CHICKADEE NESTING

    We have two species of resident chickadee here and once in a while we get a visitor. Our resident chickadees are the black-capped and boreal. The one we occasionally see is the mountain chickadee.

    Now chickadees are interesting little birds all year but in the breeding season the spectacle gets very interesting. The males call for female attention with a fee bee call. There's lots of competition especially if there are two or more males in the area. Usually the male has a nest site in the area and he wants to get a female to take a look at it and partner with him. There's lots of back and forth stuff for several weeks. I've seen a female appear and go off with a male and in a few minutes looks at the other males wares. How do I know this? Just keep the bird in sight.

    A pair will work on making a nest hole in a tree trunk or large branch. They are very good a finding a part of the tree which is rotten under the bark. 

   I watched this develop at my back step a few years ago. A pair of black-capped chickadees would work on a nest hole. They would disappear. Probably the female found some other male. Then  couple of red-breasted nuthatches would work on the project. Then a pair of boreal chickadees would show up for a few days. 

   It seemed that there were lots of  changes with the birds in trying to make the particular tree their nesting site. 

   Ten days ago I discovered chickadees working on making a hole in one of the trees in my yard. So far I've seen them chase off a nuthatch. Right now nobody seems to be working at the project.

    These energetic little guys get a lot done and provide lots of entertainment . I have a feeling that I'm not finished seeing the hole develop in the tree.

     They have a rather uneven entry

     I'll just have a peak around to see if the coast is clear

     In he or she goes for a turn at nest building.

     Second bird waiting for a turn at work

 Sometimes it's a struggle to enter the work area

TODAY I LOST A GOOD SISTER IN LAW

    Just before noon today my wife's sister took her leave of this life. I was fortunate to have a strong, intelligent, witty, humorous and mischievous sister in law for 53 years.

     My sister in law was born in England in the early thirties and lived in England through the war. After the war she last both here parents by the time she was 19. She came to Canada with a younger brother and sister to relatives.

    She married a Canadian farmer which was a long way from an English kid's experience. Farming life was completely foreign to her. She made a great farm wife and met the challenges well. 

    She had 4 very active children.

    She lost her first husband when she was 50.

   She married again for 25 years.

   She spent 15 winters in Arizona.

   She always liked tennis and at age 60 took it up again. She was not satisfied with just playing tennis. She had to be competitive so she played in competitive rankings.

   She was quite the gal. She played a major part in many people's lives.

THE CHANGE GENE

    My retirement organization  has a first class quarterly magazine. It keeps us up to date on what's new for us. It also contains interesting articles on senior topics:travel, health, arts, writing, hobbies and many more topics. It's one of those magazines that grew because it had an excellent editor. 

    The last issue had an article about "the Change Gene" One of our retirees wrote an article about how she helped her 91 year old mother with her computer. Her Mom was ok with email but not much more. Daughter was trying to get Mom familiar with other areas of her computer.

    Then daughter stopped and started to think about changes people go through. Particularly the comparison of changes that mother and daughter had gone through and why each had a different experience with computers.

    In our lives we go through many changes as we age .Well maybe that's not right. Many changes come along that we experience. What we do with these changes is a result of our experience and how we have taken advantage of previous changes. 

    It was hard for daughter to teach mother about computers as mother had very little experience with computers. Daughter started to wonder how she would adapt to changes coming up.

    When I started flying all we needed was a piece of paper (ticket) in our hand and we got on the airplane. Now I need help to check myself in on the computer.

    The first car I ever owned was a 1929 model A Ford. Today I own a Honda CRV. With the old model A we just bounced down the road. I call the CRV an glorified sensor. That's just the change in cars. I wasn't really ready for the CRV.

   So the writer of the article started to wonder if we had a change gene or needed a change gene. We need something to help us get by all the changes we meet in life.

TOO MANY EYE TESTS IN ONE DAY!

    Yesterday I had five eye tests in 6 hours! I started at 8:30 AM  with a pressure test and peripheral vision test. At 10:30 AM  I had another pressure test. At 12:30  PM I had another pressure teat and and at 2:30 I had a final pressure test. The two hours between tests meant that if I was going back home it was for only a few minutes and to sit for two hours waiting for the next test was terribly boring.

     I stayed from 8:30 to 10:30 and went home in between the others.

    All my pressure result were 17 to 23 . For my peripheral vision I only missed one dot.

    So what was this all about?  My optometrist found pressures in the 27- 28 range. He also found a spot in the peripheral vision test that I was missing. He didn't know why I had these results  and worried about this so sent me to an opthamologist.

