1/2 week til C day

Ain't nobody here but us chickens" -
Song lyrics, Louis Jordan

A great evening

Several days ago, I came home to a white truck and a raptor biologist in my yard. The biologist was none other than Dr. B.R. He comes around every year to check for Cooper Hawk nests. He found one, and he plans to band the young sometime in late June. He also found a Great Horned Owl nest with two young about 100 feet or so due west of me in the woods...believe it or not right along the edge that new development that I was fighting against so hard last year. Who would have guessed. Well tonight, Dr. B.R., 3 college student and his 3 year old daughter K, came to band the young owls. We came along to watch along with my salamander survey buddies the R family.


The nest was located in a 25' foot white pine.


Dr. B.R. putting on his climbing spikes


Ve watching him climb up the tree


Tuks and K watching him climb higher and higher


Dr. B.R. in the tree nearly to the top



One owlet down and Tuks checking out the softness of the feathers


About 30 days old


Family photo


Ve helping to squeeze the identification band onto the owlet's leg


Dr. B.R and his daughter


Getting them ready to send back up to the nest


Up they go......

1 week til Chick day

It's a chicken and egg situation - Which came first?

Dichotomy of Emotions

I have nothing to say right now. I am so excited that a friend of mine is picking up her two daughters this very weekend. Yet I am am also so worried because one of the girls is a VERY good friend of Mims'. I hope she will be OK and I hope she is home soon.

jumping together last June.

Mim in yellow, the two sisters coming home in the blue shirt and pink shirt. The girl in the pink shirt is Mim's good friend. They were born in the same coastal town of Port Salut.

1 1/2 weeks til chick day

"I'll change you from a rooster to a hen with one shot!"

Dolly Parton's character in 9 to 5 movie

Good Parenting Advice

'Love them, be strict and honest with them, live a good life full of love and happiness and they will seek out the same.'"

2 weeks til C day

What the hen said when she saw the scrambled eggs......
my children are all mixed up!

Trap #4 - the lucky one

Even though it was raining mixed with light snow and it was 36 degrees outside, we had a successful trap check. As we (just me and the girls tonight) approached the pond, we heard and saw two wood ducks and 1 mallard mixed with the sounds of a woodpecker banging against a tree. It was wonderful. All traps were empty except trap #4. It had one blue-spotted in it. Yeah!! Five total so far this year.








Ve and her mismatched gloves. Since she lost one and we only are in need of them occasionally now, I decided we would make do until next fall. I know, bad Mama!!! LOL

Fun in the ...Cloudy/Cold Skies?

Hair Pics






Fun in the ...Cloudy Skies?

No salamanders caught today, but we did catch two spring peepers (frogs) and again lots of leeches (yuck).

The girls played outside quite a bit in spite of the fact that it is about 30 degrees colder then yesterday.

Busy Saturday1

First day of soccer

I signed Ve up for the K-1 group. BIG MISTAKE!!



She had a hard time following along since the coaches expected this age group to know some basics things. Ve did not since her English is still so new. She was off-task and lost for most of the time.


and I could tell she really wasn't enjoying herself. She was also one of the smallest on the team. So I asked the coordinator if I could move her to Tuks team. He had to check with his boss, so in the meantime we waited and watched Ve's game and Ve not enjoying herself.

Tuks on the sideline of Ve's game keeping herself busy.



And as you can see I let her. She had a good time and waited patiently for her game to start.



Once she was washed up, and her game started, Tuks was all business.


Ve on the sideline of Tuks game.


Still staying focused. Tuks is the youngest on her team of PreK-4/5, and she still did great


The news came that yes, Ve could join Tuks team for the 7 weeks. She was allowed to jump right in today, and she LOVED it. Still basketball moves, but she clearly liked it way more than with the older kids.



Soccer queen


Rounding up in the end for their team chant. Soccer season will now be fun for us all.

Busy Saturday2

Salamander trap checking in the afternoon


Me in chest waders checking the traps.


What we think is a central newt


The kid crew checking out the newt


Ve a little hesitant, but dealing with this this whole in the woods nature experience.


A blue-spotted salamander, the elusive one that this study is all about. We caught 4 of them today. Way ahead of last year in only the first day.


