I walked by a planter growing an Elephant Feed plant. Two quail wooshed out like jets taking off. I scared them away. This planter has been home to a nest before and there were a dozen quail eggs in it two years ago. I peeked in the planter and saw two eggs. Later in the day, I had to take another look and there were four quail eggs!
The main issue is to not make the parents uncomfortable. That means I must stay away as much as possible. But the location of the planter is an issue.
This planter is in front of the gate to our garbage and recycling bins. If you want to read more about me getting written up and pink-slipped over recycling, you can find that post HERE.
I stressed out momma and papa quail a few times because I had to take out trash and recycling. I noticed the egg count has stopped at four. I decided to move my recycling into the garage. With a steady flow of Amazon packages coming daily, I tend to recycle a lot! But I talked over the garbage bin with hubby and we decided to leave it where it is. It’s going to be hotter than 90 degrees this weekend and that could end up being a smelly problem to have inside our garage. With our HOA, it’s not like I can move the trash to a new location without getting a fine.
So here’s to me not needing to use the garbage bin more than a few times a week.
UPDATE: Now we have five eggs!
We’re hoping the eggs will turn into these guys:
I remember telling a good friend that I had a dozen quail eggs in a nest two years ago. She asked me when I was going to harvest and eat them!
Have a great weekend!
What plans do you have for this beautiful March weekend?
My mom’s birthday is in a few days and I really miss her. She passed away on New Year’s Day of 2023. This is the post I wrote about her and how it hurt to lose her:
My New Year started off with a phone call from my brother that our mom was found in her bed unresponsive. She lived in assisted living and I wasn’t able to visit her during COVID shutdowns. Thankfully, I visited her at the end of 2022.
Within two hours she passed away after being taken by ambulance to the hospital. This was totally unexpected. She tested positive for COVID five days earlier but was asymptomatic.
I’m going through shock, denial, disbelief and grief all at once.
I wrote this children’s story about her years ago. I sent it to children’s book publishers and actually got an offer from a small publisher. I turned down the offer because I didn’t think it was big enough! I’ve never had another offer in my life to have a book published.
Here’s the story:
A DIFFERENT KIND OF MOTHER
I have a different kind of mother. She’s not like other mothers on our street. She looks like other mothers. But it’s what she does that’s different.
She sings all the time. She sings songs by men named Wagner and Wolf. But she calls them “VAHgner” and “VOUlf.”
When my friends come over they ask “What is that?” We listen. “La la la la la la la la laaaa.”
I shrug my shoulders and say, “That’s my mom.”
My friends laugh. Their mothers never sing unless it’s to the radio.
My mom sings all the time. She sings operas while she drives, cooks, shops, gardens, reads and cleans. I think she sings in her dreams.
My mother never buys a loaf of bread. She bakes it every week and slices it with a big knife. Sometimes she lets me punch down the dough after it rises.
When I take my lunch to school, my sandwich sits crooked and looks like it’s ready to fall. My mother packs me carrot sticks, a hard boiled egg, an orange and an apple. There’s too much food and not one chip or pretzel like the other kids get. I like to order hot lunch.
My mother thinks hunting through the woods for mushrooms is fun. She took classes to learn about mushrooms so she knows which are good to eat and which ones are poisonous. I hate it when she asks my friends to go picking with her. But they love to go tramping through the dense green forest, climbing over fallen logs covered with moss. She points out the faerie rings where the mushrooms grow.
My mother grows vegetables in her garden, she won’t buy them at the store. But does she grow peas and carrots like the other mothers on our street? No. She’s proud of her eggplant, asparagus, spaghetti squash and rhubarb.
When my friends come over to play, my mother asks them to weed the garden.
“Nobody wants to weed. We want to play,” I tell her.
Then I turn around and the kids are lined up on both sides of her, pulling weeds as she tells them about the vitamins in vegetables.
My mother doesn’t read ordinary books by popular authors. She likes to read e.e. cummings with letters scattered over the page. I don’t know what the poems say. But my mother gathers up the letters and makes sense out of them.
Digging for clams up to her elbows in mud is how my mother catches dinner. She knows about razor clams that we dig in the surf and butter clams, littlenecks and cockles we find in the gritty gravel. She calls the ones we break with our shovels “clums.”
She picks oysters off the beach, shucks the top shell off and eats them raw right then and there. She eats the roe out of sea urchins and says, “It tastes like caviar!”
She’s the friendliest person on the street. She bakes wild blackberry pies for elderly neighbors and talks tomatoes with anyone who will listen.
She invites the neighborhood kids in, even if I don’t want her to. She doesn’t care when kids build a fort in our backyard or makes tents in the living room with old sheets. She lets us draw chalk pictures on the driveway and dig for China in the backyard.
At night when she tucks me in, I listen to her sing a lullaby with her beautiful voice.
When she kisses me good night, I love that my mother is a different kind of mother.
I did it! I got our taxes ready for the CPA. I realized because of my foot surgery late January, I was behind my usual timeframe. I also had a hard time focusing. But powering through Friday, Saturday and Sunday — I did it! But now my brain feels like a bowl of mush.
