Wednesday, April 28, 2010

New Life, New Messes

This Spring we were very excited to see that a Mama Hummingbird was building her nest in our carport. We checked daily to see if the little eggs had hatched. Every time we went outside the Mama bird would fly away so we have watched the nest through our living room side window. Finally it happened, we saw Mama feeding the baby birds. Slowly the birds have been getting bigger. If you look closely you can see two beaks sticking up out of the nest.

You are thinking "Awww, how cute!" right?! Wrong! What we didn't factor in and what most people fail to think about is that Mama bird doesn't leave the nest to take care of business, she just lifts her little hind end over the edge of the nest to make sure it doesn't land in nest. As the baby birds have gotten bigger, they have followed Mama's example very well. What does this mean? Well, my car is completely covered and I dive into every time I need to leave, afraid that I will be tagged getting in. If you look closely, all the white marks are from the birds. Oh the joys of new life.

Okay, I am embarrassed to admit that I drafted this post some time ago and thought I had posted it but I hadn't. A quick update on the birds, turns out hummingbirds have more than one clutch a year and she is currently sitting on new eggs and I anticipate that I will have a dirty car for the next couple of months.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Spring in the Desert

When we moved in our front yard was bare, except for a few desert plants. It has been pleasantly surprising to see the wildflowers flourish in our front yard. (Well, it was pleasant until we got a warning from the city that it is a fire hazard and we had to mow them down.)

I was able to go hiking with Erika and the boys a couple of weeks ago and it was crazy to see how green everything is. Granted, we have one of the highest rates of rain in decades so everything is growing like crazy. Haydn took his light saber and cleared the path for us. Thanks to him we didn't have any attacks from the enemy. :)