Saturday, May 16, 2015
I got interrupted yesterday by Nugget coming over to visit.
Walking her back over to her house later, we found a tiny baby bird (still with fluff on either side of his head and on his back, so definitely not ready to leave the nest) hopping down the middle of the street. No idea where he came from. The rest of the evening was spent building him a nest box in my spare bathroom, digging worms and grubs for him, and feeding him. So I now have a bird after all. Looks like it might be a starling.
To conclude the previous bird stories, the blackbirds gave up on the dryer vent after one got stuck ripping open the netting Daughter had put over the opening to keep them out. Once it got loose, they never came back. Funny that running the clothes dryer didn't bother them, but a net "trap" frightened them away.
The house finches who built the nest in the wreath on my front door were evicted twice, and when they rebuilt the third time I gave up and allowed them to stay. They laid four eggs in the prettiest, softest-lined nest I've ever seen, and just five days later the eggs were ... gone. I suspect a squirrel got them. Mother squirrels will eat eggs and new hatchlings because they need calcium when they're nursing babies. (When you make eggs for breakfast, crush the shells and toss them out on the lawn for nursing mothers: squirrels, racoons, possums, cats, whatever. If nobody takes them, they're good for your lawn.) Anyway, the finches haven't been back.
I think the robin who'd laid claim to my patch of front lawn has built a nest in the tree, and may have chicks because I'll see a robin fly into the tree, and then there's an unholy racket of buzzing and chirping.
So, expect future updates on the baby bird in the bathroom. He eats a LOT! Just this evening he ate six chubby earthworms, two fat grubs, and about 12-15 medium-sized mealworms before he decided he was full and stopped begging. That was his fifth meal of the day. Nugget is happy feeding him, but when he gets full and wants to sleep, she's done. Daughter has fallen in love with him and will easily spend an hour up there snuggling him.
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So, to continue from yesterday. Where was I? Oh, yeah, Tuesday, May 5th. The Hunk had just put the new tire on my car. Then I went to the village diner for lunch, and to the hardware store for white spray paint, and a few other stores for some other stuff. When I got back to the house, I pried the new numbers off the tree next to the driveway, painted a large white oval on the bark, and renailed the numbers. Now you can see them.
By then it was close to 5 pm. Still nothing accomplished on the house, midway through the second trip.
I had been trying to sort the crap in the house into "take south", "sell or give away", and "throw away", and I'd been making very little progress because, well, there's so much, and everything has to be touched, examined, considered. On a previous 2014 three day trip, all I'd done was go through one drawer of the four drawer horizontal file cabinet. This time I just grabbed some garbage bags and ran quickly around throwing stuff in the bags. I was really being tough. I even threw out a jade Chinese teapot because it leaked. I filled two huge garbage bags, and tossed them into the back seat of the car. And then about 8 pm I sat down in the den for a minute, and woke at 11 pm with my head on the desk. I was exhausted. I went to bed.
I left fairly early Wednesday because I have to be south of Newark by 4 pm or the traffic is awful, or wait until after 6 pm to leave, and I wanted to be home to watch Survivor at 8 so that wasn't going to cut it. I left at 1 pm, and the 2.5 hour trip took me 4.5 hours because of roadwork near Suffern and ... something? an accident long cleared out? ... near the Oranges that both slowed me down to 2nd gear for miles and miles.
But I was very good about those garbage bags. I resisted the urge to look into them one more time, and they went out with Thursday's garbage collection.
So, two round trips, five days, many hours driving, $900 in hotel, gas, tolls, thermostat, tire, and I have two bags of trash to show for it. I hope the next trip is more productive --- but I sorta doubt it because I'll be meeting with the a/c man to discuss getting the old heat pump replaced with electric a/c, and I want to go to the SS office up there to get some business handled, since the local SS office down here is understaffed and overcrowded, you can't make an appointment (although the website says you can by calling, but the phone call gets you a recorded message that says you have to appear in person), and on three attempts in person I hadn't been able to actually see anyone ("take a number", wait wait wait, "oops, we're closing now, come back tomorrow", when it's the same thing again).
I am currently collecting SS and Medicare on Jay's record as his widow, but I can give myself a huge raise by collecting on Ex#2's record. That is complicated, have to show proof we were married long enough, it affects my medical insurance, and so on and so on. Can't do it online.
I hope no more trees get blown over up there.
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