Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
So here is a video of a METRIC SHITLOAD of big ole bees in my wildflowers out front:
Look how big my trees are getting!!!!
The wildflowers really are amazing. One handful of them a couple years back, and they come back every year and have even migrated over to the tree on the right. They come in all different colors and sizes, too. Reds, yellows, blues, purples. best perennials ever.
I had thought the nest on the column on the front porch was empty, but as I was attending to the plants I noticed a bird fly up and out. I looked closer, thought I saw a little head, so I grabbed the step stool and camera, and lo and behold we have someone still occupying the nest:
Here is his very (at the moment) pissed off mom:
I also removed the two dead ferns and painstakingly removed the old nests and placed them delicately in new living ferns and hung them, so hopefully we will have some repeat renters this summer in those apartments.
My sister and her husband came down for father’s day and because we care about our parents, they socially distanced on the porch:
Devon brought down a bunch of strawberries that I am eating right now- they are so ripe and sweet I cut the tops off with a butter knife.
First things first- that bullshit stunt Trump signed about police reform isn’t worth the paper it was written on so there is no point talking about it.
Now to the important shit- I posted some pictures of the backyard and everyone was “Screw the yard what about the birds?” Ask and ye shall receive.
Geranium nest is active and occupied:
Dead Fern nest #1 is active and occupied:
Live fern nest appears to have been abandoned:
Dead fern nest #2 is similarly abandoned:
The nest at the top of the column has had its inhabitants move on, and the birb house on the porch is now home to a wasp nest, which I am just going to let be because wasps gotta live somewhere and that’s as good a place as any.
Once the occupants of the dead fern nest #1 move on, and I am going to move the nests into live ferns in case they came back for a second litter. Is it called a litter? I don’t know, but that is what I am calling it. Regardless, I am composting the dead ferns and transferring the nests into new plants so they don’t feel like the landlord just up and kicked them out. I don’t know if that is how this works I am not a bird specialist but that is how I am gonna approach itr.
Manhandling this:
And that handful of wildflower seeds I dropped in the front yard a few years ago:
I am pleased to report that my front porch is now at 100% occupancy. There are nests in both dead ferns, a nest in the live fern, a nest in the geraniums, a nest in the corner above the column, a nest in the petunias (which have only been there two weeks), and a nest in the actual bird house.
I’m going to need to hang more plants while we wait for the oak and maple tree to mature enough to be nestworthy.
This has been developing for a while now, but I didn’t want to tell you all since there is so much awful going on in the world, but I feel like I sort of have to so if something does happen, it will not come as a huge surprise out of the blue.
Rosie is not doing very well this year. Her hip degeneration has been worsening over the past few years, and for the past few months she has been really losing weight. I took her to the vets a while back for a battery of tests, and all her bloodwork was fine, so nothing showed up there. However, even though she is eating, she is losing weight, just not herself, and has been drinking a lot of water, and just slowly deteriorating. I’ve watched her fall down the stairs a couple times, and she just sits there afterwards with a sort of sheepish “god damnit” look on her face- the same way I felt when I fell through the deck the day I bought the house.
I’ve spoken with Harry, and he thinks she may have cancer, but there is not really anything we can and should do for it, because with her hip degeneration, any treatment might kill her, and she is too frail to really have surgeries to begin with. So we’re basically just keeping an eye on her, keeping her on her pain meds, and making sure she is still living her best life. I made her some scrambled eggs for lunch, and she is eating like a champ, so that is always good.
Again, there is nothing imminent, but I wanted to let you all know.
We had FOUR whole days where I could open the windows. FOUR.
It went from 45 to 65-70 to now FUCK YOU HOT.
This is bullshit.
Also, with all the sun coming into my house I am able to see all the filth I have been wallowing in for six months.
Lots of awful in the news, our President is still a fucking loser asshole sociopath, so I am not going to talk about any of it. I will talk about the very vivid dream I had last night.
I dreamt that I had a 90 year old tortoise who had been passed down through generations, and I was very attached to him. His name was Gary. At any rate, Gary developed some rare disease and his shell started to deteriorate into gel, and I had to have his upper shell removed to save his life. I then fashioned a temporary shell out of a very large copper mixing bowl that I found at the consignment store, and then had a friend fashion an elaborate permanent replacement shell with a 3d printer.
In other news, the wildflowers I planted in the front yard walkway bed three years ago are back with a vengeance:
If I lived in the country I would just plant fields of wildflowers.
*** Update ***
No sooner did I hit publish on this post when I turned around and found this majestic motherfucker:
I love him so much.
Apparently two weeks ago I left my ferns out on a night that it frosted, and it killed all the ferns I got dirt cheap. I guess they were dirt cheap because they knew it was going to frost again and they wanted to get rid of them without a loss. At any rate, I was going to take them down and try to trim away the dead stuff and see if they could be saved, but it looks like I am just going to have to let them be because we have several families who have moved back in:
Additionally, the bird’s nest in the corner of the column that I left up all winter was a couple weeks ago torn down- I walked outside to go do something for my parents, and it was gone. A couple hours later I returned, and it was rebuilt. I have not taken out the stepladder and inspected it yet, but I know there is a lot of activity going on because the top rip is lined with bird poop and small downy feathers, so I know there are some more babies in there.
I was going to take a picture, but I got distracted because Thurston was raising a ruckus in the back yard, and it appears he found a garter snake. I had to chase him into the house (the neighbors got to hear me yell “NOOO LEAVE THE SNAKE ALONE”), and I went back and the snake was still alive, so I made sure Steve was inside and then closed the doggy door.
Full time job keeping everything alive around here. At any rate, super excited that in just two years we have gone from one bird nest on the front porch to now THREE! Next year maybe we can get closer to max occupancy for the spring rentals out front.
