a video of him rolling in the pond, so that's a real plus.

I got the barn & north fields mowed yesterday, too. I probably had time to mow the south field, if I pushed & came in a bit late, but I felt like crispy bacon by then. Besides, my leg was hurting.

About a month ago, just as I started to put up the burlap, the scaffold slipped & my shin hit the sharp edge of a rough oak board with all my weight on it. Pretty ugly gash & bruise, not fun to work with, but I got all the burlap up since it didn't bleed much. It was mostly healed save for the deepest part which is right under a hard bump that I guess is a bone spur. Anyway, I hit the very center of that unhealed bit on the sharp metal corner of the tractor hitch while hooking up the mower which delayed mowing a bit. I had to stop by the house & wrap it up since it kept bleeding into my shoe. It's not too bad today, although it woke me up a few times last night when I'd hit it or Pip ran across it.

We're super dry again. 2 weeks ago, we couldn't wait for it to stop raining, but we haven't had a lick since then. I need to get some weeding done, but the ground is like a rock. Sigh. First it was mud, now rock. The gardens are a wreck. On the plus side, we have a fair few hummingbirds & a lot of stuff is blooming. The hibiscus, lilies, & Rose of Sharon are all going strong. I have the first lining the back porch, the second lines the entire fence line of our 1/2 acre back yard, & there are 4 of the last scattered around. Really pretty & they're drawing in an amazing amount of bees, butterflies, & birds.

[Nina]

Ouch and then some. Darn accidents do hurt. Hope you are better soon and can enjoy your pony. Our weather the same/rain rain rain and now too dry. Can't make up it's mind.

[Linda]

How is everyone? Haven't been on for a while. Busy with work, working on yard, taking mini vacations and such. Just want to say hello and I'm thinking of everyone. Going to be a cool day today so hubby and I can get out in yard and make some flower beds or whatever. Pick up twigs. Who knows. Just be outside.

Best to all - Linda

[Jim]

I'm back to work after a week & a half off. So far, so good, but a lot to do.

[Nina]

Glad you are feeling OK to go to work. My ninety three year old husband had hernia surgery today and after worrying over him when the nurse came in after he was released from the recovery room she asked how he was doing and his answer was, "I just had a long nap."

[Jim]

Glad to read that he came through it so well, Nina. I wasn't sick. We went to MD on vacation & then came back to a lot of work on the farm. All is good, if hot & super dry. It's supposed to rain buckets today, though. We're getting the leavings of a hurricane.

[Nina]

Linda, Welcome back. Good to hear you are OK and enjoying summer. Here is a nice day but the next few days are going to be not nice; in the high nineties...

[Jim]

I'm getting tired of this drought. Putting up the hay wasn't bad. It was only 50 bales & we waited until 7pm, so it was bearable. But now the wild animals are getting thirsty & that means they're taking chances they shouldn't. Couple that with an overpopulation of coons & it's just ugly.

I came home Thursday, sat down with a cup of coffee & while talking to Marg, she saw 3 scoot up the tree just 20' from our house. The seed & hummingbird feeders have been getting attacked. I haven't seen a frog in the gold fish pond & one of the gold fish died from a tear in its side, so I'm guessing these 3 were just a little early for dinner. I hope they enjoyed their last one since I shot them out of the tree. They looked so cute staring out at me, but they wouldn't leave.

This morning, Pip wouldn't come in to eat & it turned out he had another young one 'treed' on top of a post. Again, very cute, but it wouldn't run even though Pip & I were inside the back yard. It could have run off into the field or woods, so I'm guessing it was sick or really starved. Looked pretty thin, although it's hard to tell with that thick hair & I didn't look too close. Ticks are really bad this year. I got several tiny (pin head sized) ticks on me from handling the others. Those buggers burrow into the skin quickly, carry disease, & are itchy as can be. One on my leg took over 2 weeks to quit itching.

Anyway, it's a hell of a depressing way to start the day & the weekend.

[Nina]

Predicted rain for tonight but the sun shines brightly over... So who knows. I think drought can get to you faster than too much rain. We are supposed to have a day of seventy nine next week/today is ninety seven. Don't have to lug hay bales but it takes me a couple of hours to water all my plants and have to rest in between trips. So, I too get a bit depressed. Hope not to see any raccoons.