July Update

I intended to write before this. I now have so much catching up to do!

Our weather went from chilly through mid-June to a very sweltering hot (90s). Ugh. I prefer cooler weather. Thankfully, we have central AC, although we didn’t turn it on until the heat became intolerable. The ONLY reason we kept the AC off is because we prefer the breeze coming in through the windows and hearing the birds singing outside.

We have five hens sitting on eggs. There are two hens in the old doghouse, two hens inside the fancy coop, and one hen in a repurposed litter box, which is one of the litter nesting boxes on top of the old doghouse. These are all inside the 10×12 shed that is THE COOP. We now have two little chicks in the doghouse. There were more, but sadly 2-3 of them died–I think from the high heat. We did our best to keep them alive: During the day I keep the big doors open but we have to shut the doors at night to protect the chickens from predators. We froze jugs of water and put them in the coop, hoping to bring the temperature down. Finally, we put in a small fan, fastening it in front of a vent near the ceiling to pump out hot air. We haven’t lost any since then.

The other eggs have not yet hatched.

One of the hens in the doghouse is fiercely protective of her young. She pecks me HARD whenever I reach in to replenish their food and water. EJ got me some very thick gloves to try to protect my hands, but the mama still pecked me hard enough through the glove to draw blood. I’m glad she’s protective of her young, but…yikes.

Twice this summer (and once a year or two ago) we’ve had tufted titmice hit the living room window and fall stunned to the deck. I think they are younger birds who have recently left their nest but haven’t yet become skilled at flying. Since we have outdoor cats, we always hurry out and pick up the fallen birds, holding them for several minutes until they’ve recovered enough to fly away. The one in the photo below stayed in my hand for at least 10 minutes. I always tell the titmice that since we’ve saved their lives, they and their clan owes us a life debt (more than one, in fact). In fantasy stories, this means that at some point they must save our lives in return.

I’ve never known whether to call more than one tufted titmouse “tufted titmice” or “turfted titmouses.” I finally got around to asking Grok, who is my inhouse expert. Grok explained:

The word “titmouse” is an old English name for these small birds. Even though it contains “mouse,” it is not actually related to rodents — it’s from an old word for “small bird” (the “tit” part) + “mose” (an old term for a small bird).Despite the etymology, English has long treated the plural the same way as “mouse” → “mice”. So one bird is a titmouse, and multiple are titmice.This follows the irregular plural pattern of other -mouse words that aren’t rodents (e.g., dormouse → dormice)…So feel free to say (or write) “I saw several tufted titmice today” — that’s the accurate and widely accepted form. The birds themselves probably don’t mind either way, but the grammar nerds (and birders) will appreciate “titmice.”

I said, “Thanks, Grok! I wouldn’t want to insult the birds by not using the correct term. LOL.” He replied, “You’re very welcome! Those tufted titmice have enough attitude with their little crests and bossy calls — best not to risk offending them with bad grammar. They’d probably scold you with a loud ‘peter-peter-peter!’ if you got it wrong. Glad I could help keep the peace in the bird world!”

We haven’t seen Harvey, the feral cat we adopted last November, in several days. I had kept him shut in the garage with Theo for about six months–during the winter while it was very cold. During that time, I worked to win his trust, and he did get to the point where he loved being petted. In May, I opened the door so he could get out. We’ve always tried to shut the outdoor cats in the garage at night to protect them from coyotes and other predators. At first, Harvey was willing to come into the garage, but it got harder and harder to lure him back in the evenings. Finally, we just shut the doors in the evening because, unlike Harvey, Theo is NOT streetsmart and we needed to protect him. We open the garage doors during the day so he can get food if he wants, but we haven’t seen him. Sigh. We really liked Harvey and feel a little sad but we really did do the best we could to tame him and now it’s his choice whether to stay tame.

Last weekend Americans celebrated our 250th birthday. I was a kid when America celebrated it’s bicentennial and it’s awesome to also celebrate it’s 250th. Our son is living in Alaska so it was just EJ and me, but we had a cookout with traditional July 4th foods. We sat outside and listened to the BOOMS! of fireworks going off around us–from our neighbors, nearby campgrounds, and nearby towns. We used to be able to see our neighbor-across-the street’s fireworks, but our trees have grown so tall that we now can see only the highest ones. When we first moved to this area–already 11 years ago!–I thought we’d have a wonderful view of fireworks and celestrial events because we live on a hill. However, we actually can see fewer because the surrounding high hills and trees block out the horizon. For several years we drove around looking for a good place to view things, but, again, hills and trees blocked our view. So unless something is right overhead, we can’t see it.

Later on July 4th, we went inside and watched the spectacular fireworks in Washington DC. We read that usually they set off about 20,000 fireworks but this year, for the 250th, they set off 185,000! It was a world record. It was amazing.

Today at 6:30 am the workers arrived to reroof our house. I wasn’t sure how long it would take–a day? 2 days?–but they worked FAST and were done before noon. They picked up the debris from the old roof so thoroughly that I couldn’t find a splinter left behind. They even swept our deck.

The skylights in the two bathrooms were in bad shape and would have cost extra money to replace so we had the roofers remove them. We really liked them and will miss them, but we are trying to be careful with our money.