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Our Daily Thread 3-10-16

Good Morning!

We have Kingfishers everywhere at our local park. Their call is very distinct, and loud. It appears that several males have staked out territories and are looking for mates. They will loudly chase out anyone who violates their airspace. The pics are of at least 3 different birds although I could see up to 5 at one point. They put on quite an aerial display but it’s nearly impossible to get a decent shot due to their speed and abrupt maneuvers. In the first shot I was pacing it so the background is blurred. The second was another bird, shot as it flew quickly overhead. The two at the bottom gave me better shots. 

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3-9-16 136

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Anyone have a QoD?

 

36 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-10-16”

  5. Last Sunday afternoon Mr. P raised the bird feeder higher in the back yard. A cardinal has been scoping it out, but has yet to do anything–that we’ve seen. I did see that a tree rat (squirrel) has discovered it.
    I have many last minute things to get done in preparation for Big Sister’s arrival next Tuesday.
    I haven’t heard anything on the job front. I am torn about what to do. Working for Guy gives me a certain level of freedom that if I take a regular 40 hour a week job I won’t have. Having to be in one location with no ability to walk outside, drink a cup of coffee, etc makes me feel claustrophobic and I can’t catch my breath. Perhaps subconsciously I have thrown the last two interviews????

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  6. Kim, I loved retail. And that was when I had no people skills and no friends. I’d imagine it would be even more fun for me today–and I can see you really thriving in it.

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  7. AJ, lovely shots. You notice it was a female who zoomed by overhead? (Remember the belted kingfisher is a very rare species in that the female has more color than the male, an extra band of it.) I’ve had few chances to see kingfishers, only one chance to get good photos, and never the merest hint of a chance at one in flight. (I did once see one zipping back and forth across a stream that I might have gotten if I’d had my current camera then, but with the older one I had no chance–too slow and not enough zoom.) I’ve never even seen more than one in the same place! They’re so beautiful, especially in flight. Thank you!

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  8. Good morning from Atlanta.

    I opened up the windows so the new bedding can air. I have been afraid to open windows with Miss Bosley in the house. She is fascinated by having only a screen between her and the Great Outdoors and BIRDS!!!

    Chick-fil-A has fish sandwiches for Lent. I got those and lemonade for our dinner last night. I tried their new super food salad replacement for their coleslaw. I like it myself, but it will be a no can do for Art. I also bought half a peach pie and had slices warmed with vanilla bean ice cream. It was a simple meal but different from the usual. Art said he was sorry that as long as he is working during tax season that we can’t really do much for our anniversary. I said it’s okay because my parents never did anything so that’s our family tradition. So many expectations come out of birth family traditions.

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  9. Good Morning….oh how I hope I am blessed to see a cardinal when I visit Ohio in May….! Wonder why they don’t venture to CO? They must need oxygen 🙂
    Retail can be fun, interacting with so many customers….but it can definitely be a challenge…you must resist slugging some customers!! 😛 (although Kim, I suspect you must have the same self control when dealing with Guy!)

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  12. Many years ago when Snowbirds first discovered our area I worked for a small, family owned department store downtown. They were especially rude that year or perhaps I wasn’t attuned to their mid-western personalities. One did tell me that without them coming to visit our area would dry up and disappear–it was their money keeping us going.
    Anyway, I have worn contacts since I was 16 and colored lenses were popular so I had beautiful green eyes (see I can say that because it was the contacts, not my vanity). People exclaimed how beautiful my eyes were. I smiled and thanked them. The especially forward ones would ask if my eyes were really that color or if it was contacts. I smiled and LIED! “Oh, yes ma’am. I have an uncle with the same color eyes on he has blonde hair”. Finally I had enough and decided they next person to compliment my eyes and ask if they were real or contacts I was going to compliment her teeth and ask if they were real or dentures….can you guess where this is going????
    It didn’t take long. A really nice lady complimented my eyes, asked if they were real or if I wore colored contacts. I had to do it. I smiled and complimented her teeth and asked if they were really hers or dentures. She LAUGHED!!!! She said they were dentures! I laughed and told her they were contacts. We had a grand time. Soon after I went back to clear contact lenses and have stayed there ever since.

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  14. Interesting about the Kingfishers. If they’re looking for me, I’m not available.

    In other news, I made my decision and then my husband found the ant nest. I went to bed before he eradicated it, but I believe he is a hero once again–and it didn’t even require a torpedo!

    Some of us might think the end of the ants is an end to the miserable spiritual warfare I’ve been in over these choices. Choice made–a hard one and not the one I expected–and the ants disappear.

    I’ll take it.

    🙂

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  15. Raining, raining, raining! So much rain expected, they’ve been releasing water from the reservoir/lake for the first time in four years.

    They anticipate flooding this weekend, for which I am sorry.

