You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion
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Watcha Doin' - 2017.1 edition
The last pictures put them in perspective nicely. I didn't really realize they were so large by the first one. How's the house holding up so far on the birdpoop side of things
Margo wrote: "Lisa wrote: "Get well soon, Rusalka!I'm back from the Scottish Highlands. We had a fantastic and relaxing time. Saw some amazing and beautiful places and we got lucky with the weather too. Really..."
Yes, the scenery is spectacular!
I wondered about he poop too. I love to see birds in my backyard, but 50 is kind of too much.
We have at times as many as 200 pigeons sitting on the barn roof. I hate bird poop. And then I was in the tool shed hooking my baler to the tractor one day and I thought I felt something hit my hat. One of them pooped on my head. Well my hat but if I wasn't a hat wearer it would have been my head. Then we have barn swallows and my brain isn't working to remember the third bird we have in abundance. Well it was a swallow that was flying and ran right into my upper lip and nose last week. Oh starlings is the other one. Then in the fall you have to deal with sometimes thousands of geese landing in the fields and winter time thousands and thousands of crows. The crows are the worst because they're so destructive. Always shredding the plastic protecting the feed piles.We get the occasionally bald eagle which is always cool. And over past few years Ravens which that noise they make is rather freaky
We put feeders out in our garden, so we get quite a lot of birds visiting. Goldfinches are the most frequent. They love the sunflower hearts we put out so we get through a lot of them. We buy a 5kg bag and it barely lasts more than a few days!That's so cool about the bald eagles, Travis!
So glad the Highlands was so relaxing and beautiful as you expected, Lisa!Oh a bald eagle would be lovely Travis! I got pooped on by a pigeon in a 13th Century abbey in Ireland while looking at the founding bishop's tomb. I think that's the first wild bird I have ever been pooped on in my life. Tame, well, a chicken shat on my head yesterday, so you know. So the poop is okay :P
The difference with the maggies is they come and go, but descend when something interesting happens. Most of the time we have a couple in the yard, some in surrounding trees and powerlines, some out the front and across the road, etc. We just seemed to be at the centre of a 1km radius yesterday. Most of them will move on in a few months, as they are incredibly territorial and the young ones (the slightly grey ones, you may just be able to see a couple depending on your screen) will be kicked out.
But I don't know if I will ever hear 20 maggies warbling within 2ms of me again, so will focus on that I reckon lol
Rusalka wrote: "So glad the Highlands was so relaxing and beautiful as you expected, Lisa!Oh a bald eagle would be lovely Travis! I got pooped on by a pigeon in a 13th Century abbey in Ireland while looking at t..."
My grandma used to say it was lucky to be pooped on by a bird. I have been pooped on twice, once by a pigeon whilst waiting for a bus and once whilst I was out walking in a wood. I can't say if they ever brought me good luck, although the bus I was waiting for that day was on time...
The population of bald eagles keeps growing in our area. While it's still rare to see them there are certain places where they're more concentrated. I had one last year that for a whole week was in field when I'd go spread manure. My buddy picks up dead deer mostly and other road kill as part of his job. It's not his job but occasionally gets sent to do it. He loves it because the place he dumps them all is always full of bald eagles eating . I think the first one I heard of was ten years ago. I'm not sure if the DEC released some in our area or how the eagles came to live here. They are a native bird but I lived 25 years before I ever heard of anyone seeing one. Which is really cool how the population keeps growing.
It happens my SIL lives in Chicago which is the city where my favorite football teams rival is. I was like hey wife let's go visit your sister in November... And go to this football game. Then I was messing around trying to see what other things were going on that weekend. You know I'm dragging people to a football game so what can they also enjoy. I remembered my wife went to the symphony with her grandma and sure enough one night the Brian setzer orchestra or the Chicago symohany orchestra are playing so I say I need some culture you guys want to go to orchestra. My SIL says do you like blues music. I have to admit I don't know if I ever have listened to blues. Great she says we'll find out if you like blues when you're in Chicago. My friend said yeah blues you walk in happy and leave sad. Lol. I'm not sure that's quite a true statement.