Y’all have not lived until you have opened a can of sauerkraut that apparently did not seal correctly, because yowza.
I have also learned a little bit about myself in that even though my personal life has not changed very much, I apparently really feed off the emotions of others and it impacts my mood. Since this started, I thought it would be a snap because I never really go anywhere anyway, but everyone has been so depressed and so miserable that even I am getting sick of it. I want things to go back to normal, with you all out there doing fun things and living your lives and inviting me to things I will never attend. I find myself withdrawing inward even more- reading less news, viewing fewer blogs, etc. Just sort of walling myself off. Other than work related stuff, talking to the family and Tammy, I’m just sort of being non-communicative in the real world. I still interact with my online family inside of games and what not, but in meatspace I really am isolating myself.
Weird, hunh?
I have not summoned up the courage to try to shave Steve again.
Things I Have Learned During Quarantine, Part 2Post + Comments (287)
I know lots of you suffer from anxiety related issues, and I do as well, and earlier tonight I gave myself one hell of an “OMG I GOT THE RONA” anxiety attack. The proximate cause of said attack was spring allergies causing drainage which has given me a little chest cold combined with an active imagination and a fear that I may have killed my parents by giving them the virus.
At any rate, after they are gone, you remember how bad they were, but boy howdy nothing prepares you for when you are in the midst of one. It just sucks.
So please, y’all, take care of yourselves.
I’m venturing out of the house today to do a curbside pickup of groceries for my parents, who arrived home from South Carolina yesterday. Lots of people have talked about the reversal of roles, with kids yelling at their parents to not leave the house, and that sure is the case with my family. All four of us have told my parents that they are grounded and I am their lifeline to the world. It’s going to be a unique challenge for both of them, because dad is a social creature, while mom is content to stay at home and read all day while watching sports. Unfortunately, ALL OF HER SPORTS are also cancelled.
At any rate, do yourself a favor and try not to drown yourself in bad news. Hell, just keep the tv and radio off. Netflix. Work. Play with the pets. Facetime friends. Just stay positive, wash your hands, and realize that this will one day end.
Also, stop calling my lifestyle “quarantine.”
I had a panic attack today for the first time in forever, and it was because, unsurprisingly, I had convinced myself briefly that I somehow had contracted the virus and spread it accidentally to everyone I had interacted with the past few days. In all likelihood I do not have the virus, just a continuation of the cold I have had for two days, but I worked myself into a lather. I used to have these quit frequently before I quit drinking, now I think I have had one in the past six years. Longtime readers will remember about a decade or more ago when I was diagnosed with a GAA, but only after having every test run to man because I thought I was having a heart attack and then convinced myself, with the help of WebMD, that I had MS because my hands and feet were going numb- all of the above are symptoms of anxiety attacks.
At any rate, it’s no surprised I am having a panic attack, and it would not surprise me if a lot of you are as well. This is an anxious time, our President is a malignant nincompoop, a lot of people are going to die, and shit is just crazy. On top of all that, I am at a point in my life where it feels like literally everyone around me needs something. Other than Tammy, it seems like everyone I know or interact with is having a problem or needs something done or needs me to do something. I legitimately can not go an hour without an email or a phone call or knock on the door about something that needs to be done. You have to do this because we can’t do it, we need you to do this because x is happening, so and so is pissed and you need to do this. On top of everything else, it just overwhelming. Can’t everyone just fuck off and deal with their own fucking problems, and beyond that, stop turning everyday issues into life altering disasters. Get a fucking grip.
For my mental health, I am just locking shit down. I have to make a god damned trip to South Carolina on Friday to load up stuff from my parent’s winter place, and I am going to get in the car with food already prepared, stop at gas stations for gas and pull over and piss on the side of the highway, get there, load up the car and go to bed, and then drive back the same way the next day. Other than that, I am done. I’m not leaving the house, I am not interacting with people. You need me, email me or call me, or leave a note on the front door. I don’t need to leave the house, so I am not. I’m not going to be responsible for killing someone.
I am stressed out and going caveman.
High Anxiety- Time to Just Lock This Shit DownPost + Comments (256)
I have a mouse, apparently, which means if you have a mouse you actually have mice. I should back up.
A couple weeks ago, I found two dead mice in the basement. I picked them up, threw them in the trash, yelled out “Solid work mate” to Steve, and went about my business. Today, I was cleaning up the kitchen, and I threw a bunch of leftover duck sauce and soy sauce packets from yesterday’s Chinese into the drawer where I keep that kind of shit. You know the kind of drawer I am talking about, because everyone has one. It has condiments and seasonings and unused disposable chopsticks and a couple random bandaids and some batteries (probably all dead) and that kind of shit. You never actually use anything in that drawer- you just put things in it that you are not ready to throw out YET, and then once a year you open it and say “MY GOD THIS IS A DISASTER” and throw everything out.
At any rate, I opened that drawer, and I saw shredded seasoning packets and mouse poop and all sorts of mess. So here is where my headspace is.
I don’t like to kill things. I definitely do not like to kill things with poison. And while I know that you definitely do not want mice in your house, at the same time, I have seen too many tv shows and cartoons and have anthropomorphized the little bastards to the point that I kind of like knowing that there is a mouse family in the house, much like I enjoy having birds nest on my front porch and the rabbit warren underneath the shed and the deer that visit the abandoned lot next door because I throw apples and stuff there.
So I think what I am going to do is just thoroughly scrub and sterilize all the drawers and cabinets and throw out anything that attracts the mice, make sure all dried goods are in impenetrable containers, and see if we can come up with an amicable living arrangement. They’re on their own with Steve, but I am willing to try out this non-aggression pact.