Bye, Bye Birdies

I'm so sad to announce that the baby hummingbirds are no longer in the nest. They were sitting in the nest today when the gardener came to do his gardening thing, and he scared them out of the nest! They flew away. About a half hour later, the mother hummingbird came back to the nest and appeared very sad that the nest was empty. I know it's the circle of life, and it was bound to happen, but I'm still a little sad.

I happened to capture the moment on video. It's pretty grainy, but you can definitely see them fly away!

~Sorry that the video is huge. I had to imbed it from facebook, or something like that, because the video wouldn't upload directly....~


Also, my microgreen kit arrived in the mail yesterday, and I sowed my first crop of seeds! I planted half radish, half turnip. In just 12 hours (this morning) I had many seeds sprouted, and I just watered them again, and pretty much all of the turnip is sprouted, and a lot of the radish, too!

The seeds are sown.

24 hours later, they've sprouted!

~Pam

Miss You

It's been 6 years since my dad died. I really miss him. Sometimes it seems like it's been a long time, other times it seems like it happened just yesterday. I've been digging though some old files on my computer, and thought I'd share a few pictures of my dad with all of you.

First Grade

Sixth Grade

High School?

1958 CT A-School

1959

April 1, 1960

1977

San Antonio, TX 1979

Grand Canyon, 1979

At Grandma Helm's house, Christmas 1979

Lani's graduation day 5-24-82

My dad teaching Matt how to shoot, May 2005

And, on a final note, this picture is for those of us who didn't really see our parents kiss all that often.

It did happen!


I miss you, Dad.



~Pam

Microgreens

For Christmas, Matt gave me a book about growing microgreens. I'd never really heard of microgreens, and thought they were similar to sprouts. But, they're a little different. Sprouts are the germinated seeds, and you eat the root, stem, seed, and underdeveloped leaves. Sprouts are grown in the dark. Microgreen, after you germinate the seeds, are grown in the light, usually until the first true leaves appear. You eat microgreens by cutting the stem, leaving the roots behind :)

Well, I'm going to give it a go. I've ordered a starting kit from growingmicrogreens.com, and I'm patiently awaiting its arrival. Microgreens can be grown on your countertop, take about 10 days to mature, and can easily add greens to your diet, with minimal effort. I can't wait!


~Pam

And the Magic of Thursday

So, we're getting a new roof put on. It's been going on for over a week now and they're still not finished. It takes a while. It's a high quality product. I'll just be glad when I don't have 7 guys walking around on my roof all day. They're nice guys, but still...


So, a few weeks ago, we had Emily (Peggy's daughter) stay for the week. We had a blast! We took her snowboarding one of the days, her first time ever, and she did amazing! Way better than I did my first time. Also, the whole week, we waited (im)patiently for our hummingbird's eggs to hatch. She had laid two eggs, and we kept waiting, and waiting. I think they hatched 2 days after Emily left :( But the good news is, they're thriving. And I mean thriving! They're so big now that they almost don't fit in the nest anymore! Pretty soon, probably within a week or so, they'll be leaving the nest, flying away for good.

Jade, the momma, sitting on the nest, before they hatched.

The first baby hatched!

Jade, standing on the edge of the nest, feeding the babies.

And, here's a video I took of the babies fighting for space in the nest:

I was surfing the interwebs yesterday and came across this webcam of a hummingbird nest near Santa Barbara, CA.  Enjoy!  

~Pam

*Update* So, I've made an executive decision. I've decided these are girl hummingbirds, and as such, with the help of Miss Emily Blair, have named them. World, say hello to Melody and Harmony!

One a Day

Alright, so here's the deal: I want to blog more. Just so I can have something to look back on later :) I've not had much luck with journals lately, but today's a great day to start, right. So, I'm going to try to blog once a day. We'll see if I can keep it up.


So, what am I doing today? I'm researching tents. And listening to RadioVatican, where the new Pope was just chosen (no particular reason, really, but history is being made :) Oh, and why tents? Well, we have a tent, but we're in the VERY early stages of planning a new bike tour, and I'm thinking a new tent might come in handy. Here's what we're thinking....

 

It's much lighter than our old one, and has two doors, which would be nice. We shall see.

Oh, and last night was pretty cool. I had heard about the two comets this year, PANSTARRS and ISON. Well, I remembered that the best night for viewing PANSTARRS would be 3/12, so as the sun was getting ready to set, Matt and I hopped in the car and drove up to one of our favorite viewing places, Kagel Canyon, and watched the sunset and the comet appear :) So cool! I'm glad I brought binoculars, because while I could see it without, it was much better with! The comet should be visible through the rest of the month.

If you look really closely, you can see the sliver of the moon. The comet was just to the left of it. :)

Anyways, that's what I'm up to today.


~Pam

Copyright trolls

Recently a law firm named Prenda Law Inc. filed a defamation lawsuit against people who did nothing more than proclaim they, Prenda Law Inc., are a copyright troll. Further research on the matter really did lead me to believe that Prenda Law Inc. (located at http://wefightpiracy.com) knowingly and willing files many suits for the sole purpose of intimidating and demoralizing people. Also I believe it is within a person's rights to say these things, and that they should not be sued for it. So Internet and search engines spread the word, Prenda Law is a lousy firm, with (in my opinion) shoddy morals and I am allowed to have and express this opinion.

-Matt
http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2013/03/04/copyright-trolls-prenda-law-paul-duffy-and-john-steele-commence-three-lawsuits-v-paul-godfread-alan-cooper-and-our-community/

http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2013/02/20/sinking-ship-prenda-is-breaking-with-a-loud-sound-rats-are-leaving-the-vessel/