getting there

well, unfortunately, my friend, kim, has come and gone. i told her in an email, "i waited so long for you to come visit me and it went by so fast". i feel badly that i was not 100% in a present state of mind, but i do realize that it could not be helped. she had a rare glimpse into the struggles we go through and it was hard to move between the two worlds of playing hostess and worry. she was a shoulder to lean on though and i'm glad she understood the circumstances. she knows me well and knows that i internalize all this anguish, sorry, worry and angst. she's a sweetie though. she left me a little gift in the camper that jeff only found today; a beautiful necklace that she made just for me. during her visit, she updated her facebook status, which read,
"spending the weekend at a darling faerie cottage....it's magical"

while she was here, i took her to the beach, to my favorite restaurant, Pete and Elda's, to my really junky flea market, to the Ocean Grove Flea Market, to the dog beach, Gee Gee's for pizza and skeetball and we even hit the movies (Iron Man 2, where we both declared Robert Downey, Jr. to be "hot").

we also tried to go geocaching, but the gps kept getting us lost. along the way of getting lost, we saw the cutest young man (Orion) on a skateboard, wearing a fedora, being pulled by a pit bull (kai). of course we had to pull over and take his picture. (see very last photo)

while she was here, i discovered a nest that has 6 baby wrens in it. that's a lot of babies! and then also when we were walking the dog beach, on our way back to the car, i found a nest that had 4 eggs in it. inside the nest is a beautiful blue feather (see 2nd to the last photo). the momma bird was a tiny beautiful little yellow/green bird. when i got home i got out my NJ birding book and found out that the bird saw was a yellow warbler. cool!
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ocean grove flea market
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out and about locally
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we noticed this guy right before kim was leaving. he was chirping up a storm. when i moved in close to take his pic, he hopped inside the bird house for safety!
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6 little wren babies in a house just outside my back deck
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yellow warbler nest
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Tj, Orion and Kai

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i think tuck is almost there (knock on wood for me please). we had a pretty good day today, with very little coughing. i'm hoping this is a good sign.

So how are the post holidays going for ya? me and tuck are still congested from our colds. what is it with colds these days where you don't really get "sick" but have a few symptoms for a day or so, but then you are left with weeks of congestion? today the wind is blowing something fierce so that is causing allergies and headaches. last night i finally watched "Dark Knight". dillon had an improv show, so he and jeff were gone, so i thought that'd be a good time to watch it without interruption. so me and tucker watched it. i thought it was okay, but i'm a chick. i think it was more of a guy movie. plus i didn't really get the ending where he chose to be hunted. guess i missed something..... anyway. i got this birdfeeder for Christmas. it is called a "cardinal feeder", but i've yet to see one cardinal fly in there! (but they do eat what is falling on the ground...) right now we've got yellow finches, house finches, chickadees, wrens, nuthatches, sparrows and the tufted titmouse flying in for snacks. i actually watched a chickadee sit still and hang out by herself in the feeder yesterday morning. chickadees are very active and i have never seen one just "sitting" before. it was cool.

another wren moves in

i'm seriously thinking that i need to start charging some kind of rent around here for all the bird tenants that we've had this year. found this one clearing out this house that i've got secured on my front porched. this is a high traffic area with us and dogs going up and down here, so not sure if she'll actually stay here.

Sundays goings on

Yesterday afternoon around 5 or 6pm, Jeff and i went for a little walk to the back field so i could pick up some more of the baling hay metal that i found back there. Jeff cut off little squares for me and that is what i use for my base of my grunge charms. i don't know what the metal is that they used (or how old it is), but it is hard to drill through and does not accept solder (darn it!). it is also really hard to cut! so a lot of work went into those charms. i do believe though, that after creating all these charms, i will be looking into getting a drill press.


anyway, on our way back to our yard, we saw that the baby bunny was out by tucker's window and i wanted to go tell my friend, Michele, who was here helping with Tucker. I had just told her before my walk to keep an eye out for the baby. so as i went up the stairs i saw one of the little eggs from the wrens nest. it was empty and on the ground. so i told jeff i found it and then i saw the baby from the egg on the ground. so i yelled, here's the baby - AND he's still alive! so jeff scooped up the baby bird and went into the house. i went to investigate the nest (this was the nest that had 6 eggs in it). well, i found another egg near the nest, but it was cracked with a bird still inside (but not alive and moving like the one out of the egg) and the rest of the eggs were gone. I think that momma wren moved her eggs out of the nest because that morning when she flew off they were all in there, unhatched. my guess is that that area was too busy for her - right next to the door with the dogs, kids and us coming and going. so i think she was moving her eggs and she dropped that little guy.





so we wrapped the little guy up in a towel to warm him up and then jeff got on the internet to find out what we could do for this "nestling". usually we would call our humane society but i knew they were closed at that point. jeff found a website on emergency care for a brand new nestling. feed it every 1/2 hour ( a little receipe was given) and keep it warm and in a dark spot. so we put it inside a cigar box still in the towel. then jeff fed him every 1/2 hour. i took some video of him feeding the birdie and the little guy eating. we think he had an injury, so we really weren't sure how it would go. jeff kept him in his room last night and feed him through out the night (i was finishing up my steampunk/grunge stuff). that little bird was a trooper and really tried hard, but he didn't make it. jeff said after the last feeding around 4:30am, he felt like he was going to go and by the next feeding, he was gone. not a happy ending, but we did what we could and at least he was warm and loved before he left.

This morning we buried him on the back porch in this big planter i have that is located near where his nest was. i sprinkled some flower seeds on top of the spot and then we planted a purple clematis in the planter with him.