Look to the skies!

 Our trees are cleaned up, more on that another day. Firstly, tennis!

🎾 We were watching tennis in Spain. They have been having models as ball girls wearing little cropped tops and short skirts. There was fooferaw, and they appeared the next day in skorts.  

 "Was the decorative ball crew not enough objectification?" - Tennis fans scream misogyny at Madrid Open as presence of models as ball girls goes viral

 

A New York based company, IMG, is now in charge of the ball kids, and they introduced ball models for the high profile men's games, says Eliza Wastcoat is a Tik Toc video. The regular ball kids work the outside games in more modest clothing, while the ball models work in t-shirts and skirts.

 River asked, "Why does the deer fence not just stay up all year so you don't have to put it back up each spring?"

Good question! I don't like the look of it in winter. I have been trying to rake and weed the garden before I put up the fence. It's a pain working around it. Also, I need to pluck off the lily bugs. The deer are mostly off in their summer habitats and I haven't seen them. 

🇺🇦 War on Ukraine

✈Today, Russia celebrated Victory Day, an annual holiday marking the defeat of the Nazis, amid mounting anxiety following a series of attacks and over a looming Ukrainian counteroffensive. It was a watered down event. They were busy bombing Ukrainian civilians.

 🛩 The weekend was busy here with air traffic. It keeps me sharp following it all. It's not that bending and weeding, and throwing cement water fountain pieces around wore me out! It was such a nice weekend, people were out and about.

 

It was really busy in the skies May 6 and 7th. I had various levels of success! I nearly tripped in the first clip!

 

weekend air traffic from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

🐦I don't know if this is the kestrel that nests not too far away. It is a bird of prey!

 

hawk from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

I've stopped feeding the ducks, now that things are warmer. They are hanging about. They do fly pasts, as well, heading for the pond. When they have ducklings, they aren't overhead much at all.

ducks 1 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

March decor, kestrel, grandies!

Yay, March. It freezes at night, but melts in the day. Syrup season soon. 

We anticipate green! We've now got three starlings, which means spring is really coming. I know this shows two, but there were three yesterday!

Poor snow elf melted. Her face melted off somewhat, then her hat fell off.

You win, you lose!

Guinevere and Bear have their greens on.

The green March wreath Izzy, Jos and I created.

I put up green ribbons, and decided to order new ones. The skinny stuff is wearing thin. It was lovely outdoors, in the sunshine!

The wider ribbon show up better, especially since some people drive by at warp speed!

Even the black cat gets a ribbon. 

While I was down at the fence, replacing winter red ribbons with spring green ones, I spotted a kestrel.  It was sitting on the further away fence post, gave me a look, and took off. The arrow shows how close it was! 

Can you see it? Nah. The video was awful. It flew off to the pine tree. This is a screen capture of my video. (You can see our house on the left.)

I walked closer, and found it was watching the birds at the bird feeder. It was exciting. Can you sort of see it?! She's just a dark shadow in the tree. I tried to get closer, but she flew off towards the bird feeder! 

We've a kestrel who lives in our habitat. I've spotted it quite frequently, but photos are tough.  They are the size of a blue jay or mourning dove.

She used to harass the crows in the nest we had out back in April, 2021. I think it is a female, as she doesn't have the darker blues of the male.

Grandies

Just for fun, to compare and contrast, our Vancouver grandkids! Cluny and Bryony are doing so well! 

The B.C. Coquihalla highway was closed last week because of weather. The snow helped skiing, though!

They have regular ski lessons. Jesse told me they had a great dump of snow on their B.C. mountain, and they were happy with that. Isn't this beautiful?!

It's Gramma Camp on the weekend, to begin March Break, Josephine and Isabelle are coming for a brief visit. Hip hip hooray! 

Bathroom, bears, rain

I enjoy the self-deprecating humour of fellow bloggers. Here is one for you! OK, two stories. I had two jobs: 1) to clean out the water fountain, it gets icky. 2) to wash the bathroom floor. Everytime I enter the bathroom, I figure I ought to do the floor, leave the room, and promptly forget until I enter the room again! Ah, old age rears its ugly head. 

There were only a couple pieces of toilet paper left. I took the old roll off, and threw it into the cat's water fountain. I meant to chuck it into the garbage. No wonder I'm not playing softball anymore! (Actually, that's because of shin splints at the time, but I digress!)

I should have hurried. You KNOW what happens when toilet paper gets into water!

I didn't want cats drinking toilet paper water. I got on that. The fountain is cleaned, dried, and replaced. floor is done, I finally remembered.

We had a bit of a clean up this month, more a decluttering, last time the girls were here. We sent them home with the bin of Lego, to donate as appropriate. The girls just don't play with it anymore. They read. A lot! 

JB kept three little Lego kits aside, and took them into town to a worker he chats with at the park in the early morning. The man has a son, age 8, and JB thought he'd enjoy them. The son made him a thank you card! Isn't that sweet?!

 🐻SNUGGLE Bears

The latest: bear reading a book about bears! "What Bears Teach Us" It's a great book. The photos are amazing.

Her friends wanted to her to read to them. 

Saturday morning, actual rain! Only 2 mm. It's been a really dry month.

You can see how brown and crunchy the lawn is. I went over it with the tractor the other day. In the shade, it is better. The front garden is toast.

I was so happy to see rain, I snapped photos. The poor false sunflowers are drying out. The phlox is doing well.

I went out to water the cherry tomatoes, and found a visitor. The first photos were at 9:24, the last one 10:54. I rather think it eclosed there. That's a long time for a monarch to stay put. I scoured the plant for the evidence, but couldn't find it.

You can see how the wings aren't quite flat. Eventually, they dried and he flew off! You can tell it is a male, since he has a dot near the bottom of the wing.

 We've still got female hummers. hummingbird  

A 10-point buck! 10-point buck  

The Fox was here in the daytime. 

In the backyard, I spotted the merlin. I found this archived photo of a turkey vulture and the merlin. They are so quick.

They just soar. I'm getting better at filming with my reading glasses on! merlin 

Kingston Trip – Part 6: Amherst Island, Wildlife, Topsy Farm!

Kingston –Part 1, here we come!
Kingston Trip – Part 2: Gord Downie Memorial 
Kingston Trip – Part 3 Dinner: Amherstview
Kingston Trip – Part 4: Amherst Island Ferry
Birds are flocking! (videos)

Sadly, the eastern part of the island, while great birding spots, were closed to civilians, non-members of the Kingston Field Naturalists. Then, there is Owl Wood, which is private. That's OK, as we have owls here (BARRED OWL)!

We did see some birds, starlings, hawk, kestrel! Of course, there were sheep, but there were lots of animals all around this part of the island. The kestrel didn't like the car. The hawk was grooming (see below). We have sheep near home, but this was a lovely trip. The stone work is amazing.



This is the finale! We achieved our goal, to visit Topsy Farm. It's a legend on Amherst Island. They've had this farm since 1972. They do amazing work, as well as supporting good causes, and have sustainable, ethical farming.


There is a lovely mix of homes and farms on the island. These are drive-bys.


 I was pretty jiggly, but here is the hawk!
Hawk from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.