Tuks, the seasoned naturalist


Finally, before bed time making dirt soup in the back yard flower planter.

Setting traps again

We are part of the statewide salamander survey again this year. We have set the traps several weeks later than last year since it has been so dry and the ponds hadn't completely thawed out yet. So, tonight was the night we placed the 5 traps in the chosen areas. Hopefully we will be more successful than we were last year.

More 2 1/2week chicken jokes- since I seem to be a 1/2 week off

aI asked an array of celebrities and famous people if they knew why exactly the chicken wanted to cross the road. Here is what they had to say . . . .

PLATO: For the greater good

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross roads

KARL MARX: It was a historical inevitability

TIMOTHY LEARY: Because that's the only trip the establishment would let it take

SADDAM HUSSEIN: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it

JACK NICHOLSON: ..cause it f*****g wanted to. That's the f*****g reason

RONALD REAGAN: I forget

CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before

HIPPOCRATES: Because of an excess of phlegm in it's pancreas

FOX MULDER: You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it ?

RICHARD M. NIXON: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did NOT cross the road

MACHIAVELLI: The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was

JERRY SEINFELD: Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, what the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place, anyway?

FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity

BILL GATES: I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents and balance your cheque book

OLIVER STONE: The question is not, 'why did the chicken cross the road?' rather, it is, 'who was crossing the road at the same time, whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?

DARWIN: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads

EINSTEIN: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference

BUDDHA: Asking this question denies your own chicken nature

RALPH WALDO EMERSON: The chicken did not cross the road....it transcended it

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die. In the rain.

COLONEL SANDERS: I missed one?

NATO: We cannot have chickens wandering over the roads whenever they feel like it

CLINT EASTWOOD: To make my day

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: He was too quick for me to ask....but 'he'll be back!'

BILL CLINTON: What the chicken does in his private life is his own business

AL GORE: Only a chicken? The rest of the chickens need to be counted also

GEORGE BUSH: To face a kinder, gentler thousand points of headlights.

ROSEANNE BARR: Urrrrrp. What chicken?

HOWARD COSELL: It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history. An historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurrence.

STAN LAURE: I'm sorry, Ollie. It escaped when I opened the run.

GOTFRIED VON LEIBNIZ: In this best possible world, the road was made for it to cross.

GROUCHO MARX: Chicken? What's all this talk about chicken? Why, I had an uncle who thought he was a chicken. My aunt almost divorced him, but we needed the eggs.

KARL MARX: To escape the bourgeois middle-class struggle.

ALFRED E. NEUMAN: What? Me worry?

SIR ISAAC NEWTON: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road.

THOMAS PAINE: Out of common sense.

PYRRHO THE SKEPTIC: What road?

AYN RAND: It was crossing the road because of its own rational choice to do so. There cannot be a collective unconscious; desires are unique to each individual.

JOHN SUNUNU: The Air Force was only too happy to provide the transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed himself of the opportunity.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: I don't know why, but methinks I could rattle off a hundred-line soliloquy without much ado.

SOCRATES: To pick up some hemlock at the corner druggist.

MR. T: If you saw me coming you'd cross the road too!

MARK TWAIN: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

MAE WEST: I invited it to come up and see me sometime.

WALT WHITMAN: To cluck the song of itself.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: To have something to recollect in tranquility.

HENNY YOUNGMAN: Take this chicken ... please.

More spring arrivals

I have been raking the yard every night this week. While I am working in the yard, the girls are playing, running around and riding bikes. We are all exhausted by evening. The girls are in bed by 7:00pm and I am usually dozing on the couch by 8:00pm and then finally stumbling into bed around 9, after letting the dogs out for their last potty break.

Last night, I discovered a garter snake sunning itself. I caught it, called the girls over and we had a mini-lesson in snakes and reptiles. Tuks couldn't touch it enough and was quite sad to see me let it go. Ve liked it fine but couldn't get over the smell of it. Snakes release a foul odor to smell like death and then they go limp. This is a protective behavior against predators.

Tuks also noticed that the snake did not have feet and legs like her. It was a good lesson.

This morning I pulled a deer tick that was embedded in my upper arm. Another spring arrival. One I actually am not too fond of.

