Storm's over and time for Coffee!!!

Even Dr. Ruth Westheimer recommends cucumbers - I guess she meant for salad, right?

Floppy cucumber huh? I think they have prescription 'fertilizers' for that.

Yes, but one must be careful. 'Un-floppiness' lasting more than four hours is an emergency.

Dr. Ruth recommended cucumbers?? But they have to be refrigerated... wait, my mind can't go there. Not here!

Covering ears and singing LALALALALA!


Grams - do you watch the Stargate/Stargate Atlantis series?

Ok, I'm officially sad that the weekend is over. I switched from productive to social and then to complete lazy, lump of #$%^ in one whole weekend. It was perfect! We went out on my friends boat to the Airshow over Jones Beach which is on the south shore of Long Island. I'd never seen one before and I was very impressed. The Thunderbirds were the highlight of the show.

How come you guys can talk about floppy cucumbers all you want and I make one tiny little slightly pro-anti-war comment and I get zapped? Yeh yeh yeh. Yadda yadda yadda. (fingers in ears, singing loudly the way Anita taught me) "LA LA LA LA LA LA". I chop and slice real cucumbers; I like to munch on them before dinner.

XXXX, Carrie

Anita, love Stargate Atlantis

I've seen the Thunderbirds at the airshow at the Niagara Falls AFB air show here. I agree, very impressive. must be great to see it from the water.

had my aunt & uncle over yesterday. she's 86. played golf in the morning (she's disappointed with her game), then picked up a pizza and wings and came over here to see my rose garden and visit. my uncle-in-law is younger (late 70's). she married him at 65 when she retired (first marriage for her). he had a hip replacement this winter and was up & down my basement stairs 5 times changing her winter clothes for her summer ones (she doesn't have enough closet space at home). I'm lucky if I do the stairs once to read my water meter. talk about impressive...wish I had inherited those genes. and they're fun, too.

I guess munching on cucumbers was what Dr. Ruth meant :-)

Look who I found in the bushes - momma had been sitting on this dilapidated nest that was falling apart and I couldn't figure out why. The nest finally fell apart. I hope the little one is ok, but I won't go anywhere near it. I'll leave it momma and Mother Nature.

Beautiful! What a nice springtime scene.

How sweet. Is it a mourning dove? I went to check on our baby robins yesterday and the nest is empty. they must have fledged and I missed it.

We have a finch nest on the front porch with babies. I don't dare take pics-the parents are so upset by me! This happens every year in the same nest. They don't get the name 'birdbrains' from nowhere.

LOL, boojum. Yes, gram, all of a sudden there are MORE robins bob-bob-bobbin' along. They don't nest in public around here. Too many trucks, lawn mowers, post hole diggers, other urban noises. I'm glad birds even chirp around here!

xxx, Carrie

I have a back deck where I let the dogs go out. There is a fenced in area for them and all I have to do is open the door. We have a grill, deck flower box's, chairs, ect... Yesterday my oldest dog Tia kept going to one certain spot on the deck and scratching. Finally I had to take a look as she was driving me crazy w/her whining and scratching. This is what i saw......

On closer inspection.... here it is so you can really see.




I am trying not to let the dogs out that way for a while.

This message was edited May 30, 2007 5:29 PM

Wow, pixie, how gorgeous, how beautiful!

x, C

do you know what kind of bird laid those eggs?

It's a Robin, he/she sits on the fence and watch's me the whole time i'm out there watering the plants. It just started raining so I won't have to go out tonight or tomorrow now. I'm sure Mr. & Mrs. Robin will be pleased.

Best wishes to Mr. and Mrs. Robin. :-)

Are we back to Batman again??!!

Victor!

x, C

Carrie, could you imagine living with Victor? My sides would be aching from laughing so much lol

I lived with a "victor", we called him Dad.

Thanks Seandor. My wife just ignores whatever I say. Celeste, I had no idea you were my daughter. Describe your mom.

Which wife?

The one @ home.

