Attacked from Above!

The young redtail is still hanging around in the oak tree in the front yard.

It's not like it hides, it couldn't be discreet, anyway, because all the other birds squawk and dive bomb it. This is a juvenile redtail. As dorky as it is, I don't think it's the one that's been snatching my pigeons, but I wasn't going to let them out so it could practice.

It stayed in the tree for a while, then landed on top of the horse shed.

It stayed right there when I walked outside with my camera and took a long time trying to focus on it. Obviously I failed, even though the bird posed quite nicely. When it left the roof, it landed in the horse pasture.

It poked around the in the weeds for a while, like it expected there was supposed to be a gopher there, just waiting to be eaten. Maybe there was, but the hawk never it. Then it flew up onto a fence post to get a better view, I guess.

It doesn't really have an evil red eye, that's your imagination. The bird did not care that I was only 12 feet away. It sat on the post for a long time. Even so, I never got a decent picture of it because of the backlight.

Finally John came walking into the scene, totally oblivious to the hawk. He got pretty close before it flew away (and he still didn't see it, nor did he see me with my camera).

The hawk landed a little further out in the pasture and went back to poking around in the weeds.

I was looking through the viewfinder on the camera, trying to get a lovely close-up. Neither the hawk nor I noticed the silent threat from above.

Suddenly a parent hawk came barreling in and knocked the young one over. You could almost hear it say, "...and THAT'S how it's done, you moron!" before it took off and left junior wondering what hit him.

It could be fun having a hawk family around here, if the pigeons weren't going stir crazy.

Beware

This picture of my fat little 6 year old face pretty much summarizes how I feel today. Yes, I seem like a totally obedient child, but push me the wrong way and you WILL suffer.

I didn't realize I was always that way. I'd been thinking it was just a recent condition. In reality I've just perfected the technique. Now I understand Mona Lisa.

Moving Katherine

My friend Katherine has moved from Wilton, which is 10 minutes from my house. Now she's about 2-1/2 hours away, further north in California. I'm not much help at moving, but I volunteered. I drove the peafowl. It was a warmish day, but the 3 of them were quite comfortable in their carriers in my RAV4. We listened to ABBA, of course. They liked it.

I got to the ranch first and managed to get this picture of Katherine driving in. Following her was her friend Wendy with a huge truck and trailer full of her belongings.

When I left, I took a slightly different route home so I could stop by my brother's house in Forest Ranch, near Chico. Jerry has been very busy with a landscaping project. He hauled in 20 pickup loads of dirt and built up his lawn area.

So now he has twice as much to mow. He cut into the side of the hill and made a stone fence, and used stones to hold the dirt he'd moved in for the lawn area. He also dug trenches and put in underground sprinklers and drip systems all around the house.

The place is absolutely gorgeous.

I stayed overnight, then left for home the next morning. One place on the road that was especially pretty right now is just north of Yuba City. The huge oleanders that line both sides of the highway are in full bloom. The road looks like a tunnel of flowers.

Oleanders used to be the primary landscape plant along California freeways, but most have been torn out over the years and replaced with a concrete barrier.

Nearer to Sacramento I saw 6 different crop dusters out spraying the rice fields. I wonder why they were working on Sunday?

The crop duster at home flies over my house at 5:30 a.m. These guys were flying at noon. Maybe ours works early to avoid work-bound traffic. Some of the drivers from Rancho Murieta are totally stupid about crop dusters, they call and complain as if they'd spotted a foreign enemy invading the homeland. If you live and farm in a rural area and someone gets the bright idea to put a housing development nearby, fight it with everything you have. There is absolutely no benefit to a farming community to have dorks driving through it.

So that's where I've been this week. I have also been to water aerobics and pilates. I built a temporary pen for my young birds. I have tried to stay away while Bob attempts to put up drywall on the back porch. If he doesn't try, he'll never learn (she says, gritting her teeth).

Everything that was left in the garage has been taken out and stacked in the carport so the garage could be rewired. Everything from the back porch has been stacked in the kitchen and dining room. And now the jobs are dragging along. Bob's drywall helper isn't available every day. The electrician is waiting for the electric company to come and inspect the job before anything can be put back into the garage. I'm already really tired of having stuff laying around everywhere. I can't find anything.

