a beautiful day

(found this old journal page I never got posted)
Good Morning Everyone!





I woke to the sounds of song birds and gently blowing wind through the pine trees. I love both of the sounds, music to my ears!





My husband had to go to an overnight conference yesterday. I called him from our porch to tell him how beautiful it was and that I was taking in all the nature sounds and views. He said he was sitting in an auditorium with three hundred people. Poor lad!





The dogs and I sat on the porch for two hours. I was able to hear a Cerulean Warbler which I identified though a web site, http://www.birding.com/. It sort of sounds like an upward whistle.

The dogs are restless on the porch, moving from place to place. The sun cooks them a little then they have to move to the shade for awhile. They love to be outside with us. They are such patient little guys to wait all day in the house for us during the week. (Garth just did an "over easy" maneuver.)

There are so many warblers and I am so ignorant as to all their songs. Every year I have to start all over again. As I was sitting on the porch I saw red wing blackbirds, a kingfisher, goldfinch, starlings, chipping sparrows, mallard ducks and one unidentified bird.



Today I am meeting my son, niece and husband for an Applebees birthday celebration (mine). It was this week. Nice birthday treats and surprises at work from staff and kids. My husband gave me cash for an upcoming stamping tradeshow I am going to. Yeah!

Deer Chatter

This week was a quiet week at work but I got so much done organizing and cleaning. Tomorrow when I go to my office, it will be easier to tackle the last few weeks we have before the end of school. I redecorated and fertilized plants as well.

Two of my sisters came yesterday and took me out for breakfast for my birthday. We had a great day! Did a little antiquing, riding the back roads, touring the cottage and then ending up on the Pug (our six wheeled vehicle) for a woods ride. I love when they come. We laugh ourselves silly and enjoy so much of the same things.

Honeysuckle is leafing out, ferns are springing to life after their long winter of being flattened out by the snow, adder's tongue is leafing out and coltsfoot is in bloom.

We did hear an interesting conglomeration of sounds in the woods when we had stopped for a few moments to take in the nature sounds. None of us could figure it out. It sounded like a baby crying, turkeys clucking, animals fighting, machinery---- it was such a puzzle!

When the noise had quieted down, we proceed on and to our surprise, we came upon seven deer that had been gathered together! Off they bounced through the woods with their white tails flagging! We were astonished! Never before had we ever know they make such weird noises. I looked up deer sounds on the web and to my surprise, they do make different sounds!

We saw only a few birds but the afternoon time is their quietest time of the day. Morning is when you can witness the most activity.

We have a blue-winged teal duck nesting in one of our duck boxes. Actually it is an old nail key nailed to a tree. I never knew that they nested in boxes. I thought that only wood ducks did. It will be fun to see their babies flop out of the hole when they are old enough. I hope we are home to see it.

Today I have to paint an old table donated by my sister for the cottage as a work table. The cleaning is done for the week, so after that I am a free spirit and will take my paper fingers to the cottage so they can get to work!

Happy Sunday!

Twit