Sunday night unwinding

I am recovering from another Sunday drive. The Hermit signed the boys up for a baseball clinic that meets for six Sunday afternoons...100 miles away from here in a suburb of Minneapolis. Furthermore, the boys need to provide their own catcher, and since The Hermit isn't quite up to squatting, kneeling, and everything else a catcher does, that would be me. They are receiving great instruction in the fundamentals of pitching. I am learning a lot too, and gaining a lot of respect for pitchers, and catchers. But when all is said and done, it eats up seven hours of a Sunday. Only two weeks left.

I want to thank everyone who contributed to I and the Bird 120, and everyone who came by to read it. It was fun putting the whole thing together, and I was able to reconnect with some old birding blogger friends and meet a few new ones.

I have my own budding young birder here. Mr. Attitude spotted three ruffed grouse in an aspen tree at twilight last night, and a short time later told me about a strange noise he heard in the woods. That noise just happened to be the saw-whet owl that's been calling for the last week! I showed him a picture of the owl in a bird book, then I presented him with a copy of a bird guide specifically written for kids. That book was a gift from a blogging friend, Cindy Mead, and unfortunately I don't have a link to her blog handy right now. Mr. Attitude sat right down and started reading. I would tell you of what he thought about the Roseate Spoonbill, but that is another post in itself, a post I hope to write this week!

Today on the way to baseball camp Mr. Attitude and I noticed several bald eagles and several red tailed hawks. We also saw a flock of crows mobbing a red tailed hawk.

I haven't had as much time for music as I would like, but in a rare moment when I had the house to myself I turned on the recorder and cranked out possibly the best version I have ever played on flute of an old favorite song. I will make it into a video so I can post it here.

Mud season is here. I can't complain about the weather, it's been sunny with highs in the 40's this last week, and it's expected to continue, but our driveway is becoming its annual mess. With a plan we have made, however, this will be the last year of impassable conditions on our driveway.

Our newest chickens have been stepping up egg production. It's nice to have three dozen fresh eggs in the fridge!

A week ago Saturday night, I was in the emergency room with Starflower as she got stitches above her right eyebrow. She and Mr. Attitude were messing around in Calvin's room, and next thing I knew she had hit her head. These things happen; now all three have had stitches and/or staples. Yesterday I took it upon myself to remove the stitches. It's not that difficult; convincing a kid that you know what you are doing (even when you don't) is the hardest part! That, and I could have used a pair of reading glasses. My eyes ain't what they used to be! But despite my visual shortcomings, everything turned out fine.

We now have a soprano saxophone player in the house. Calvin has played alto sax in the band for two and a half years, and out of the blue he started telling me he would like to try soprano sax. Cool! That has always been one of my favorite instruments. So I talked with the band director last week, and he just happened to have one available for Calvin to try out. He brought it home over the weekend, and I even got to have a little fun with it.

That's about all I can think of now. So many thoughts, so little time.