(63) Just a Terrific Tuesday

No work today, so I've been spending the day with the pets. After a morning of coffee and reading I decided to get busy making the cards that I needed to get sent out. That took most of my morning and so by the time I finished with the second card it was nearly 12:30. I decided to get one of the cards sent out so it was a good reason to take Beeks with me. And because the Post Office is so close to the DQ we just needed to make a run thru. Beeks gets so focused when he figures out what we are doing. He stands on the back seat and just stares at the back of my neck. When the cone finally gets to the car, he stares so intensely that he is almost stalking the cone. He is patient though. He just stares and waits expectantly until I get down to just the cone, just waiting until I hand it back to him. Then its gone in one gulp. He doesn't even savor it. I wonder if he wants it all gone so he doesn't have to share it with Max when we get home?

The trees have encompassed us so well that we are not able to get a good look of Gracie as she sits on the nest. There is one angle in the back yard that is not yet obscured and we are able to see her tail once in a while from the back deck. We hear her and George calling each other and we see George once in a while as he comes to the nest. I think that maybe this is the whole plan. Maybe the hawks build the nest when the trees are not full so that it is an easier building process with all the large branches they use and then want the nest to be hidden when the brood is hatched. Makes sense to me. I read that cooper's Hawks have a brood of three and the female sits on the nest until they are born. The male brings her food daily (thanks for that!).

The daily walkabout has fairly short today because we put down the weed and feed last night. This is in a way rather funny that we used it in the first place. We have so little grass and I tease that the weeds are holding the dirt together. I'm afraid that putting the weed killer will make the yard look even worse but Brad is confident that we need to put the week killer down before he puts the grass seed down in a few weeks. We'll see. Today my concern was protecting Beeker's paws and not letting him eat the grass. He did get to some of it, he LOVES to eat grass. When he got inside I washed off his paws in hopes that he doesn't lick them.
In the yard the wild phlox has bloomed and has joined the blue bells. All of the new imports survived the three day thunderstorms. We noticed that everything is the same green right now. A sort of yellow green. All is good in the yard.

After my household chores were finished and our daily walkabout was done, I decided to take Beeks for a walk. I figured that since it was cooler today I should take Beeks for a longer walk. We walked to the farm and back. This is a walk that is about 4 miles round trip. Beeks loves this walk because he gets to get down in the ditches and really get his nose into it. He pounced a couple of time and then tilted his head and I am thinking that when he does this it is because he is listening for where the rodent went. His hearing is so incredible that he can probably hear it moving around. I didn't hear anything but he was sure fun to watch. On the return trip I watched three hawks soaring high about the adjacent field. They were riding the thermals and having such a great lazy time of it. I was intrigued that there were three together. Especially after knowing that the females should be on their nests now. I wonder if males fly together to hunt for food and if the three I watched were somehow related. Could one of them be George and another be a past hatchling? Or even George's parent? Interesting and it is something I will need to look up. It's always something.

We have been sitting out in the screened in porch for the past two hours and as I write Max and Beeks lay around and enjoy the smells (noses in the air everyone)and sounds of Spring. They occasionally bark at what they think is someone walking past. They can no longer see anyone only hear and smell them. I admonish them and pet Max to get him to quiet down and after one or two barks he's finished. Beeks always needs to get the last little woof out. Silly dogs.