Silas & Sialia

The kids have renamed Sialia, and they call her Sally. I guess the name I picked was a bit challenging to say, but I'm sticking with it. :)
This is what's going on with the bluebirds:

Friday (3/25) - They are still feathering their nest. Usually, it is Sialia taking things into the birdhouse, but occassionally, I've seen Silas peek in to make sure things are going as planned. Often, while she is in it, he perches in the tree and keeps watch. He will chase off the squirrel and blue jays if they even come into the garden while she is nesting, but he just watches me as I take pictures. (If I know or see her in there, I stay back, but they are quite tolerant of me.)

Saturday (3/26) - I took another peek and was thrilled to see the little blue egg. Bluebirds will lay one egg a day for four to six days, then the incubation will start. Each new phase has me researching a bit more. Before I started checking the nest everyday, I did read that bluebirds will put up with humans opening the box to check the nest.

Sunday (3/27) -- The second egg made a safe landing. From the nearby tree, Silas and Sialia watched me open their home to take the picture. They didn't act upset at all. I'll stop the photography if it seems to bother them.

Monday (3/28) -- I peeked out and saw Sialia keeping watch from the tree in just about the same place as the picture from yesterday. Silas quickly joined her, but that guy was sweet enough to bring her breakfast. He perched next to her on the branch and gave her a worm. They seemed to "talk" for just a moment, then he flew off and she settled back into her favorite spot on the branch. It warms my heart to watch these two interacting. I checked the birdhouse at 9:30, but there were still two eggs. When I looked outside at noon, the birds had flown away and I checked again and the third was there. All three eggs are the same color all over, but the third egg has what looks like a thick white scratch on it. I'm hoping it is okay.

Tuesday (3/29) -- I watched the birds in the tree this morning while I drank my coffee. I almost spit it out though when they surprised me with a bit of a personal moment. I am glad the kids were distracted since I am not quite ready to explain to them why he was ... uh, whispering in her ear? I guess that's what I get for spying on them all the time. The fouth egg was in there when I checked the box after lunch.

Wednesday (3/30) -- Today was a fun one in the garden, and it started with a party. Around 8:30am, I saw Silas out in the tree and Sialia fluttering about the birdhouse. I tried to sneak out to the porch for a photo, but they must have heard the hinges squeak. My next best idea was to stand in the stairs and spy out the window. Both birds were in the tree when the party started. I am guessing there were 50 to 70 cedar waxwings fluttering about in the trees and garden. It seemed to be constant motion, then some housefinches, white-throated sparrows, and a robin all stopped in to see what the commotion was about. Maybe everyone showed up because we watered the garden, but Silas and Sialia just stayed on their branch and watched it. When one of the other birds got too close to the birdhouse, Silas chased it away. I stayed in the window happily snapping photos, but most of them were a blur.

I checked on the birds while the kids ate lunch, but when I stepped into the garden Sialia flew out of the house rather flustered, so I left quickly and went to the window. They were near the house a lot, and I started wondering if she was starting to sit on the clutch to incubate the eggs. Later, when the birds were gone, I checked and found four eggs. I was a tad bit disappointed that she went for the smaller clutch, but then I realized that four kids is more than a handful and maybe that was just the right size. While my kids napped, I cleaned the window in the stairwell, inside and out, and removed the screen. I sat on a box waiting for them to show up again, then I got several pictures. The top photos are of Sialia (female). In the picture of both of them, Silas is the colorful one on the right. The last in this group is of Silas.

 

Just before dinner, I checked the box and found five eggs. Now I get to wonder if there will be another tomorrow. It is turning out to be a bit like a soap opera for me -- I have to tune in every day to get the whole story.

I was planning to wait to post this after Sialia started incubating the eggs since I probably wouldn't get many new pictures, but this is too much fun to wait. The little kids teacher asked for some photos to show the class, and Will's class is studying life cycles in science. Since I'm sending the avian-family albums to school, I thought I should go aheard and get all this posted to share, too.

New neighbors

Last summer and fall, I was so excited to figure out that the five baby birds growing up in my garden were Eastern Bluebirds. Ben and Jon stayed at my parents' with my dad while I went to the MOPS convention in August. -While they were there, Dad "helped" them build me a bluebird house, I hung it on the fence in the garden, and I've been hoping they would come back and nest.

I was beyond thrilled to see a male and female checking out the house, but each time I opened the roof, I was a bit disappointed to see nothing inside. This week, I heard a racket in the garden one morning, and looked out to see those two bluebirds chasing away some bluejays. I peeked a few days later, and, sure enough, they had started a nest. It has been fun to watch her go in and out with her beak full of small twigs. I can see from the backyard, but its even more fun to sit on the stairs in the house and watch out the window that is right near the birdhouse.

Today, I watched the male and female dive bomb a squirrel who was getting a bit too close to the nest, and that inspired me to 1.) get my camera, and 2.) come up with better names for our new friends than "male" and "female."

