Enough about those dang birds

I'm worse than my sister and her dog when it comes to these stupid birds. I have more news on them but I am so sick of them that I just need to write about something else. I can't believe how many words I've wasted on them. It's been a bad animal day for me though--I may have killed 2 of the birds, I couldn't manage to kill this nasty spider in the apartment (so it's still in here somewhere, lurking under a radiator or something, ew) and we have a wasp trying to build a nest on our balcony. Mother nature is not my friend today.

My new job is going well, I'm incredibly busy but so far I really like it. (I'm a youth minister for those who don't know.) The people I work with are all really nice, and I've talked to some youth on the phone and planned some events for the summer, and now it's just a matter of making sure I have everything set up for those, mostly getting enough leaders and of course, having kids show up! There is at least a small group of youth at the church who are very excited to have a youth minister (they have been without one for a full year) and to get involved in youth group again, so I'm sure I'll at least have some people show up.

I'm really looking forward to 4th of July weekend. It's a 3-day weekend, and we get to go to the pool, and the weather is actually supposed to cooperate, which is somewhat amazing considering how bad the weather was in June. Not enough nice days yet this summer. But, this weekend is supposed to be great, and my family always goes to the pool on the 4th and we're really looking forward to it! It will be nice to actually enjoy the summer this weekend.

Speaking of enjoying summer, next weekend is the grand opening of the new Dairy Queen by our apartment, and they are going to have 1/2 price cakes (and other deals yet to be discovered). How awesome is that? Needless to say, Eric and I will be patronizing that establishment next weekend. Possibly more than once.

Stupid Cowbird

I found out today that the one spotted egg in my nest was a cowbird egg. Some lazy mama bird ditched her egg in my nest and is relying on this other bird with her 5 eggs to take care of it for her. Of course, it hatched first, is the biggest, and now will possibly cause the other hatchlings to die. Which of course might explain why there are only 4 or 5 birds instead of 6. I am seriously bummed out about this. I don't know if I should/am legally allowed to take out the bird (apparently it may be protected by some bird act) but I don't want it to force the other birds to die either. I will probably choose to let nature take its course. Even if I could remove the bird, I don't want to touch it in any way, and I feel bad getting rid of one bird even to let other birds live. I was reading a little bit about them and in some ways they are kindof cool (like how they are genetically programmed to be cowbirds, they don't learn how to be that specific kind of bird because they don't have anyone to teach it to them, yet they act distinctly as their own species despite being raised by other ones) but it's just sad that the other birds might die because of it. Like I said, I will probably just let nature take its course.

My Baby Birds

As promised, here is a picture of my baby birds--I'm fairly confident they are all hatched, and they are already much bigger than they were 2 days ago when I checked on them. And much more feathery! I can't tell exactly how many survived the hatching, but there were at least 4 distinguishable beaks/heads. The other 2 might have been in there somewhere, who knows?

They're Coming!

The baby birds have started to hatch! I took the plant down this morning to check on them and there was one baby bird in it. It looks so sad and honestly, after seeing an actual baby bird I'm not sure how they ever survive and grow up. I only saw 4 of the other 5 eggs though, so I don't know what happened to the 5th one. Perhaps baby bird number one was covering it up? I hope so--I hope mama bird isn't going to lose one of her babies! This is very exciting to me. Although now I'm really not sure how to water my plant. Very carefully I guess. I think if I accidentally water the baby birds they will probably die. When more of them hatch I will try to get a picture and post it so all my readers can see.

More on the Bird

I must have interrupted mama bird during her egg laying last week, because today I checked the nest and there are now 6 eggs, not just one. They seem kindof crowded in the nest too. I have no idea how 6 little birds are going to fit into that nest once the eggs hatch. Not my problem though. My problem is whether or not they can handle my watering once they hatch...I'll cross that bridge when I get there though.

Trouble with Comments

I don't know why, but blogger is not letting me comment as myself. Whenever I view my blog, it apparently signs me out, and when I try to sign back in to comment, it tries to post it as anonymous. So I haven't been responding to anyone's comments because I don't want to post anonymously. Anyone else who uses blogger have this problem/know how to fix it? It's minor, I know, but frustrating nonetheless.

Forget Me Not

I thought of a good post idea last night while in bed, and I really thought I'd remember it (I even wrote out most of it in my head) but of course, like many late night good ideas, when I woke up this morning I couldn't remember it. Maybe it will come to me later today. I used to keep a notebook by my bed in college and write down ideas for papers or sentences that I thought would sound particularly good in a paper, because I often did a lot of good thinking laying in bed at night trying to fall asleep, and more often than not I would forget it before I woke up. Maybe I should start keeping a notebook by my bed again. For these incredibly important blog posts.

Rockin' Robin (Tweet Tweet Tweet)

I may have mentioned my balcony garden on here before, and now I have a fun little story to share about it. We have 2 hanging plants, one a topsy turvy tomato plant, and the other a hanging strawberry plant. Normally I just bring out our step stool and water the hanging plants that way without having to take them down, even though it is still too short for me to see into the tops of the plants. I also turn the tomato plant while it is hanging, but once a week I have to take down the strawberry plant and turn it around (so it gets better all-around sun exposure) and today is the day I planned to do it. I take out my watering can to go do my gardening, and water my tomato plant, grab the strawberry plant and put it down on the ground. As I look down into it to start my watering I see a neat little bird's nest with one oval shaped white egg in it. Well, that certainly explains why some birds keep hanging around our balcony! I thought they were getting into my plants and I was seriously worried they were eating everything and I wouldn't be able to actually harvest any of the fruits. Turns out, they just wanted a place to hatch their young. Of all the balcony gardens in all our apartment complex, they had to fly into mine.

I have no idea what to do about it. Do I leave it alone? Do I take it out? I don't really want birds to keep flying around our balcony, and I still want our plants to be able grow, but this is a baby bird we're talking about (or rather, the potential of a baby bird, who knows what all my watering has been doing to the nest/egg?). I don't want to ruin the nest or break the egg or anything like that. Plus, I really am a little worried that my fairly frequent watering has been damaging to it somehow, although the nest looks in good shape. I'm not entirely sure what kind of bird it even is. There is only one egg, it is oval and white, and I never really take that good of a look at the birds. I'm not as much of a bird person as I used to be, and even at my best I could only recognize maybe 10 birds, most of which are pretty obvious (finch, eagle, etc.)

You know what, it would not surprise me if it's my bird stalker's nest and egg. Now that it doesn't wake me up as often (Charlotte takes care of that) it needed to find a new way to irritate me. Sneaky little thing.

I'm going to try to take a picture of the birds, and the nest and egg, so hopefully someone will recognize it or I can look up what kind it is and know how to deal with it. Hopefully we'll be able to figure out something to do with it soon, but any suggestions on how to take care of it would be extremely helpful!

Being an Adult Sometimes Sucks

If you read the title of this post then you basically understand what it is I want to say. Being an adult is sometimes not fun. Eric and I are definitely at a point where we need to make some big changes and decisions and not all of them are fun. Some of them are downright sacrificial. I think it's finally hitting us in a big way that as parents and even just responsible adults there are just some things we can't do or don't get to do.