     The opthamologist found thicker than usual corneas and that will cause a higher pressure reading. So the real pressure is much lower. The thickness of the cornea and pressure relationship was only discovered a short time ago. So the high pressure was explained. They used a different pressure test apparatus for me.

     As for the peripheral vision results? I think maybe the optometrist's machine may be a problem.

     Anyway a long day gave me some good results. By the end of the tests my eyes were a little sore as they put a little numbing stuff before they do the test. I don't have to worry about glaucoma.

A DISGUSTING COMMENT

    One of the best parts of blogging are the comments. I like receiving comments where I learn something, have to rethink my post or change my position. I also like making comments. It's a conversation in blogging.

     However, last week I received a comment from Mr or Mrs Anonymous and it was much out of line. I've seen these comments before. I know what kind of deluded people make them.

    All of you have seen the comment about Baby Boomers and how awful they are that they are using everything up in a very selfish way and leaving nothing for the coming generations except debt. Baby boomers should just get out of the way (die) and quit using up resources and leaving huge debts. This person cannot see clearly because of their own selfishness. It was somewhat alarming to see a comment with such utter lack of reality.

    I would like to be able to tell this person that if that's the way they feel don't drive on roads or bridges that baby boomers have built. Don't drink the water or dispose of your sewage using baby boomer facilities. Just don't use any of the public infrastructure that baby boomers have built . The infrastructure may not be completely paid for but there's nothing wrong with future generations paying for a share for their usage. What do they think that everything should be built and that they can use it for nothing?

    Finally, I'm not a baby boomer. I'm a prewar baby. I know that people had to pay for a war so that we might be free. It took many years to pay for the war. 

    I wonder what other bizarre ideas Mr or Mrs Anonymous could come up with?
     
    

A VERY DIFFERENT CELEBRATION OF LIFE

      I usually attend 4 or 5 memorials a year. Most of them are for elderly people. The format is much the same. One sad part now is that many people request no formal service be held.

     This week I attended a very different celebration of life. The deceased had been murdered...shot by his wife. The victim was 36  years old.

    As with many of domestic homicides things get fairly complicated in a hurry.

    I knew the victim when he was younger. He lived across the street from me. His parents still live there. 

   The guy was an extremely aggressive business man who didn't take no for an answer. If you couldn't do what he wanted he would do it himself. He didn't have much time for rules. Rules weren't for him. 

    Now I was rather surprised that a memorial for him was being held in a church. He had issues with drugs so maybe he was influenced and helped by the church. 

    Now the victim's parents strongly support his wife who shot him. Apparently He had a list of people he was going to kill. One of the people he intended to kill was his Dad. So the couple had a dispute and the husband was killed. Apparently drugs were an issue and he had been on something for three days.

    The victim's parents told me that they strongly supported their daughter in law.

    The wife was let out of detention to attend the memorial. A letter was read from her to say how much she thought of her husband. 

    Eulogies painted a great picture of the victim. The last time I talked to him he admitted that there were many people who didn't like him. 

  So with tragic incidents there are usually many questions and few answers. There are many comments and suppositions. It's a jumble in many people's  minds.

    So many times when I attend a memorial I come home and have some satisfaction and closure of the loss. This service was meant to bring closure and I hope it did for many people. I'm sure some people are like me and have many questions that will take a long time to be answered.

MY SNOW IS ALMOST GONE

        I've had a bit of a struggle with the blog lately. I've been very busy. Topics come to my head and by the time I get to pencil and paper the topic is gone.

        However , today I have something to write about that was planned for me by somebody else.

        I want to tell you that my winter snow is about 90% gone. There are only snow banks on the north side of something or in a very sheltered spot.

       So I went out to get some photos of my gone snow. 

       Well, I found some other things and some things I didn't find quite soon enough.

       I noticed  that a large tree trunk had fallen and the the bark was stripped off the branches close to the ground. I had to check this out. From a distance I thought it would have been a porcupine. When I got there I discovered that it had been deer that had chewed the bark off and nipped all the end twigs. Most nights deer had gone through my yard so I was not surprised by the evidence.

     Now I was so interested in the evidence of the trees being chewed that I missed seeing the larger bulk if the evidence. Since the deer had stayed in this area most of the winter they had left a massive amount of droppings. I didn't see the droppings quite soon enough. They were in a consistency where they mushed and really stuck to my shoes!

    So you see the deer gave me my topic today.