Can This Be True?

Some of you may remember Brandon as a little boy. Well, he has grown into a fine young man. He graduated in June 2013 and then took a Victory Lap year in Horticulture. 

Last summer, he got a job at a local grocery garden center. He got laid off in August, but they told him to reapply in March. Between times, he worked for Toys R Us for Christmas and got laid off December 29th.

This year he started at the garden center in April and is enjoying it. On May 27th, last Wednesday, he turned 20. We are having a BBQ for him this afternoon.

Can this be true! It seems like yesterday I was standing in the delivery room and for the next 3 months, walking the floor with a baby that had a bad case of Colic. Now he is 20. Seems impossible. 

Watching the Birds

All winter, we had many birds come to the feeders. We had a large, platform feeder and two small suet feeders. One suet feeder is specifically for woodpeckers and we had a variety of those visit, including hairy, red headed, nuthatches and downy. I love to watch them. One of the males was so used to my husband that he would just keep eating when he went into the yard. If I stepped out the door, he would fly into the tree and when I backed the car out of the driveway, he would return to his meal.

Other species that visited the feeders were male and female northern cardinals, red polls, black eyed juncos, sparrows, chickadees and a few species that I had to look up. The only one I detested was European starlings. They are dirty, loud, aggressive and they chase the other birds away. 

One kind of bird I would love to see in my yard is the Eastern bluebird, shown above. I've never hit the right formula to lure them, but I keep trying. One day maybe I will find out exactly how to get them to come. I'd like a bluebird nesting box. We had other birds coming for the combed out dog fur that Dakota sheds in the spring. It makes excellent nesting material. 

I want to get a niger feeder. They bring orioles and gold finches. I get a lot of pleasure watching the birds and since I don't go out much in winter or when it's really humid, it is a type of entertainment that can't be beat. 

Not much news here. I have been down and out with allergies this week. Since everything is blooming at once and coming to life, this year is worse than any recent year. I've never had them this bad before in my life and wish they would just go away. 

Got a hair cut today for summer and cut off my nearly shoulder length hair. First hair cut since just before Christmas. Feels better, for sure. 

We have a mama coon living in our attic and have to figure out how to lure her and the babies out so we can fix the vents. She's broken both roof vents in order to set up residence. In case you don't know coon feces can be deadly, so she needs to go. I phoned the landlord and he wants me to trap them. Huh? It's his house, not mine, so we are not agreeing on this at all. He says that I live here, not him and I say it's your house, not mine. However, I don't plan to share my living space with raccoons, 

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers. I wish you much happiness today.

Thought I'd update you a little on Mom. She has done fairly well since her ankle healed up last year, but in the last week, I've seen her fail quite a bit. I was shocked when I saw her today. I just saw her on Tuesday and she seemed to look good and was doing okay. Today, her face was drawn and she looked like a really old lady. Well, she is 87 and will be 88 in September, but she looked worse today than some people do at 100. I think she may have taken another mini stroke. She is really having a lot of trouble in certain areas, which I won't go into here. However, anyone who has been around Senior's will get the idea. 

I picked Brandon up today from work today and he really dislikes the new Assistant Manager. Apparently, she is spying on him and his co-worker and is reporting them to the Garden Center Manager on a daily basis. He's getting tired of it and so is his co-worker. She has only been there 3 weeks and is disliked by everyone. I told him to stick it out. If she is that disliked, she won't be there long, as the Manager won't put up with it. He prides his store on Customer Service and this new AM told Brandon to do work and ignore the customers unless they specifically ask for help? What kind of work ethic does this woman have? How did she get to be an AM with an attitude like that. Anyway, we will see how it goes, but I'm going to talk to his Employment Support Worker. Maybe she can contact the Manager and find out what gives. 

After I got home, hubby and I went out to buy a fan to replace the one that quite last year in late August. It was 101F in our upstairs earlier this evening and that is with a window AC. 

That is all the news for today except I took Mom flowers for Mother's Day and Brandon got me some as well. Pretty Gerba Daisies. 

It's been over a year since I posted here and it's time to update everyone.

Brandon worked in a garden center last year and then Toys R Us at Christmas. He loves the garden center but didn't care for Toys R Us. He got laid off at the end of December and they were very happy with his work performance, so he could go back this September. I don't think he will if he can find something else.

He got an excellent reference from the garden center and the manager told him to come back this March and let him know if he'd like to work for them again. He did and started on the 12th of April. He loves it.

Jordan is in his last year of high school, which is hard to believe. It seems like yesterday that the boys were starting school. He's doing much better this year but now there is a danger the secondary school teachers will walk off the job in a strike action and he will lose his year. That is maddening, as the kids get out in just a little over a month. They will have to either go to summer school to make up the time or repeat their semester in the fall.

As for hubby and I, we are doing okay. We are both home and sometimes that makes for seeing too much of each other. I work on my Etsy shop but he needs a hobby.

Well, I'll keep it short and sweet. Nothing else much going on around here.

I miss blogging and miss many of my friends here. I hope to get back soon.