Where's the other one? Or is wife #2 imaginary?

Victor....have you ever asked your kids this question:
"Are you sure your lying?" Imagine being 8 and trying to answer that one.

My grandfather would always ask us 'Do you believe a lie?', after saying something that puzzled us.

Seandor, I can't comment on the others. Same alarm...

lol

Seandor, I can imagine living with a "Victor". I have one of my own. He's very funny, but sometimes all he can muster is a couple of groans from us. Those are the days I turn on my 'ignore' button. Sound like someone you know, Victor?

I'm starting to take offense at the implication there are others like me. Seems everyone has a 'Victor'. I feel like a commodity. I feel so ordinary, mundane - my sense of self-worth severely depressed. Excuse me while I contact my therapist. It's the ghost of Steve Allen.

Victors are very rare where come from. Not common or ordinary at all.

Thanks - I see a ray of hope at the end of this long tunnel of depression and self-doubt I find myself in.

Good! :-)

Does anyone know why a Robin's egg is blue? I googled it and found out the following;
Excellent question! When I was working with an ornithologist in Puerto Rico in 1987, he asked me why are robins eggs blue? I gave him a bunch of answers that I could possibly think of, but none were correct, according to him. But he never told me the answer! Since then it has bugged me, so I've tried to find out. The general consensus is that white eggs are the primative color, and colored eggs became favored by natural selection under certain conditions. Birds that lay white eggs tend to have nests that are hidden from view. Cavity nesters like woodpeckers, swifts, petrels, parrots, and kingfishers have white eggs. But some other cavity nesters lay colored eggs, like bluebirds, nuthatches, chickadees, wrens, and crested flycatchers. These birds also add nesting material to the bottom of the cavity, suggesting that their cavity nesting has developed more recently (secondary cavity nesters). Ground nesting birds that lay white eggs will cover them when they leave the nest untended. Hummingbirds lay white eggs in an open nest, but begin incubating after the first egg is laid. The vast majority of birds lay colored eggs and there is a strong tendency for closely related birds to lay similarly colored eggs. Robins, bluebirds, veery, wood thrush, and other thrushes all lay blue eggs. But there is a wide spectrum of egg colors porduced by birds, including brick red by Cetti's warbler in Europe. The pigments (porphyrins) that give bird eggs color and patterns are produced by the breakdown of hemoglobin from ruptured red blood cells, and transformed into bile pigments and carried to the uterus to be deposited in the developing shell during the last 5 hours before the egg is laid. The pigmentation was developed to hide the white eggs from predators. To a color-blind mammalian predator, blue or green or brown eggs blend in with the nest better than white eggs when the nest is unattended. These birds wait until all the eggs are laid to start incubating. That explains why they are colored, but not why they are blue, instead of blotched brown like other songbirds. There is also some speculation that egg pigmentation provides some protection from solar radiation. So why a thrush's egg is blue, a catbird's is green, a mockingbird's is blotched brown, and a brown thrasher's egg is white, is a question that has not adequately been answered. Genetics does play a role. Cowbird parasitism does not. Wood thrushes are commonly parasitized by cowbirds which lay brown mottled eggs and the thrush raises them as if it were its own. So for now, it remains a philosophical question, which is probably why the ornithologist asked me that way back when. Your question was easier, in that the pigmentation from the breakdown of hemoglobin gives robin's eggs their blue color. But why it is blue is still a mystery to me.

Anita, that was fascinating and disappointing all in one. I hoped I'd find the whole answer. I enjoyed reading it though!

Victor, you're making me feel bad! You're special. I promise.

Harper

Victor, I have never met, nor do I ever expect to meet, anyone as Victor-like as you. Calm thyself.

I agree, Harper, if mammals can't tell blue from green, that explains why they can be blue, but why blue and not pink or orange? And why aren't baby birds all like marshmallow peeps?

xxx, Carrie

This message was edited May 31, 2007 10:46 AM

They're not? Man, I am sooo disappointed . . .

I'd have eaten them all if they were.