Bald eagles would be cool to see. I think I've only seen one in the wild. We have bird feeders at our house, so we almost always have some birds in the back yard. Recently we have had a few hummingbirds. We don't have any hummingbird feeders. They have just decided it's a good place to be. One was on our screen porch. We had to catch him and put him out.
Rus, I hope you're feeling better. I think I have the same virus. Whatever I have has knocked me flat on my rear-end.
Get better soon, Anne. So far we are all healthy here. *crossed fingers*
Sandra wrote: "Get better soon, Anne. So far we are all healthy here. *crossed fingers*"Thank you Sandra :)
@Travis, I was expecting you to say you hit your head when your wife came in and woke you up while you were under whatever you were working on. I don't know which would be worse, your blown credibility or a head injury. lol.The concert sounds awesome. Glad you had a good time. I had a similar experience when we saw Evanescence several years ago. All of these great high energy bands, then her with all of these slow songs that I love on the radio, but not so much at a concert. Put me to sleep.
But then we saw Aaron Lewis once while he was still doing rock music, just him on stage with his guitar. Lots of slow and sad songs, but it was amazing. His performance is one of my all time favorites. Not sure what the difference was. I so wish he hadn't went down the country music path, I just don't care for his current stuff and I would have loved to seen him live again, but not now.
Hope you're feeling better, Rus!All of those birds are a little creepy. You might want to carry an umbrella incase they do go all Hitchcock on you. Or just to keep the bird poopy off in case they are flying overhead. lol
@Sarah, I hope your friends arrived safely and you are all having a fabulous time in the heart of the city. I'm guessing you are much closer to work than normal, that has to be nice!
@Margo, I'll be sort of sad when you get your kindle fixed, it is entertaining seeing the randomness it posts for you. ;) lol
The only time I've ever seen Bald Eagles in the wild is when I'm on the river or the lake. There are certain places you'll always find their nests and I love seeing them (from a distance of course). One of the rivers near here is considered a maritime highway where barges travel. Near the locks there are these huge... things.... no idea what they are called; they're huge squarish things that the barges can tie up to while waiting to go through the lock. Anyway, we were out on my parent's boat one day and our friend decided he wanted to jump off of one. We drove the boat up to the ladder and let him climb up while we backed away to watch the spectacle. We didn't realize there was a bald eagle nest on top until he got up there. The momma bird was not happy about him being there and kept circling us and swooping towards him but not very close. When he got back in the boat after his leap he told us there were 4 babies in the nest. He's lucky that eagle didn't try to attack him.
I think the concrete things are pilons not sure how to spell it. Pie - lahns I guess is how I'd pronounce it though
I think you are probably right, Travis. If this works, here is a picture of the things I'm talking about. If you look closely on the upper right side, you can see the eagle circling us.
The magpies are like our American crows. We have quite a few of them in our area but they are no means tame. We used to have a lot of common blue jays that hung out around my yard, but since the crows have moved in, I do not see many. The blue jays were noisy, but I loved to see them. The crows are just thugs. They rob nests to get eggs and kill the baby robins and other smaller birds. The crows have managed to scare off the starlings though. We used to have a lot of them, but I have not seen any since early spring.
Yeah I was thinking Heckyll and Jeckyll were magpies
We have a lot of blue jays. Nice to look at. Too bad they aren't mute. Man they can get annoying to listen to after a while
We have both, magpies and crows here. In fact, Edmonton (just south of us) is called The Magpie capital of Canada. We're the Swan City.