Lastly, I forgot to mention but my Eastern Phoebe arrived about two weeks ago. He is making his presence known each morning and the girls are starting to recognize his call.

Two Months

Just overheard two teachers that are retiring after this school year.
TWO MONTHS (8 weeks) from today that school is out for the summer!!!!!!!

2 1/2 weeks til Chick day quote

"Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.” - Chuck Palahniuk

Ve’s fourth month Update.

Enjoying a bowl of popcorn. One of her favorite foods.

I want to take some time in talking about some of Ve’s orphanage survival behaviors that I have noticed. Being a person who is very familiar with animal behaviors, I can’t help but notice the similarity between some of Ve’s survival behaviors and an animal’s survival behavior. All purely instinctual. It is quite fascinating, aggravating, and sometimes it frightens me to think we may not be able to turn them around to more typical, acceptable behaviors. I also wanted to record them in the blog since it will be fun to look back and see that many of these survival behaviors have been extinguished with time.

The first behavior is what I call “CLAIMING”. Once Ve has attached her self to an item of her liking, she will lay claim to the item and make darn well sure Tuks does not have it or touch it. She has claimed it as her own. It will go to bed with her, lay around in her cached pile, and even be forgotten, but Tuks had not better touch it. I, of course don’t allow this to happen once I notice it is going on. Items and gifts that are truly Ve’s, I allow her to claim, items or gifts that are shared, I remind Ve constantly that it is hers and Tuks. Sometimes, when I get frustrated with all the arguing over things. I make a point in telling both girls that the said items are actually in fact mine, Mamas, but I am choosing to share them with both of the girls. It works every time.

Another behavior is “STALKING”. For example in one situation, I had given Tuks a 0-3 month old diaper that had come in the mail so that she could place it on her Bear bear. The minute I had done this, without thinking of course, I saw my mistake. Ve’s eyes light up and it was obvious she WANTED that diaper. Yet, it was too late, it was already in Tuks possession. So I would say for a good 30 plus minutes, Tuks played with the diaper and Ve followed her around literally from room to room, quietly watching and waiting for Tuks to put the diaper down. The minute it was out of Tuks hands, Ve grabbed it up and placed it on Bear bear. It was at that moment that Ve was satisfied and could move on to another toy. I was extremely amazed at her diligence in waiting it out for the one chance to grab the diaper. I don’t step in on this action unless I see that there might be a problem created between the two. So far it has been ok.

When Ve sees a new food on her plate, or on the counter being prepared for a meal, she picks it up and “SNIFFS” it. Just like an animal would do. I would imagine this would come from finding food where ever she could and then sniffing it before trying it. I have gotten on her many times to not sniff the food and this behavior is slowly coming around.

If Ve notices an item of interest in Tuks possession, she will “GRAB” it right out of Tuks hands. Now, Tuks response is to usually smack Ve. A behavior I have been working on getting Tuks to stop. Yet, I can’t blame Tuks when Ve just grabs items away from her. This behavior is also slowly improving. I have seen Ve start to grab, then pause look at me, and then stop her actions because she knows she is not to do this. I have taught her to ask for an item with the understanding the party holding the coveted item may say no.

If Ve knows where we are heading she will quickly “RACE” ahead of Tuks to reach the desired item or location to ensure she gets first choice, first chance, or best option. I remind Ve not to race ahead of Tuks, but to walk along side of her. This is what sisters and family do and mean to each other. Sharing, walking, loving, not competing. Ever so slowly she seems to be getting it.

Our love for each other as a family is growing in leaps and bounds. Though the girls get into sibling spats, they truly do love each other. My love for Ve is also growing exponentially as well. The more we are able to communicate, the better we understand and are able to share our thoughts, feelings, and wants with each other.

Ve fits into our family extremely well. She is quite adaptable, lovable and as I have said earlier, funny. She loves nothing more than to laugh. She still is not too fond of the weather even though to me it is so much nicer. Her request each morning is for two shirts to keep her warm. She plays outside with as much vigor and energy as Tuks does now. She has explored much of the yard, even though she checks in often to see what and where I am working in the yard. I look forward to each and every day that I spend with her. She is a joy!!