Birds and book, day 41 of 2012 (also Flower and Garden show)
Today I didn't go to work. No, I was home to let Gradka out and in and out and in and out and in which is her idea of a good time. And I was home to check my bank balance online and discover that my debit card had been out making purchases on its own. When I picked up my phone to call my bank I found they'd already called me; I don't know how they can differentiate between my own going-into-the-red online shopping and that of unauthorized users but, thankfully, apparently they can. The good news is that the money should get credited back to my account soonish and, of course, I scarcely had any money in my account anyway; the bad news is that I'm without a functioning cash card now. It took me longer than you might expect to remember that there are things called "checks." After a few minutes I also remembered the state of my bank balance and that you're supposed to have money in the bank to cover any checks you write.
None of which stopped me from heading out the door to meet Eli for lunch at 611 Supreme and then spending several hours (and some dollars--his) at the Flower and Garden show. It seemed smaller and less stunning, in many ways, than the previous time we went; we purchased no steel goat this time though there was a fetching little donkey I sort of liked. No, we got twenty gladiola bulbs, some very charming cards by Meredith MacLeod, a dish towel, some mason bee tubes, Beverly Nichols' A Thatched Roof, a broom, a t-shirt for the Third of Three, Plant Amnesty publications on pruning, and, of all things, half a dozen eggs. Really; were you to look at the illustration next to "eclectic" in Webster's, you might see today's shopping. Eli insisted that we were not going to get any chooks though they were the most adorable things ever (excluding cats and thumbprints) but, aside from a very nice bright red gateleg table, I don't know that we saw anything else I wanted. Looking at the list, of course, I see that we did quite a bit of purchasing.
The mason bee tube purchase resulted from seeing James Ulrich's presentation on the birds and the bees which I found very education. Female mason bees, for example, have a "sperm sack" which allows them to control the sex of their offspring. They lay the female bees towards the back half of the tubes (sealing each set of eggs off with a mud wall) and then make the eggs in the front half of the tubes male. The males emerge first and buzz around for a few weeks and then, if the males haven't all frozen to death in a sudden cold snap, the females emerge, gather some food, and they mate to start the cycle over again. I think we likely have mason bees already but I'm willing to provide some additional housing for them. We'll see how it actually goes.
Birds
American goldfinches
crows
starlings
gull
European starlings
black-capped chickadees
dark-eyed juncos
yellow-rumped warblers
pine siskin
house finches
house sparrows
song sparrow
northern flicker
pigeon
Book
The Prague Cemetery page 426
I really thought I'd finish it this morning but being Gradka's door person is a time-consuming job. And, I can also check "file taxes" off my to-do list. Yay!
None of which stopped me from heading out the door to meet Eli for lunch at 611 Supreme and then spending several hours (and some dollars--his) at the Flower and Garden show. It seemed smaller and less stunning, in many ways, than the previous time we went; we purchased no steel goat this time though there was a fetching little donkey I sort of liked. No, we got twenty gladiola bulbs, some very charming cards by Meredith MacLeod, a dish towel, some mason bee tubes, Beverly Nichols' A Thatched Roof, a broom, a t-shirt for the Third of Three, Plant Amnesty publications on pruning, and, of all things, half a dozen eggs. Really; were you to look at the illustration next to "eclectic" in Webster's, you might see today's shopping. Eli insisted that we were not going to get any chooks though they were the most adorable things ever (excluding cats and thumbprints) but, aside from a very nice bright red gateleg table, I don't know that we saw anything else I wanted. Looking at the list, of course, I see that we did quite a bit of purchasing.
The mason bee tube purchase resulted from seeing James Ulrich's presentation on the birds and the bees which I found very education. Female mason bees, for example, have a "sperm sack" which allows them to control the sex of their offspring. They lay the female bees towards the back half of the tubes (sealing each set of eggs off with a mud wall) and then make the eggs in the front half of the tubes male. The males emerge first and buzz around for a few weeks and then, if the males haven't all frozen to death in a sudden cold snap, the females emerge, gather some food, and they mate to start the cycle over again. I think we likely have mason bees already but I'm willing to provide some additional housing for them. We'll see how it actually goes.
Birds
American goldfinches
crows
starlings
gull
European starlings
black-capped chickadees
dark-eyed juncos
yellow-rumped warblers
pine siskin
house finches
house sparrows
song sparrow
northern flicker
pigeon
Book
The Prague Cemetery page 426
I really thought I'd finish it this morning but being Gradka's door person is a time-consuming job. And, I can also check "file taxes" off my to-do list. Yay!