Mother Nature can be cruel

This picture shows the remains of the snowstorm (especially on the deck in progress), which surprised us yesterday morn. Pleas note the bluebird box on the back fence. We have a family of bluebirds living there and mom and dad were so very diligently bringing insects to the babies until day before yesterday. Since we are re-decking this surface, the steps down have been temporarily removed. The beagle went out early before daylight and couldn't get back up on the deck very well. Anyway, in my attempt to get her back in, my beautiful cat got out. In spite of the fact that he is "pretty", he is quite a hunter. As soon as I got up again, and he had only been out 2 hours, I suspected that the bluebird family was in trouble. I only saw "mom" feeding the babies and the wind was blowing so violently that she was fighting it constantly. The Mr. and I started to search the property for evidence and in the flowerbed near the back deck we discovered both a mouse and remains of Daddy bluebird. (The mouse was evidently an attempt to prove to me that he was still somewhat useful despite his appetite for fowl.) Now comes the mother nature part. In spite of the fact that we have them for companions, cats by nature are hunters. This can be cruel, but it is the truth. Within a few hours of the discovery, and our constant watching her to see if she could keep up with the feeding schedule alone, we noticed another male emerge upon the scene. He became quite attentive to her as she continued to search for food for the babies and fight the wind. He perched on the fence and even peeked into the house, but his quest for her attention continued. We were hoping that he might help her hunt and feed the babies. After 3 days, she is still managing to keep some of the babies at least fed and keep him interested also. (The Mr. peeked in the box when she was gone on the first day and to our surprise, the babies are quite large, fully feathered and there are 4 or 5 of them. We do hope that Mom can keep up the pace as she must be totally exhausted! Our cat is confined to the house for a while now hopefully.

Since it is the first of June, we started to watch for baby antelope and saw our first two yesterday and they were tiny, probably born within hours.




"All gardeners live in beautiful places because they make them so." ~ Victor Hugo