Obituary for Andy

Andy was our only boy parakeet. He sang a lot and was very sociable.

On Saturday afternoon the bird cage was accidentally knocked down. Our two remaining birds flew out and Icky got Andy. Andy survived with his wounds until Sunday night, when he just couldn't go on anymore.

We buried him in the backyard next to his friend, Jean.

We'll miss you Andy, wait for us in bird heaven.

Spring Photo Diary: day 22

Sunny and 60 today -- perfect spring weather. Sadly, that means it's time to start mowing the lawn.

I don't know what those shorter, flowering trees on the right are, across the street in the first picture. They come out a bit later, and keep their leaves very late in the fall, before they turn dark red. In the third picture, you can see the day lilies growing quickly to the left of the front steps.

The colors don't come out so well in the photo, but the maple across the street has a very interesting combination of green and red foliage right now. The big tree on the left in the first photo is decorated according to the same scheme. The bright green bits are the flowers, which were red last week. Soon they'll be dropping "helicopter" seeds all over the place. The red shoots are the leaves, which will soon turn green for the summer.

There's a fine pair of hound dogs enjoying the sunbeam in the front window after their morning walk.

Spring Photo Diary: day 17

Sunny and 83 today. People thought we were crazy for planting so early in April, but I'm not worried. Even if we get another frost, it's not going to be a hard one.

The first picture has a large maple tree in the left background, which has red blossoms all over it, and our cherry tree in the left foreground. The second picture shows our next-door neighbor's daffodils and flowering plum tree in full bloom, but the hickory in the center still has bare branches.

The cherry blossoms are well and truly out now.

Daisy

This is Daisy a few weeks after we brought her home.

She was 16 weeks old when we adopted her.

It is said that we do not choose our dogs, they choose us. In Daisy's case this is absolutely true; she was waiting for us.

She's my helper:

My hinderer:

My buddy:

And my guard-dog:

Now that she's almost 6, she's starting to get a little gray.

But she's still our Pretty Princess.

Spring Photo Diary: day 15

It's a gorgeous, sunny Easter morning. The trees all have green fuzz at the ends of their branches, like they need a shave.

We spent yesterday upgrading our flower bed. We added a white azalea on the left and a rosebush to the right of the bay window. We put snapdragons behind the daffodils and pansies in front. Then we dug some 4x4s into ground to divide the flower bed from the lawn and mulched with cypress/pine chips. So much better! (If you look closely, you can see Tony sitting on the couch in the window.)

I also spread topsoil in some of the low places in the lawn. It hasn't rained in a week, and it isn't supposed to rain for another week, so we ran the sprinkler this morning while we were on our walk. What a strange spring! The cherry blossoms don't seem to mind, though -- they've started to show their pink faces today. They'll be fully open in another day or two now!

Spring Photo Diary: day 14

Record highs of 87 yesterday, but still no leaves on the trees yet. It's kind of surreal.

They're trying, though! Our cherry blossoms will be out any day now.