Skip to main content

Carnivorous cardinals

We have a lovely pair of cardinals that visit our back lanai every morning and afternoon. This timing generally coincides with the feeding of the cats outside. They swoop in and steal the cat food. When there's no cat food out there, they chirp incessantly until there is. We hung a big seed ball for them, but they prefer the kitty kibble. Oh they'll nibble at the seeds. But given the choice, they'll take tuna and salmon flavor over sesame and sunflower any day. They've become carnivorous. Yikes! Keep all the small children inside!
My friend Gail once told me about some wrens visiting a little bird house she'd put out. I asked if they were looking to buy or simply wren-t! Ha ha ha....
Tonight, I was looking for a saucepan big enough to steam some extra long green beans without cutting them. Somehow, I began singing ala Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam "She dreams of colors, she dreams in green... can't find a bigger pan.....It's too small. These beans they won't fit at all.....can't find a bigger pa-an. Can't find a bigger pa-an...." Weird Al, eat your heart out.
I'm looking forward to playing tennis this afternoon with the power girls. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate and my arm will hold up to the punishment. With all the rain in Hilo, I've had surprisingly good luck with weather breaks just long enough to dry out the court and play for an hour or more before the rain comes again. The girls not only seem nice, but are a lively, fun and even a bit irreverent group. I like that. Tomorrow I will travel to the leeward side to test drive a few new tennis racquets and a couple of cars, too. My purple truck (may it rest in peace) was deemed un-seaworthy. That is to say, it had too much wrong with it to make it worth fixing and spending $1000 to ship here. Bummer. I loved that rough-ridin' contraption with the back end ripped apart by my psycho-mutt Doc. We have been living with one car since we got here and it's becoming more apparent every day that we need another. If this one breaks down somewhere, the other cannot come to the rescue. If one of us has the car, the other is trapped at home, 20 miles from town. So, it's the perfect excuse to shop for a cute, cheap little gas miser.
It's a little too squishy to drive the tractor today, so we're puttering with chores that don't require diesel power. Ron managed to get one more coffee tree into the ground yesterday. He got a little drenched in the process.
Time for a little more racquet research before the big shopping day tomorrow. Until next time, aloha!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mom

This is my beautiful mom. She died last Sunday. For those who knew her, my heart breaks with you. For those who did not, here's an introduction to the best confidante, role model and mother a girl could hope for in life. This is the obituary I'd planned to submit to the local paper, but have opted instead to publish here. Obituary: Beverly Todd Bev -- my mom -- was a longtime caregiver, advocate, and dear friend to countless elderly in South Salem. Hers was a kind and generous spirit. She devoted much of her life to the welfare of others, giving wholly of herself and doing so always with great affection and humor. She was born Beverly Marie Steinberger in Silverton, July 23, 1938, the first child and only daughter of Art and Marie Steinberger. Her brothers called her Bevvy Buns, a nickname she grew fond of and wore proudly within the family circle as an adult. Bev attended St. Paul’s Elementary School in Silverton, Silverton High School and Marylhurst Co...
2 comments
Read more

Back at it

It's been some time since I've written. My mom died in February, and I haven't had the gumption to write much, other than a couple of feature stories for the paper and the occasional pithy email to a friend. Tonight, sitting in my favorite burger joint with a pile of fries in front of me, I dunk them into a deep pool of ketchup mixed with a hot sauce. That's how Mom liked 'em. My burger? The Spicy Hawaiian, a nod to my 808 connections. It's a brilliant combination of peppers and pineapple, a favorite on the Power Stop menu. I'm sure she'd have loved it, too. There's a bubbly beer with a lime in it. That's not a homage to anything. I just like beer. These past months, I've done little but work, search and apply for jobs. Two rejection letters have landed in my email this week. Search-and-apply has become a futile obsession. It's time for a break, at least until I hear back from all those applications still floating around out there. I am...
Post a Comment
Read more

Goodbye Dan Fogelberg

Saturday started out as just another day to clean the house. Within a short time, however, I found myself on a mission; a mission of arachnid eradication. The spiders, for all their great bug-eating prowess, have a tendency to get a bit out of control in a place where there's no real winter. They're not only everywhere outside, but inside, too. I found webs with giant eight-leggers in corners, on the ceiling, hiding under window shades....everywhere! They were in places I vacuumed just two days before. Since the invasion of the beetles, the spiders have grown enormously fat and happy. So I sucked 'em all up. EEEEEEEEWWWWWW! I was none too keen on removing the vacuum bag. In addition to spider sucking, there was fun with fungi. What did the girl mushroom say to the boy mushroom? Gee your a fun-gi! Unfortunately, the prevailing fungus amongus was not shitakes or portabellos, but mold and mildew. Again.... eeeeeeeeewwwwww! I cleaned the top of the fridge, which was home to a n...
4 comments
Read more