Swans is something we don't have around here .Kimey you always have the clearest blue skies with your pictures
Where I walk into my barn I have a light switch that turns on a couple lights which I use to see my way to opposite end where main light switches are. Can be a pain if you forget and have to walk to far end to turn them off which never really happens. Kind of hard to forget about that many lights. But on a morning like today so glad I added the switch where I enter because as I headed towards main light I froze. Something caught my eye. About 15 ft away there was a huge skunk eating out of the cow manger. Ran away but so glad I wasn't walking in the dark
My uncle is starting radiation and chemo tomorrow. He will be an in- patient for the next 5-6 weeks coming home weekends. They have told him the radiation will be very painful because of where it is. You gotta worry when they tell you that!Anyway, pushing a trolley around Tesco and my back gave out! I am lying flat with hottie cluched to where it hurts most :-0
And it is hubbies birthday! Guess he'll be getting his own birthday tea with no afters lol
Awww, Margo. I hope both you and your uncle will be feeling better.I still sleep with an electric blanket to help my right hip. I have 3 rods and a plate in it and by bed-time, I can hardly walk without pain (especially when it rains) after 2 1/2 years of when I broke the darned thing. When I was falling to the floor after tripping over Fidget and twisting to keep from landing on the poor cat, I knew I was going to break it. And yep, I did. It took me 30 minutes to get myself up to a sitting position.
Travis sivarT wrote: "Swans is something we don't have around here .Kimey you always have the clearest blue skies with your pictures
Where I walk into my barn I have a light switch that turns on a couple lights whic..."
Travis, you are a luck man! That coulda been stinky!!
Anne (Booklady) wrote: "Awww, Margo. I hope both you and your uncle will be feeling better.I still sleep with an electric blanket to help my right hip. I have 3 rods and a plate in it and by bed-time, I can hardly walk..."
Ouch!! That's nasty :-0 I bet you're still glad you missed the cat though!
I am scheduled a steroid infusion this friday anyway so st least i only have to endure a coupla days :-/
Margo, yep it was nasty. I had just gotten Clyde the day before and they were confused as to why I didn't come back home, lol. I was in hospital for almost 12 weeks. My neighbor finally took them to his condo.I'm glad that you don't have to suffer too long until you get your steroid treatment :)
Thanks Anne, feeling a lot better after two days of rest. And I'm sorry to hear your hip hurts so much still. Hope the treatments go well for your Uncle, Margo. And your husband has a lovely birthday. I had to giggle when I read you had a hottie on your back, and then the beginning of the next sentence was about your husband ;) Hope your back feels better.
A skunk is something I have absolutely no experience of. I've heard they are terrible, so nice near miss, Travis. But I am yet to believe it. But there is one thing we teach in Aus, and that's to steer clear of animals when you're told, even when don't entirely understand why. Did you guys hear they have had to ban a Peppa Pig episode here? It's lesson was spiders aren't scary, can't hurt you, can't kill you, and are your friends. It's been banned from Aussie TV.
Eagle pictures are amazing. I want some.
Hope all goes well for your uncle Margo, and hope you feel better soon too!No skunks here either. We do have magpies (I think.. the Dutch name translates to magpie but they don't sing. Or I've never heard them sing, only make loud and annoying laughing sounds. Most common in our backyard are sparrows, tits, pigeons and magpies.
Lol about Peppa Pig, Rus! Good move to ban it though. Spiders may be undangerous in many places (I refuse to call them nice or my friends! Spider season has started here, brrr..) but definitely not in Aus!
Rus - that's Petes favorite joke when I ask for a hottie "I'm here luv"! He cracks himself up lolBtw I've been wondering if you read Burial Rites during your vacation? Did it work as a holiday read? It's a very dark read.
Rusalka wrote: "Thanks Anne, feeling a lot better after two days of rest. And I'm sorry to hear your hip hurts so much still. Hope the treatments go well for your Uncle, Margo. And your husband has a lovely birt..."
I hate spiders! I should probably steer clear of Aus along with Peppa pig - we'd both be a bundle of nerves!!
Margo wrote: "Rus - that's Petes favorite joke when I ask for a hottie "I'm here luv"! He cracks himself up lol"LOL. The only hottie I have is my small panther, Clyde. And you can find him always draped on me:)
Goodness, Margo! I hope your back heals quickly and that your uncle's treatments are effective.We have skunks here. They look so cute, but you wouldn't want to cuddle with them. That spray is nasty! We had been camping with friends one summer and their dog. The dog tried to make friends with a skunk, but it wasn't happening. He slunk under the cabin where I was napping. I woke to this extremely strong HOT stink. I never realized that an odour could be equated with heat. UGH!
It took copious amounts of tomato juice to rub through the dog's fur, and dunkings into the lake to counteract that smell. Even then, he stunk.