Oh well, at least the jobs have been started after years of being put off. I'll be happy when they're finished. I'll just keep repeating that to myself.

How Old?

How old was your boy when he stopped playing with Legos? Mine hasn't reached that age yet. I don't think he ever will.

Lizard's Last Bath

No, it didn't die. This was it's last warm bath before I turned it loose in the flower garden. I made a little house for it out of the pieces of bark it had been hiding under in the aquarium. It was there the next morning, and then it moved on. Hopefully it's doing well.

Fame

A couple of days after Sue's impromptu performance at the concert, she found a critique of it online. Near the end of the article she was shocked to see this:

The critic's email address was given, so Sue contacted her.

"Whitney, thanks so much for acknowledging my first ever on-stage appearance!! That was the craziest thing I have ever done in my life. It was pure adrenaline! I decided to move closer to the stage to see BJM up close. My boyfriend decided to stay where we had been lucky enough to find a table. Once I joined the rest of the front row folks, I got the proverbial "wild hair."


"...I found myself dancing across the stage at a rock-n-roll concert! It was a joyous experience! It was so fun to look at the audience, and the high-fives I received walking through the crowd afterward were fantastic!! Okay, so never underestimate a middle-aged woman with eyeglasses.


"...Finally, do you happen to have any pictures? I'd love to have one."

Whitney's reply:

"You're my hero! I will look to see if I have any pics, but my camera wasn't good and I couldn't get up close. I'm 34 and understand that feeling very well. I was in the pit at Sleigh Bells with my little brother and had to bail. I thought I was going to get crushed and die. You are quite brave. Don't ever stop going to shows and acting wild and showing these kids how it's done. We need you."

Indeed, we do. There isn't enough fun in the world.

Older But Still Good

I promised to tell you my friend's tale "tomorrow." That got stretched a bit, but here I am, finally, to finish the story.

This is about my friend Sue and her guy friend Bill. They're 50ish. Sue is a well-dressed, stylish, professional woman. Bill is a philosopher and a gardener. They both like music. Recently they went to the concert of a popular rock-type band.

The concert was held in a large auditorium. There were small tables and chairs along the wall for people who preferred to sit. Most of the audience was standing, however. Sue and Bill arrived a little late and found a table close to the back of the room.

The audience was a mix of the band's older and younger fans, and everyone was enjoying the concert. After the half-time break, Sue said she'd like to get closer to the stage to get a good look at the band. Bill preferred to stay at the table, so she worked her way through the throng by herself. She managed to get to the edge of the stage, which was about nose-height for her.

Sue was having a great time when a young lady on her left noticed her maturity and her interest in the band members and asked, "Are you the mom of one of the band members?"

Sue was appalled. She said nothing to the girl, but something inside her had snapped. She turned to a burly young man on her right and asked, "When they start playing the next song, will you boost me onto the stage?" The young man and a couple of his buddies thought that sounded like a fun idea, so they did just that.

In a flash, and despite the look of shock on the guitarist's face when he saw her coming up, Sue was on the stage. She shimmied, she bopped, she danced around and across the stage. The crowd cheered her on. She looked out across them, absorbed their energy, and danced like there was no tomorrow. Finally the security guys got to her and led her respectfully off the stage. She didn't care. She was jazzed. She was thankful she hadn't tripped on a power cord and fallen off the stage. It was a crazy moment of glory she'd never forget.

Bill sat at the table and watched all this. He saw Sue being escorted off the stage and then disappear. He thought she'd been tossed out, so he picked up the purse on the table and turned to leave. It wasn't Sue's purse. She was wearing her shoulder purse up on the stage, but he hadn't noticed. The purse's real owner saw Bill pick it up and start to walk off, and she screamed. Security guys got to him, picked him up, and pushed him against the wall.

It took a long time for Bill to explain what had actually happened, and for the security men to finally let him go. He kept hoping Sue would appear to back up his story. But Sue had gone directly from the stage to the restroom, where she was sitting in a stall, texting to her friends about the adventure.

The moral(s) of the story? Ladies, you're never too old to rock it. Guys, pay attention to the details.