Birds in my Yard

Since we've moved, I've been able to lure a few birds to my yard. A large evergreen tree hangs over the shed in the back yard. It is there that the cardinals come to rest. I don't see them often, but they are so pretty and when I do catch a glimpse of them, I'm delighted.

We have a pair of mourning doves that we put seed out for. Sometimes they come alone and sometimes they bring their friends with them. The most I've counted at one time were eight. I do like having them around.
We also get the odd blue jay. I love to hear these birds squawking and protesting. They will actually fight over the bird seed. They don't come as often as I like, but we do seem them a few times a week.
Birds bring color, song and beauty into the yard. I'm thankful for my feathered friends. I wish they would spend more time here. I'm hoping that this summer song birds will visit. I have to do more research to find out how to draw them. That's my winter project for this year.

Cole is Growing

The grandsons' dog, Cole, is really growing. He is only three months old but is over 30 lbs.

Here he is relaxing. He plays hard and sleeps deep.
He's such a cutie. I love him to death. Whenever I go in the house he runs to greet me, ears flopping and tail wagging.
Chillin'. Why can't humans learn to relax as well as animals?
He loves to go outside as long as it's not windy. Michelle takes him for a couple of walks a day to help keep his energy level under control.
Mmm! Not sure what he is up to, but he does get into mischief once in a while. For his age, he is very good. He is almost fully house trained. He does have an accident now and then. He came to Mom's for Christmas dinner with the family yesterday and no problem at all. He was playing with the four little boys and I thought he would at least do an excitement pee, but no way.

He's very intelligent and catches onto things very quickly. When they picked Cole, they chose a Keeper.

Must Have Been My Guardian Angel

Wow! Accident free for 25 years and it's gone down the drain. On Tuesday evening the weather was really bad. We were driving up the street and I hit some black ice. My anti-lock brakes wouldn't release and therefore I went into a skid and couldn't bring the van out of it. We were headed straight for a large utility pole. All I could think was oh, S----!

We hit the pole and I was immediately out of my seat belt and out of the van. It has a lot of damage to the front end, but thank goodness the air bag sensor wasn't hit, so they didn't deploy. I've heard of some pretty serious injuries from air bags.

Hubby didn't get out of the van immediately, so I went back to see if he was okay. He was short of breath and had pain in his left chest area. After the police had investigated, I took him to the hospital but there was an eight hour waiting time, so he made the decision to come home. Wednesday I took him to the doctor, who sent him for x-rays. He has a cracked fifth rib and is in a lot of pain.

I ended up with a lot of aches and pains in neck, shoulders, hands and my back was injured this time. I haven't seen a doctor yet but will the first of the week.

Seems odd that after 25 years, I have two accidents in one month. What are the odds of that ever happening?

Just glad we are walking. It could have been so much worse. There's a silver lining in every cloud if we just look for it. Grandma taught me that lesson well. The van is in the shop with $3100 dollars damage. However, vehicles can be replaced...people can't. We've been truly blessed this month. My guardian angel has been working overtime.

Boxing Day Post

Well, Christmas is over for another year and this year it was a great day. We went to a friends and spent the day, then picked the boys up and they came and stayed overnight. This morning everyone slept in and then I took the boys shopping to spend their Christmas money.

This afternoon, we played Clue. Brandon couldn't get over the fact that my Clue game was purchased in 1972 for his mother. The graphics on the board are so much different than on the one they have. He said, "This game is REALLY old. I can't believe that it's in such great shape." We were minus the candlestick but the boys improvised with a DS game.

Around 3pm, we took them home and stayed to open gifts and have a bite to eat. I took chicken breast, Black Forest ham, cheese buns and kaisers. They provided cheese, crackers and all sorts of home baked goodies. It was great.

Everyone did very well. We were abundantly blessed this Christmas, not only with gifts, but the love, laughter and company of family and good friends. We hope your Christmas was as great as ours was.