    I don’t have to go anywhere until choir tonight and so I’m hunkering down in Egypt 1916 for the day. With any luck, I may make it to 1917 . . . .

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  17. They did, Kim. You’re lookin’ good!

    Your retail story reminds me of one I had. First of all, my whole family was thin when we were young, to the point of regular comments from strangers. One of my brothers detested having people from church ask him how much he weighed, and he said he was tempted to reply, “Do you ask Mrs. J. [an obese woman in the church] how much she weighs?”

    Well, old people would come into the store where I worked, and they’d say, “You’re so tiny. How do you stay so skinny?” I’d grit my teeth and smile. (At 5’6″ I’m not “tiny,” and “skinny” has negative connotations for me. Try “slender” and you make it a compliment.) Then some of them would say, “How much do you weigh?” Though it was none of their business, they meant well and I’d tell them.

    One day a lady asked, and I said, “I haven’t weighed myself lately.” She persisted with, “Last time you weighed yourself, how much did you weigh?” I have kicked myself for 28 years that I didn’t answer, “105. And you?”

    (For the record, no one has called me “skinny” in years. It took me till past my 40th birthday, but I have gained weight and now can’t get away with eating anything and everything anymore.)

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  18. Now that I’m married with a family, I wouldn’t want to work 40 hours. But I’d happily work 20, even 30, with a set schedule and regular pay, if I could make as much per hour as I make freelance. Since I can’t do so without moving to an area with publishing houses, I put up with the vagaries of freelance. But I’d happily take a schedule of working three or four days a week and knowing that when I’m home, I’m off the clock.

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  19. Re cardinals: we didn’t have them in Phoenix, not usually. But my first ever sight of one, I must have been about eight, and a male cardinal was sitting on our back fence. Now, we didn’t have any bird books in the house yet, and I hadn’t taken any special interest in birds at that point. But a vivid red bird on our back fence was an amazing sight, and I asked Mom what it was. She said, “It’s a red cardinal.” Well, from that day, when I was finished with a class assignment at school and didn’t have a book to read, my paper often got a red bird with a black mask sketched on it with crayon.

    In Chicago I saw them occasionally, always with delight. (Chicago proper is very poor in birdlife, mainly just the “city birds”: pigeons, sparrows, and starlings. At migration time we might see warblers–mostly dead ones–and flickers, and we’d see robins in the spring and summer, and rarely a cardinal or a blue jay.) In Nashville I finally lived in a spot where I’d see a lot of cardinals. One winter I had a male flock that hung out in my yard often, up to six or eight males at a time, and I saw cardinal fledglings for the first time. Here I finally can see cardinals at their finest: bright red against the snow or against the blue green of an evergreen. And finally I’ve gotten what I wanted for years and years, but could never get: photos of cardinals. (In the days of film cameras, so many times I would take a photo on a walk, thinking that this time the cardinal was close enough that it would at least be a decent shot, and I’d get the roll back and look at that photo to see what on earth I was trying to photograph, and finally I’d see the little speck of red. Oh well, next time. Now they come to the trees outside my window, and I’ve gotten quite a number of good shots of them.)

    They’re easily one of my favorite birds. Not my only favorite, but they’re probably in the top three.

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  21. Such cute birds. 🙂

    The sun is shining here, I think we *may* (or may not) get rain tomorrow. Sigh. We were so looking forward to a really rainy winter after so many years of drought. It was a let down, though I’m glad El Nino came through for our northern part of the state, it all helps.

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  22. We had a commercial broker’s get together last night. One of my agents is 28 and says that everyone keeps asking him when he is getting married. I told him the old story about the guy who had been poked so many times at weddings and told he was next that he started going to funerals and poking those same people telling they were next.

    It really is funny when it is told instead of written

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  23. I have discovered that I have Super Powers. I only came to this realization in the last 30 minutes.
    It seems that I, and I alone, am the ONLY one who knows when the dishwasher is full of clean dishes AND can unload them.
    Mr. P knows when they are clean but doesn’t unload them.
    BG doesn’t know when they are clean and will only unload them if told.

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  27. Lindsey is still home. Spring Break is next week and neurologist predicts she’ll be able to return to school the following week. She’s going to have so much make up work–not fun. No riding for the foreseeable future…

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  28. I mentioned a few weeks ago that just for fun I was making four photo books, one for each season of the year, with photos of mammals, birds, insects, plants, etc. taken in that season. I haven’t ordered them yet, and may continue to edit them just a bit more. Most of them are about 40 pages (“summer” is closer to 60), but if anyone who has my e-mail address would like to see them, e-mail me and I’ll send you the links. Other than on the back cover, there is no text, just photos.

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  32. I remember the Smalley name from years ago on Christian radio …

    For those who didn’t hear, Ben Carson is reportedly going to announce his endorsement of ….
    Donald Trump tomorrow morning.

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