Anne, when you say "panther" - I assume that is a term of endearment??'re
Janice wrote: "Goodness, Margo! I hope your back heals quickly and that your uncle's treatments are effective.We have skunks here. They look so cute, but you wouldn't want to cuddle with them. That spray is nas..."
Thanks Janice. It's just a matter of pain control with my back. Your poor doggy! I but he didn't know what had hit him - and they are so sensitive to smell ....
Skunks are a really pretty critter. I ordered a couple live traps. Also have a family of raccoons in the hay mow. Ok I have no proof of a family but there are 2 adults. I'm going to make an assumption there's babies also somewhere which is why they've moved in with us.
Margo wrote: "Anne, when you say "panther" - I assume that is a term of endearment??'re"Yes, but Clyde is a large cat and looks like a miniature panther with huge green eyes lol
Margo wrote: "My uncle is starting radiation and chemo tomorrow. He will be an in- patient for the next 5-6 weeks coming home weekends. They have told him the radiation will be very painful because of where it i..."I hope your uncle's treatment goes well, Margo. Also, I hope your back eases up soon. Back pain is just the worst!
We have copious types of birds here, I couldn't even begin to name them. I see cardinals in the mornings a lot, blue jays in the evenings, crows always, buzzards often, martins everywhere... @Margo, best wishes for you and your uncle. I had to laugh at the hottie remark too!
@Travis, glad you didn't scare the skunk! Pew that is a nasty smell. We have a lot of them around my office where I work, they are really cute as long as they don't spray.
I actually woke up one night a couple of weeks ago to the smell of a skunk. One must have sprayed close to my house and the smell was coming in through the air conditioner. It was faint, but bad enough.
Peppa Pig needs to stay out of the southern US, too. I could just imagine my nieces or nephews saying "hey look at this neat red shape on my spider friend's belly." *shudders* We only have two types of venomous spiders here thankfully. Aussie made a wise decision to ban that episode with the multitudes of bad creepy crawlies there.
Anne (Booklady) wrote: "Lisa, how are you?"I'm not too bad, Anne. Could definitely be better, but could also be worse. Thanks for asking :) How are you?
Lisa, I'm feeling better - almost over that virus, but I'm still achy and a little tired.Kimey, how is that office drama? I've been thinking about you.
Anne (Booklady) wrote: "Lisa, I'm feeling better - almost over that virus, but I'm still achy and a little tired.Kimey, how is that office drama? I've been thinking about you."
Glad to hear you are feeling better, Anne. The aches and tiredness will probably linger for a bit, but hopefully you will be back to your best soon.
Does anyone ever win a Goodreads giveaway book here. In 5 years of trying I got one book I think the first time I tried and no since. Honestly I figure it's pointless but sometimes I like to browse while I am on the toilet and it's more a way of finding books than hoping to win
I won 2 the first times I tried, then never in over 3 years, so I stopped entering.
Travis sivarT wrote: "Does anyone ever win a Goodreads giveaway book here. In 5 years of trying I got one book I think the first time I tried and no since. Honestly I figure it's pointless but sometimes I like to browse..."I have won 2 books in giveaways, but both were several years ago, not long after I first joined Goodreads. After that, nothing. Like Sandra, I have stopped entering as I don't really see the point anymore. It seems to be the same people who win over and over again. I always assumed the winners were chosen at random but now I'm not so sure. Unless they are just very lucky...?
Never won, but tbh I haven't tried that often and nowadays I rarely sign up.
Travis sivarT wrote: "Does anyone ever win a Goodreads giveaway book here. In 5 years of trying I got one book I think the first time I tried and no since. Honestly I figure it's pointless but sometimes I like to browse..."I've won 4, Travis. I have better luck with NetGalley, though.
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You'll love this one...!! A book club & more
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I'm back from the Scottish Highlands. We had a fantastic and relaxing time. Saw some amazing and beautiful places and we got lucky with the weather too. Really didn't want ..."
I would love to spend time in the highlands. Judging by Hamish McBeth the scenery is fab! Glad you enjoyed it Lisa.