Nature's Irony and Other Bits

• My husband is going to bale hay this weekend. A lot of folks have been trying to do the same but the weather hasn't been cooperating... we've had rain and hail in between the hot days for the past week or so. Yesterday was a good "drying" day with late sun and a breeze so maybe they'll be able to bale today.
  
• The head grower at work (my boss's boss) forgot to put in my vacation request again. I was actually betting on him not submitting it, but the result is that I didn't get paid for taking last weekend off. So I decided to use the time next month for another weekend. The double whammy: my boss will be on vacation... I usually take over while he's gone... now neither of us will be there, and the guy who forgot to put my vacation time in will have to step in. Bet he doesn't forget next time!
• Don't mess with Momma Nature! Yesterday I was walking through the service area/loading dock. There was a cardboard box lying on its side on top of a big soil bale. Something in the box moved when I walked by... I looked, and a young kestrel was perched on the inside edge of the box, not three feet away! I called a couple of the guys to come look, thinking maybe we could fold the flaps up, trap the bird in the box, and take him outside where there was food and light and all those things birds need. I didn't want to risk getting pecked or talon'ed, but one guy walked right up to the kestrel and carefully closed the flaps without incident. We took the box out behind the building and let the bird go in our field... he flew straight to the roof, where unbeknownst to us, a family of robins had a nest full of babies. The robins went nuts and started screeching and dive-bombing our poor little kestrel. Then a red-winged blackbird joined the cacophony, swooping at the robins AND the kestrel. Poor little guy! What a wake-up call... he hadn't quite mastered the art of flying except in a straight line, but he did get away eventually. (More about kestrels, with photos, HERE.)
• In other critter news, we watched another set of baby robins fly the coop last week. They nested on the braces right over our heads in our outdoor "lunch hut." When the last one left, after hanging around pooping on everything for three days, he went in a straight line directly from the hut towards the truck staging area. We watched, saying "He's heading for a trailer." "Is he gonna hit the side of the rig?" "Nah, he'll pull up before he gets there...." WHAP, slide, thud *little poof of dust rises* "Oh. Guess not." He was okay though. Flew off finally. Maybe a little brain damaged now, but I believe all robins are demented anyway.
• I have scrapbook fever again. For once, I was in on a "fad" when it first got big, as in a decade ago. Even though people have been making scrapbooks for ages, that was when manufacturers started coming out with a bunch of neat little gizmos and tools and templates and such. I did two or three pages before moving on to something else (My last page was my nephew's birth announcement. He's 7 now.) Last week, after looking at the hundreds of photos on my computer, I thought it would be neat to make some "hard copy" scrapbook pages and spend time with the hubby in the evenings putting it together. We went to A.C. Moore. I think my eyes bugged out a good inch... when did all this STUFF come out? Nobody even has to be creative anymore, it's all done for them! Just buy preprinted papers, preprinted titles, pre-inked stamps, premade cutouts and page kits, add a photo or two and stick it all together with some handy no-mess glue strips and you're done! Yeesh. I mean I know it's a Big Thing; scrapbook classes, groups, and shops have popped up everywhere over the past few years and some people actually DO make their own add-ons. But other than "do I put the bunny cutouts on the right side or the left?" there's hardly any skill or thinking involved anymore, as long as one has the money to buy all the premade items. I'm going to be defiant and use old-fashioned Elmer's glue.
  
• 'Nuff writing, but I want to leave you with an awesome link. This guy takes balloon animals to the level of art form... the farther down you scroll the more incredible it gets!