Here is Sialia, the female. I had to laugh when she peeked out of the house to look at me. Her head kept tilting with her questions of what I was doing. I hope to soon get a picture of Silas, the male, but I haven't seen him around today. My dad should be happy with the names I chose :)

PS - the scientific name for the Eastern Bluebird is Sialia sialis; that's how I chose her name.

If I Were President

Will recently brought home an assignment he did in February for Presidents' Day. I thought I would record it now, and see what changes through the years. These are his words:

IF I WERE PRESIDENT...

"I would portect peopel's lifes.

I would be kind to a lot of peoples.

I would make a lot of speeches about our contry is neat!"

Encourage ZING!

Jon: Mama, your hair looks pretty today.
Me: Thank you, Jon. That is sure a nice thing to say!
Jon: I know... I am encourage ZING!
Me: Do you mean "encouraging?"
Jon: Yeah. Encourage zing.
Me: Do you know what encouraging means?
Jon: It means I use my nice words to make people feel good.

How does my heart NOT melt when my day starts like that?

Spring Break Adventures - Day 5

Today was Allen's birthday, and the last day of our vacation. We finished breakfast and started packing up the car. We were on the way out of Hot Springs at 9:00 and planned a mid-trip lunch stop at Historic Washington State Park.

This little town was NEAT!! We stopped at the park headquarters (the courthouse) and decided not to do the three hour tour of all the open buildings. We didn't think the little kids would have the attention span to look at antiques and listen about the history of the town for that long. Instead, we opted for the drive by tour of all the buildings -- mostly because I thought the kids would enjoy riding a horse-drawn surrey over the dirt roads.

We all enjoyed the ride and it finished the tour right in front of the tavern at lunchtime. It couldn't have worked out better! We had a leisurely lunch and headed for a mini tour of a home and the blacksmith shop. Our tour guide, surrey-driver highly recommended both.

It was quite interesting how easily I was taken back to another time in this town. They have protected, maintained, and refurbished homes, stores, barns, courthouse, and much more to be as close as possible to what it would have been like in the nineteenth century. Many of the same buildings were there about the time that Arkansas was the wild frontier and Texas was Mexico. The home we visited had an old man acting the part of the Jewish immigrant who actually built the house. He did his best to keep the kids' attention, but they were more fascinated by his white gloves and cane than the story of why his family settled here and how well the walls were insulated. Then we crossed the street to the blacksmith shop where a blade smith was working. He showed us a bit about what all the blacksmiths did, how they used their tools, and some of the things they would have created. Then he talked about his specialty -- the knives. The blacksmith shop is actually where Jim Bowie's famous knife was made on his way to Texas. They had a replica of it there -- he had  it specially made because his hands were huge...likewise, the knife. It is the biggest hand-knife I've ever seen.

We had a great trip and we are already planning the next one. It was a great confidence-booster that Allen and I didn't go crazy trying to keep up with the kids. It was quite different than at home when we all have activities that give us a bit more space than we had this week. But, all six of us enjoyed the places, things to do, and each other.

We finished the day with Allen's favorite enchilada meal with a birthday candle wedged into the tortillas. The pecan pie will follow tomorrow after I can get to the store ... now on to conquer enormous laundry pile.

Spring Break Adventures - Day 4

Today was a BEAUTIFUL day!! The sun finally came out and warmed it up a bit, so we were outside a lot. Allen took all the kids out, one at a time, on the pedal boat.

We got back to the park to do all the outside tour and trails. We got to fill up our waterbottles with hot spring water. I used mine to keep my hands warm, but the kids had fun tasting the water and daring each other to drink it hot (rather than waiting till it cooled off first.) Yes, it really is hot (around 140-degrees, so hotter than my shower) and it tastes just fine.

Back at the cottage, all of us took afternoon naps ... really LONG naps. We had thought about going back for old fashioned photos and duck tour (one of the tank-looking busses that turns into a boat,) but we slept too long. We ended up playing horseshoes in the yard, making a campfire, and eating PB&Js and s'mores for dinner. The kids played with glow sticks and ran around the yard until we decided we were worn out enough to put everyone in bed.

We had a couple more funny conversations today. Ben keeps collecting rocks in his pockets. No matter how many we take out of his pants or jacket, he still seems to grow them in there. Everytime we got in the car or went into the house we had to ask, "Are there rocks in your pocket?" Sometime along the way it got shortened to, "Do you have rockets?" It will probably end up being part of our normal Kaiser-vocabulary now.

One of the times I helped him empty his rockets, we started talking about the rocks.

Ben: Mama, I really like rocks.
Me: I know you do! Maybe someday you will be a geologist and learn more about rocks.
Ben: I can't be a G-ologist, Mama. My name starts with B so I'll be a B-ologist.
Me: Really? That's sounds interesting :)
Ben: Well, maybe I will learn about all things and just be an ALLololologist.