A broken heart

I've had some great times in the past few weeks, which may be why I haven't had time to blog.  But today I have a broken heart. 

For weeks, my husband and I used the garage door to avoid upsetting the house finch who was guarding her three eggs, then three fledglings in a nest she built on our front door wreathe.  

I left town for a week on a road trip, was told by my birding friends that when the baby birds left the nest they would also leave my house and I would probably not see them again.  

How wrong they were!  I found two of the babies hopping around our driveway.  They were not afraid of me...I could almost touch them.  Here is one who was pretty much posing for me.  

That made me smile the whole day.

Unfortunately, I was to learn, house finches are not loyal like dogs.  This morning I followed the mother bird (I'm not stalking her---she flew by while I was in the garden), and found that she was making a new nest in a neighbor's tree!  For shame I said to her.  Will the neighbors walk carefully to protect your babies?  Will they chronicle their births and their first flight?  I think not.

Anyway, I've got an new and unused birdhouse perched in my own tree.  I'll keep an eye on it.  Maybe she will realize her mistake.

Life is beautiful

Life can be so beautiful when you wake to the sound of three (or four) little birds cheeping out to the mama bird for some food.  That is my life now and for possibly the next 14-18 days.  

A house finch and her mate have decided to set up home in a basket of flowers hanging on my front door.  This is not a picture of the actual nest because it is built deep between the silk roses and greenery.  My husband and I can't use our front door because we fear the babies will fall out.  Mama and papa regularly dive bomb us if we get too close.  But it is all worth it when I wake at 4:30 in the morning to all that beautiful noise downstairs.  They sleep a lot.  I try to get look at them through the window, but usually all I see are their growing feathers.  One day I lucked out and saw one with his/her mouth open just like in this photo.  It was magnificent.

Life is beautiful when you are retired and have time to:

• take golf lessons and find out you can actually hit the ball pretty far and pretty straight
• take drawing lessons and realize you can look at a nude model, not get too embarrassed and actually draw something that looks like the human body
• take a road trip with girlfriends through western North Carolina and Virginia
• plan a trip to China
• create a garden
• listen to the birds singing

I hope life is beautiful for you TODAY.

Load up your rifles and meet me on the 14th street bridge!

Protesters plan on coming to Washington on July 4th with loaded rifles.  

In the words of the former Decider, 'Bring it on!'

The organizer, an Iraq veteran, says “We will march with rifles loaded and flung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated and cower in submission to tyranny,” Kokesh wrote on his Web site. “Should we meet physical resistance, we will peacefully turn back, having shown that free people are not welcome in Washington. . . . We are truly saying in the SUBTLEST [his capitalization] way possible that we would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.”

Yeah, this is just what I want to take place in my town on Independence Day.  THIS is why I am sick of the NRA, sick of the gun-obsessed culture.  What in the world makes this guy think that bringing 100s or 1,000s of people to town armed and loaded is a good idea?  If he is so against our government, maybe he should emigrate to a country that has a more 'open' attitude towards guns.  Maybe somewhere in the east...

I love starting my day off with the Washington Post.  It gets me just riled up enough.

Have a great day.

Immigration and my family

I really thought that I would write several posts a week.  But as a retiree I am SO BUSY I just don't get to it.  But this morning, I listened to such drivel on the radio and read such drivel in the Washington Post that I had no choice but to put in my two cents.

The Heritage Foundation issued a report today on immigration in the United States.  The report indicates that  immigration reform in the United States will eventually cost our country $2.6 TRILLION because immigrants would cost more in things like social security and medicare (in addition to various welfare programs) than they would provide in taxes and increased economy.  This hurts.  

I am the product of an immigrant who had NO high school diploma and in fact was illiterate.  My dad is the first generation immigrant who could not finish high school because he HAD TO WORK, but ended up as a business owner who paid taxes and NEVER took welfare, but served this country in world war II, and receives social security and medicare.

So then there are his six children all of whom own their own homes, have jobs, pay taxes and have never received welfare.  Yes, we will all get social security and medicare.  Should this be held against us because we are the product of an immigrant?

Come on, conservative republicans.  Did your families all come over on the Mayflower or are you Native Americans?  What makes you think that today's immigrants are going to be any different than those that came before them?  Germans, Irish, Italians, Jews, and others came here to find a better life.  What makes you think the newly arrived will be any different?

If the problem is Social Security and Medicare, then work on that, but don't blame those who seek a better life in this country with those problems.