Nine hundred and ninety-three

993 is the number of posts I have put up. This makes 994. And I think it will be the last.

I got nuthin!

However, before I go, Thanks for reading!!!!!

I leave you with this:


My latest knit:

Cowboys and Angels by Isabell Kraemer

Photo from Isabell Kraemer 

It's knit from Malabrigo Rios yarn (color Frank Ochre) and I love knitting with it so much that I just ordered more to make another. The pattern is just slightly more difficult than easy, so it doesn't get boring.

AND---we have a bird maternity ward on a window ledge at our house. 

There is a fourth hatchling, but it's hiding.

The nest is on a ledge between a window and what had been the screen.  We don't have these blinds open often, so it wasn't until Molly kept sitting staring at the window that we looked and saw that birds had ripped out the screen all the way across the window and up to about 4 inches. Then came the nest. Then one blue egg. Then that egg disappeared, which was a mystery because the window is three stories up.  

Then four blue eggs and one speckled tan egg appeared.

Aha!  

$%^&*Cowbird!!!  Apparently the cowbird had checked out the nest and decided it was for HER egg. 

Cowbirds, parasites sort of, adapted to following buffalo across the plains in order to eat the insects the buffalo kicked up from the ground by laying eggs in other birds' nests; they couldn't stick around long enough to hatch their own. These eggs hatch sooner than most birds' eggs do, and so the nest-building parents, who apparently can't tell one egg from another, take care of the cowbird egg and hatchling as one of their own. The cowbird hatches first, grows faster, and probably gets most of the nutrition.

It is illegal to toss out the cowbird egg, and my husband read somewhere on the interwebs that tossing out the egg annoys the cowbird who laid it, and about 50% of the time, she comes back and destroys the remaining eggs. I have no idea if it's true, but I didn't want to risk it. 

So our cowbird was the first to hatch, the first to open his mouth to squawk for food, and the first to spread his wings and open his eyes. As the hatchlings get bigger, they take up more and more space, and I have no idea how the nest hasn't fallen out of the window.  

We'll enjoy watching the birds grow, and then fledge...

And then get the screen repaired.