Baby Owls

I tried to make this post about a week ago, but was having some computer troubles. Figures, getting a new(er) computer doesn't fix all that. Of course, it could be that this computer is Windows-based and my laptop was a Macbook. At any rate, it seems to be working out okay now. This post will have to be short because I promised a couple of dogs I'd take them for a walk this evening.

In addition to all the lovely blossoms that spring has brought, there have been some adorable baby birds spotted at work. Specifically, three little baby owls in the nest over the parking lot. It's hard to get all three to pop their heads up at once and both days that I lugged along my digital camera in hopes of spotting them, only one or two were visible. I definitely wanted to get a couple shots with a better zoom before they flew away.

Hard to see in this picture taken with my cellphone camera, but if you enlarge it, you should be able to see momma and three fluffy babies.

This is the least cautious of the three babies as it sits up most of the day and doesn't hide from me

Look closely and you'll note both parents sitting on a branch (one of whom watched me closely as I snapped pictures)

"Who are you looking at?"

A second sibling briefly popped their head up to see me

I'm fairly certain that the owls in question are great horned owls, but don't hold me to that in court because I'm not an ornithologist. Both of the parents definitely have the defined 'horns' though, so that seems pretty likely to me that's what they are. We are all enjoying seeing these owls grow up and I suspect it won't be too much longer before the babies take off on their own.

In addition to the owls, we have some red-tailed hawks that hang out in the area. There are two big, open fields on either side of our location with lots of big mature trees as well. It seems to make for a great location for these birds of prey to hunt and raise their young in.

Spring Has Sprung

Just in time for all the lovely spring trees to be in bloom, it has to be snowing today. I'm  holding out hope that the lilac blossoms in the backyard will weather this storm, but not holding my breath. It seems like every year when the weather just starts to get warm enough for all the trees to be growing leaves, it snows heavily enough to start snapping branches. That's Colorado for you.

Snow...again? *sigh*

The general rule of thumb here is to wait until at least Mother's Day to start planting your summer flowers and vegetable garden. Of course, last year it snowed that whole weekend, so it was a week later than usual to start planting. I'm itching to get some gladiolus bulbs planted, but again it's best to wait until the freezing weather is done. We used to have several in the front yard and they were one of my favorites, but my dad got a little overzealous with weedkiller a couple summers ago and took them all out.

Luckily, one of the days off I had this week was gorgeous (75 degrees and sunny all day long) so I went and found a bunch of spring blossoms to photograph. So in lieu of having much else to say, I'm going to post some lovely spring pictures. I'm definitely not an expert on the different types of trees that are in bloom, but I like the variety anyway. Enjoy!

I like how all the branches came together in this shot.

I see these all over the place (some even appeared in the back yard), but I didn't know what they were, thanks to 20 minutes of Google searching, I am fairly confident that they're grape hyacinths.

I love the mixture of light pink flowers with bright green leaves in this one.

If you enlarge this one, you'll see little white blossoms amongst the red leaves.

And just for variety, some darker pink blossoms.

These white flowers had hints of light pink and grew in little ball-shaped clusters.

Lilacs in the back yard (it smells fantastic back there this time of year).

And a few tulips because it's not spring without tulips in blossom.

Excuses

There is always a laundry list of excuses for not writing and posting on the blog. I happen to have a decent excuse this time around though, because my laptop died on me. I still have a smart phone and a tablet, but I really don't like typing anything longer than a quick e-mail on those devices. I just like having  the feel of actual keyboard keys under my fingers. Maybe one day I'll be considered old-fashioned for typing on a physical keyboard like someone now would be looked at funny for using a typewriter.

Anyway, my brother had an old (not actually that old, there's touchscreen capability) computer that he wasn't really using that he sold to me for a reasonable price. Now I can try to get back into blogging a bit more regularly. A few things have changed around here since last I wrote, but nothing too terribly exciting.

One day, I just up and decided that I really liked the look of parachute cord collars that I saw on a few dogs at work. I looked into buying some lengths of paracord and the buckles and D-ring necessary to make a dog collar and in total it was about $5 for me to make Jonesy a collar. You can look around the web and find all sorts of tutorials on making dog collars and bracelets with paracord. In total, it took me about 2 hours to make the first collar, it took me a while to get into the groove with the pattern you knot the cords in. I kept getting it twisted and having to undo a few knots and restarting. The second time I made a collar for my brother's dog, it came out so much better. After several weeks of wear, I had to repair the one I made for my brother's dog, but Jonesy's is holding up fabulously.

Jonesy, modeling the collar I made for him.

Sadly, Turd Ferguson is no longer with us. I don't know exactly how it happened, but one of the plastic tubes that connected his cage popped loose (they never felt terribly secure to me) and he escaped. My brother came home from work at 2AM as usual and said he found a headless body in the living room. I suspect my cat, Oliver, is the suspect who committed the actual crime, but it doesn't really matter. I feel terrible and responsible for his death, but at the same time he never was able to be handled without biting, so I wasn't as attached to him as I could have been.

In his place I decided that I would get a guinea pig because they're generally more friendly and easy to handle and I want a pet that I can develop a bond with. Of course, from having worked at a pet store before, I knew that pigs were better in pairs because they're social, so I bought a big cage and got it all set. Then it was time to pick out a pair of piggies, which ended up being much more difficult a process than it should have. The first two piggies I picked out both ended up sick and having to be returned for treatment (one had ringworm and one had a respiratory infection). Not wanting to be completely without a pet in the interim, I picked out a new guinea pig who also ended up with a respiratory infection.

The lighter colored guy is the one who I returned to be treated for a respiratory infection and then brought home again.

When I returned the third piggy, the first one with a respiratory infection was healthy, so I brought him home again. The fourth guinea pig I got, who *knocks on wood* has been healthy and happy so far, I felt, is pretty unique looking. Of course there's a ton of different types of guinea pig coats and colors. He's mainly red and black with some white stripes which isn't all that special, but he has a rough coat, which I had not seen before. Based on some reading, it sounds like he could possibly grow up to have a curly coat, but it's hard to say right now because he's so young.

See his rough coat

 I haven't named the guinea pigs yet, but they're both doing really well with being handled. The darker guy is still more jumpy, but the light one is pretty used to handling because he was on daily antibiotics for a while. I'm sure with daily handling, they'll both get used to it in short enough time. I'm trying different kinds of vegetables and chews for them right now to find out what they like. So far it seems like carrots are a big hit, but they're not too fond of bell peppers. I gave them some chunks of the orange I was eating last night and that disappeared pretty quickly.

To wrap things up, the dogs are doing great. I recently took my brother's dog to work with me for the first time (there had been an ongoing debate about whether she could come along with me for free as if she's mine because I live with her or if he'd have to pay for daycare - ultimately we decided if they live under the same roof as you, they count as yours). I brought her along with Jonesy so she'd have someone familiar besides me. She did pretty well, but given that she's a Husky, I would have thought she'd be way more playful than she actual was. I think she will just need a bit of time to adjust to the routine and understand that this is just one big play date for her.

My brother's dog, Athena, hiding in the dog house at work with Jonesy

I'm on day one of three days in a row off, so I've been cleaning up around the house a bit today. I worked 11 days straight and prior to that, I had worked a week with about 55 hours, so I'm glad to have the break. I've just got to decide what to do with my free time the next two days. Tomorrow is the day to do something outdoorsy for sure as Wednesday looks like it will be a bit cooler and rainy. I'm thinking of driving to the mountains and going for a hike, but I'm not sure yet. I'd better get back to cleaning or else I'll never finish!