Consequently, there will few words on this post. I’ll rely instead on photos of mostly Red and one of Mrs.
I like the photo above because of the flower. It looks like Red is wearing a fancy head ornament. I’ve had a few close encounters with Red. I call out to him and he doesn’t flit away like normal. I’ve been a few feet away from him as he waits for me to fill the bird feeder.
Red with a House Sparrow.
Red waiting for his turn in the feeder.
Mrs. on the fence.
More Red photos. He hung out last evening right outside the casita.
My goal for 2026 is to be better organized with the taxes. It’s something I could do monthly, to keep track of my husband’s business and rental home expenses, rather than power through 12 months the following year! But I’m already starting out behind the curve, two and half months behind.
Do you have a strategy for preparing taxes that works for you?
I was sitting at my little table in the casita working on taxes when I glanced out the window and saw a javelina starting at me!
Then I spotted Red at the Bird Buddy.
He spotted me taking his photo. Woosh! Off he goes.
Here’s a video of the Javalina outside the fence. If you’re wondering about the birdseed on the ground, check out the next video.
A Curve-Billed Thrasher is emptying the bird feeder at a rapid speed. The quail gather below to enjoy. I wonder what Mr. Thrasher is doing? Is he rifling through the bird seed looking for grubs or bugs? He does this every time and the feeder is emptied within minutes!
Is it any wonder my taxes are not done while living in the Wild Kingdom?
Red seems to be around every day. But the only time he sits still for a photo is when he’s at the Bird Buddy feeder! Otherwise, when I try to get his portrait, he flies away so quickly that I’m left with an empty photo.
This House Sparrow knows how to strike a pose!
Papa Quail keeps watch on his brood. It’s almost baby quail season!
A squirrel likes it when I put out a block of birdseed. They aren’t able to access the bird feeders.
Have you noticed the moon this week? I took photos of it over several days. March 3 was the day it was full.
This was taken on March 1.
A friend of mine texted me from Dubai yesterday. She and her husband were traveling for a safari in Nairobi and had a brief layover there. Which turned into four days! I told her to please let me know what they return safely to the United States! We had dinner with another couple over the weekend who were traveling to Israel this week. They have changed their itinerary and are going to Turkey instead. I think I’d rethink that trip, too.
Which photos do you like best?
Would you be comfortable traveling this week to the Middle East?
I will confess that February got by me without much reading. Each month I am posting my daughter-in-law’s AP English reading syllabus. I agreed to do the reading, but not the writing assignments. If you want to follow along, my first posts of each month have the syllabus. Each month the reading goes back in time from current days — to now Shakespeare.
I haven’t been able to focus probably thanks to surgery and recovery. Plus once I get done preparing taxes, I hope to do more reading.
So what is keeping me busy? Social events. Photography. Sitting in my backyard, watching birds while reading Amy Tan’s “Backyard Bird Chronicles.” Also, I downloaded the Merlin App and I am learning what bird’s songs and calls are what. The first bird identified was — you guessed it — a Northern Cardinal.
I’m fortunate with March’s reading list. I’ve read “Pride and Prejudice,” “Hamlet” and “The Tempest.” Whew! As far as watching “Clueless” I can do that. I had no idea it was based on Jane Austen’s “Emma.”
What plans do you have for March?
What have you read on this month’s reading syllabus?
Did you know that Clueless was based on Jane Austin? Or am I the clueless one?
I noticed a squirrel sitting on a rock across the pool in the morning sun. I like how the sunlight highlights his fur.
Count Your Blessings was how our weekly zoom call ended. Every Thursday, I have a zoom call with about a dozen other people where we discuss the world’s geopolitical problems, religion, local politics and news. We were on a dour note talking about how the world has changed from when we were young whippersnappers and how on earth our country is going to survive with 38 trillion dollars in debt.
Then one member of the group, who is a former history teacher and Jewish, said some insightful things, like there’s nothing new under the sun. If we think things are bad now, remember our country survived the Great Depression, World Wars and people of his faith faced the Holocaust.
He said to count our blessings. He said he looks forward to every Thursday morning to have an in depth discussion with a group of intelligent people who want to make a difference. He reminded us that none of us are homeless, we’re in good health, we have our families and our homes. He said in the Jewish faith they say blessings all day long. His favorite blessings are for bodily functions. He gives blessings that God has given him a miraculous body that still works!
I googled blessings because this was something new to me. I learned that people of Jewish faith aim to say 100 blessings a day.
We left the zoom call with positive feelings and gratitude for the important things in our lives.
A squirrel on a bench in our backyard.
I’m grateful for my family, my home and the wild creatures around me.
I spotted a Gila Woodpecker feeding somebody in the Saguaro Cactus nest.
He’s been going in and out the past few days. Maybe he’s preparing the nest, or there’s already babies in there.
I scared him away with my camera.
What are you grateful for today? What do you think of counting your blessings?
