Mob

I was under the illusion that these were MY berries. uh, uh....

Had one in the honey locust this morning. They were after something out there; what an uproar.


Every robin in the neighborhood was in on it, a dozen plus starlings, even a Baltimore oriole. Whatever it was was high up in the tree, where the heavy coating of leaves hid it from my sight no matter where I stood.


Saw a small, fast hawk from the kitchen sink a couple of days ago, probably a Cooper's. Wonder if he or she was perched up there somewhere.

I did spot this nest during my locust perusal. 

Right over my head all spring and I never saw it til today.

As high summer arrives in full force, the dawn chorus is dying down. a few minutes on the porch this morning yielded lots of catbirds, which are beating me to the black caps, cedar waxwings, the usual warblers and robins, but not much else. I thought that the berries weren't getting ripe, but instead the catbirds are eating them all.


I didn't know it, but they hover to pluck them. Quite a sight, but I am getting aggravated with them. I haven't had a singe berry and they are going fast!


Alan bought me a new hummingbird feeder yesterday and we were taking bets on how long it would take them to use it. He bet ten minutes. I just waited.


The verdict was about ten seconds, as long as it took me to hang it and turn around to sit down. They really seem to like it. He also got me a hose long enough to water the injured cow (sweet indeed-I didn't realize how much I was dreading hauling all those buckets of water until I didn't have to any more.) He bought me a smart phone too, but it doing to take a while before dumb woman figures it out. Took me about ten rings to figure out how to answer it last night when he called me.


Dalkeith had a nice heifer calf Saturday. It was weird. Normally it is pretty easy to see when a cow has calved or is calving. With her, there was just a little mucous, not much to see at all. She was all shiny and vigorous and had no calf with her, so we were really puzzled and checked her in various ways to see if it was out or in. 


Liz went up in the field and looked for ages and finally found where she had left this big, strong, wild as a hawk, black baby. Fun and games indeed getting that one to the barn, but with all the wild things around we didn't dare leave it out.


Anyhow, so far they are both doing fine, although Dally girl is really hawky and wild this year, after being very gentle and tame last year. I will be glad when she settles down. She stands in a tie stall to be milked, rather than a stanchion, so she has tons of room to move around. She also stands right by the door and her antics are disrupting the other cows when they are going outside.


Hope you had a great weekend. Ours was normal for a farm, full of joy and tragedy, love and disaster, worry and warmth, and never, ever dull.