Ups and Downs

 Hello everyone. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your diligent doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

We have a bumper crop of irises this spring in every color imaginable! 

My ghostwriter says it's because I did a good job of not stomping on them.

Say, what?

I'll have you know, I also did a good job of watering them. Speaking of water, we had a couple rainy days, and now there are hundreds of tiny mushrooms all over the back part of the yard. 

This evening it started to snow! 

I kid you not!

Well, it's not really snow. It's millions of fluffy seeds from the local cottonwood trees.

Now, unfortunately, I have some sad news to report.

A couple days ago, the remaining robin's nest had eggs starting to hatch. 

But two days later, when we checked on their progress, this is what we found: 

They were all gone without a trace! We think some kind of predator might have found the nest.

Personally, I think it was that crummy, rotten squirrel that's been hanging around the bushes in the front yard. Grrrrrrr!

Mother of Nature

The Making of …

Birdie Drama

 Greetings friends and fans. This is The Daily Bone, and I'm your doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

This is the season for lots of birdie drama, as nests are built, eggs are laid, and hatched, and babies grow up. We were very lucky to have found two robin nests in our front yard. We've been watching as the robin families grow. 

Nest #1 on May 14

Nest #2 on May 14

Nest #1 on May 15

Nest #1 on May 17

Nest # 1 on May 20

On the night of May 20, there was a big storm with high winds and heavy rain. Nest #1 got knocked over, and the babies are gone. Well, sometimes Mother Nature is not so kind. 

But fortunately nest #2 is in a more sheltered spot. This morning the eggs started hatching.

We'll keep you posted on the progress of this robin family, and hope they have better luck. 

But we have another birdie drama event. A couple days ago, we heard a loud thump on the dining room window. When we looked out, a dazed goldfinch was sitting on the window box feeder. We opened the window to see if it was all right, but the birdie didn't move. Ghostwriter was able to pick it up in her hand. 

She held it until it seemed to become more alert, and then put it into the feeder box.

After a few more minutes, it flew away. 

Good luck birdie!

Nice Days

 Hello everybody! This is The Daily Bone and I'm your doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

Anyone who lives in WNY knows there is not much in the way of a Spring season. Usually things go right from winter directly to summer. You can have snow on Mother's Day, and then 80º the next. Well, today is one of those suddenly summer days! 

My ghostwriter was amazed to find not one, but two robins' nests in front of the house. We suspected at least one robin was building somewhere deep in the yew bushes in front of the living room windows. A thorough search finally discovered the secret nest with one blue egg inside:

But then we spotted the super special hiding place of a second nest perched between the birch and the arborvitae bush. 

Do you see it?

If we move the arborvitae branch a little, then here it is in all it's glory with four eggs!

The robins weren't very glad to see us taking pictures. So we'll leave them alone and try to just take one picture a day. In the meantime, there are lots of flowers to look at.

Here are some mutant dandelions we found in the yard. Several stems are fused together with a bunch of flower heads on top. 

I wonder what's up with that?

Getting back to birdie drama now, while the robins are just laying their eggs, the Great Grackle Flying PTA (Poop Tossers Association) has been hard at work, raising their baby gargoyles in the local arborvitae trees. We hear them squawking whenever their parent birdie arrives at their nest with supper. To keep their nests clean, the parent birds take their babies' poops and drop them onto anything they can find … like our cars! 

Ghostwriter's car

Dad's car

Yuck!

Anyway, it's a nice evening. The sun is starting to go down in the west:

And the moon is coming up in the east:

If you want to read more about our problems with those crummy grackles, please check out some of our older posts:

angry-bird-time

guess-what-i-caught

jerks

Nap time! 

May the Fourth

 Greetings friends and fans. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your faithful doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

We almost got through this day without remembering what special day this is: Star Wars Day! 

Perhaps we didn't remember because we were too busy watching Spring arrive … finally! 

Joey's pear tree is full of blooms! Long time readers will remember my esteemed late associate Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel, who loved nothing more than picking, and eating, pears from that tree. 

There are also grape hyacinths blooming all over the yard! (No you can't eat these.) 

There was a beautiful sunset this evening. 

Then we saw the moon, and it looked like there was a jet flying towards it. 

I think it's sleepy time now. 

All you Star Wars fans can party on without me. Good night.