Greetings friends and fans! This is The Daily Bone and I'm your dependable doggie reporter
Chester L. W. Spaniel.
Guess what? It's actually warm out! I mean summer-day warm! Almost 80º! My ghostwriter put her warm coat on when she got ready to go out in the yard. But as soon as she stepped outside, she turned around and threw her coat back into the house. Wow!
The pear tree is in full bloom. As we gazed up into the blossoms, we saw this:
A baby grackle! These little gargoyles have the ugliest faces, and continuously make an annoying sound, like "chark chark chark chark chark chark …" so their parents don't forget where they are. As soon as I got near, the parent grackles started dive bombing me and calling me a jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk, as I sniffed around the yard.
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| Sheesh! What rude birdies! |
As you might know, grackles make gigantic slimy poops, usually all over the cars, lawn furniture, windows, and anything your humans might like to have outside. Dad just got our doggie statues of Old Charisma and Miss Ginger out of storage. By the next day, they were covered with grackle goop! We'll all be glad when those nasty grackles move on!
Earlier today, we spotted a baby robin in the birch tree. (It's not a good shot since we had to look up through the window screen.) But he sat there for a long time waiting as the mother would come and go with juicy worms to feed him. This is probably Romeo Feathersworth from the nest in the yew bushes. By the way, there is still that one unhatched egg in there. So I think it's safe, or sad, to say Romeo is an only child.
We'll be sure to keep you posted on our local birdie drama!
Meanwhile, here are a few pictures of our flowers:
The tiny light blue flowers are called forget-me-nots. They are biannual plants. They start as a seed that grows into a small leafy plant during the first summer. The next year, they grow real bushy and have lots of flowers. These then go to seed and die. When ghostwriter pulls up the dead plants, she is sure to shake out all the seeds for the next crop to grow. We have them growing all over the yard.
In other news, I got a new chewy bone! Hooray!
Oh, here's a bit of news from the nursing home where ghostwriter works. Oma is still covid negative, and she's doing well. As you might know, my ghostwriter has been working a lot of extra days lately. She says that whenever she goes in, there are presents from people in the community in appreciation of the hard work the nursing home staff is doing right now. One day a local catering service provided delicious boxed lunches. Other days there was pizza, or gift bags full of little snacks and treats, or trays of cookies, donuts, or fruit from scout troops, businesses, church groups, and even the residents' families. On the bulletin board are lots of cards and letters from families and friends saying thank you too. Isn't that nice?
We hope that this terrible virus goes away real soon! Please stay safe!
Here are some links to some older posts of The Daily Bone about grackles.
scram
jerks
the-gargoyles-are-out
We sure had a nice taste of summer today, didn't we? You have some lovely flowers in your yard. So far we haven't seen any baby birds but we're pretty sure the bluebirds are working on it right now.
ReplyDeleteThose grackles sound pawsitively annoying. We hope they go away soon. But we are happy to hear the baby robin is doing OK.
ReplyDeleteThe flowers are so pretty. We did not know that about forget-me-nots. Very interesting.
We hope both Oma and Ghostwriter stay healthy.
Woos, Lightning and Timber
Those grackles are the worst. We like the little birds. We love your flowers. We are glad your Oma and Mom are still healthy in this scary time.
ReplyDeleteSuch pretty flowers! Glad Oma is staying healthy.
ReplyDeleteThose naughty grackles have discovered our feeders...along with the even more naughty cowbirds... We have lots of orioles and other pretty birds, but no sign of babies even in the backwoods of our property. Though we do see the Ma and Pa birds of many species.
ReplyDeleteGlad Oma is doing well. So far Covid has stayed away from all our residents, what a blessing.
It did ravage the facility near Toronto, where our Opa and Oma used to live, years ago...so sad, and so bad they had to recruit the military reserve to assist them in caring and transporting to the hospital.
Your flowers are SO lovely. We only had one lonely tulip...I think the squirrels and maybe other vermin destroyed them...
Gosh we have never heard of grackles before. They don't sound like the most attractive of birdies. Huge slimy poops too. Yuk! (Here in Aberdeen, Scotland, we have seagulls for that.) But your flowers are so lovely. Gail and I hope your Oma, and all those people living in and caring for folk in care homes stay safe.
ReplyDeleteToodle pip!
Bertie.
Your flowers are so gorgeous! We are so happy that Oma is well. People can be so caring and loving during these difficult times. Bless them all and bless you, ghostwriter, for all you do♥
ReplyDeleteYour garden flowers are absolutely lovely. We have those grackles around our yard but they don't seem to bother us too much. The gangs of hoodlum squirrels probably keep them away mostly but on occasion we'll see their slime. Have a beautiful weekend and give your ghostwriter an extra sweet puppy kiss for her work. We'll keep our paws crossed for your Oma. 😍
ReplyDeleteChester you are my favorite reporter....yippee skippy spring has sprung in WNY
ReplyDeleteenjoy it and all the simple pleasures that come with it. Thank GW for the gawgeous pictures.
Hugs Cecilia
The cards and meals and goodies are all well-deserved for the dedication your ghostwriter and her coworkers exhibit every single day. Each morning, Mom and I say prayers for people like them in the trenches for all of us. So happy to see spring in your yard. It came to my house too, this week!
ReplyDeleteLove and licks,
Cupcake
Wow, so spring like!
ReplyDeleteYuck, we hate grackles! They gather in huge flocks on the trees in parking lots and stuffs. Businesses have tried to figure out how to keep them away with netting and stuff. It looks like a skeery scene out of the The Birds!
ReplyDelete