A robin has made a nest in the holly bush right outside of our dining room bay window. I found her there, sitting and waiting patiently for her eggs to hatch. A week or so later I caught her flying back and forth -- I assume feeding her babies. Now she is gone, and so are the fledglings. I'm guessing that they are among the young spotted robins who are splashing and drinking from the falls in the pond. I know the adult birds in our yard take their fledglings to the feeders and to the pond. I've watched the juvenile catbirds perch on the viburnum above the falls while an adult splashes below them. They watch -- "WHAT?? Really? You want us to go in there?" And of course, eventually they do. I wonder if the adults think about them once they are gone. I wonder if they worry just a little.
The chickadees have already successfully fledged a brood in the little nesting box in the crab apple tree. They fought a valiant fight over the box in early spring, winning it from the wrens, but now the wrens are back and have taken over the box. Despite a rather detailed honey-do list, hubby neglected to empty and clean it for the spring, so now it has at least five broods worth of nesting material inside. I can see the sticks and feathers coming out of the vents on the bottom. The wrens have chickadee feathers to line their nest - a luxury! The activity at the feeders is frenetic, above and below. The chipmunks have produced a bumper crop of young this year and the little ones perch on rocks at the falls, watching me closely to see if there's any risk in movement. Twice we have seen the red fox pop his head through the fir tree by the front feeder, scouting for a greedy squirrel who might be preoccupied with fallen seed.
There is a plant in my pond that I have never liked. It grows too tall and the leaves flop over and break. I have brought it in for the winter for three winters now, on hubby's insistence. This spring, as it sat in the window waiting to be planted, it decided to flower... twice. Two large white blossoms atop a tall stem. I feel a little guilty for all those moments when it nearly went into the weed pile. I cut it back and planted it in the pond again, and it graced us with another beautiful bloom. In fact there are other firsts this year.. Since we took out the pussy willow bush (which had grown into a tree) there is more light. The blue flags in the bog, which are at least 10 years hold, have bloomed for the first time.
CT scan shows that the aortic dilation has grown 1 mm since the November scan. It is now 4.6 cm. The heart is strong, the bicuspid valve is functioning as a normal valve with only a very slight regurgitation. 4 more mm to go before surgery. I saw a video of my surgeon's team. They were replacing parts on man with the identical thing I have. They put him on a bypass machine -- a heart and lung machine. They brought his temperature down to 52 degrees, flat-lining his brain. When they flat-line you..... where do you go?? No one has been able to answer this question for me.
In just two short days my first born will be 30 years old. Time flies so quickly and seems to accelerate as I grow older. When I was 30 I was restarting college.. and I had a 3 year old. It sounds cliche but it's so true.. it seems like just yesterday, literally, that I looked into her little face for the first time. And I can still remember thinking how odd it was that I had never seen her before, but I recognized her.
It seems like spring came early this year. We have already had several 80 plus degree days. The pond was up and running a month earlier than last year, and the flowers came early as well. My daughter's lily-of-the-valley bloomed two weeks ago (we call them "hers" because they usually begin to bloom on her birthday week.) Luckily, they are still blooming, but they are at the end of their bloom time rather than the beginning. The odd thing is that the hummingbirds, which normally show up between the second and last week of April only started visiting yesterday. The latest they have ever arrived.
Today I sat for one hour on the porch with my binoculars and iBird Pro at hand. In that short time five warblers visited the pond for a dip in the falls: An American Redstart; a Northern Parula; a Black and White warbler; a "Myrtle" Yellow-Rumped warbler; and a Canada Warbler. They have all visited in prior years, but this is only the second time the Northern Parula has come through. The Red-Eyed Vireo is back as well -- a regular in the neighborhood.
The American toads have shown up again, trilling all night long. And their arrival marks the departure of the green frogs, but only temporarily. They will return when the toads have left the pond and the tadpoles have hatched. As I write this I can hear an oriole way up in one of the ash trees. They also come around in the spring, though they never stick around long, preferring the retention pond down the road.
In three days I will have another echo-cardiogram and another CT scan.
