Happy Father's Day, Dad/Bud!

Dad, here's hoping you have a great Father's Day! All the Dores send their best wishes, too.

We stopped at a great place in Southern Oregon that is a resort composed entirely of treehouses. This was strictly a research visit, of course. We hope to end up there with either the grandsons or with Owen and Adrian. Any kid would go crazy there, but these boys in particular would love any place with treehouses and ziplines.

We got a lot of great ideas for our treehouse project, and some impressive important hardware. More later on this topic!

Today's weather was forecast as overcast and partly sunny, but the weather gods relented and allowed Mike and Molly the finest day of sun and breezes and warmth that we'd seen all year. So we made the most of it and took the grandsons - and their dads - down to the beach in La Jolla. Lovely!!

Finally, we all went out to eat at the beloved Mexican restaurant here and finished off with your favorite, Dad, Ice Cream! However, I would bet good money that you never even thought to try a scoop of "Bubblegum" with one of "Cotton Candy," topped off with a healthy (?) sprinkle of gummy bear candy.

Lots of love, Dad!

More Birds and a Bear

We said it before and can say it again - this must be the year of the bird. Several new avian episodes must be reported, and one sad demise. Let's get that one out of the way.

We have three cylindrical seed dispensing feeders that all hang from one central metal post, each on a separate arm. The feeder is under a young maple located 20 - 30 feet from the house, in the hope that while it's close enough to be able to watch the action, that the main flight paths will be clear of the house. However, this latter hope has proven not to be. Our house is only 24 feet wide and there are large windows on either side, so it looks  like there's a clear shot through to the average bird brain. Window? What's a windo---Crash!

Last year, after several heart-breaking (or, from the birds' viewpoint, neck-breaking) fatalities in a row, I hung a series of bird-diverting old CDs from string attached just under the eaves. This has worked wonders - until this spring, and either the birds are acclimated to the CDs or don't believe in their scariness or something, but impacts have increased once again. I'm open to remedial suggestions.

Yesterday, I heard a small thump, and being accustomed to gauging the severity of the impact by its sound level, judged that it was a non-fatal hit. Later, though, we discovered the body of a young female rufus hummingbird just below the glass door. No CDs hang there. The tiny bird must have hit at pretty high speed to have made any sound at all.

I have always been astonished at the miniature size of the hummingbirds. To hold that small body and see the exquisite detail of coloration and form was moving. She didn't weigh much more than a cicada. The legs are smaller in diameter than grass stems, and each contain tiny veins, arteries, little bitty muscles, and networks of nerves as well as the delicate, hollow bones. So small, so perfect, and now so dead.

The wing feathers interlock to create a more air-resistant surface, and yet are translucent due to their thinness. I put my finger behind it to show how one can see right through. 

Let's all take a moment of silence for her, and for all the wee birdies that die every day every year against human windows.

Since I started writing this, two different evening grosbeaks have hit the dining room window, and neither died. We have stopped feeding the birds. In addition to the injuries and fatalities, the little ingrates have been shredding our garden plant sets. Today I discovered that new brocolli plants had had delicate leaves just snipped off, allowed to fall, not even eaten.

Other bird lore: I watched a crow chasing a hawk and as they neared the tops of the cottonwood trees, the hawk did a roll and presented its talons - upside down, mid-air! The crow immediately fled.

There is a young hawk who makes a bunch of noise as it flies, probably to let Mom know where it is. Last Friday, it landed in the top of a fir tree above the barn, and the adult hawk flew up to it, but did not land, dangling a snake in its talons. It seemed to be enticing the youngster to follow, and eventually it did, the two spiraling quite high before heading off.

On yet another occasion of dog ball throwing, Charlie had completely lost his blue ball and I was trying to help. We were down in the portion of the lawn near the creek, and the male bald eagle flew up-creek, using Mosby as its flyway. It was maybe 20 yards away and I could see it more clearly than I had ever seen one in the wild before - white head, steely eye, white tail. Very awesome.

And for our final story, one morning at 4 am, Charlie was barking like crazy. Usually when he gets worked up about some nocturnal event, we turn on the back light and he happily trots in to sleep in the bathroom. In fact, sometimes I suspect that he goes into the barking act just to wrangle a night inside. This time was quite different. When I turned on the light, he did come, but he kept at a distance, continued barking and springing around, and then went charging off again.  Mike succeeded in making him cease and desist. Now we recognize that he was yelling, "Code Red!" The next morning, Mike awoke to find that the birdfeeder was bent to the ground, all the hanging seed cylinders were stripped off their arms, and the one that would not open easily had massive teeth-made holes.

One neighbor up our back hill has had his beehive marauded by a bear, and another neighbor's shed door was ripped off by - probably - the same bear in order to access their trash. I called Fish and Wildlife and spoke to a biologist who was very enlightening. He says that this cool wet spring we're having has kept the normal bear fare from ripening - the wild strawberries and thimbleberries, etc. Bears subsist on grass and ferns until these come in, but don't really get much nourishment from the greens and start looking for grubs and insect hives to supplement some protein. Or, as our resourceful local bear has done, start moving into human environments to check out the potential.

Yet another reason to cease feeding the birds - which was the biologist's recommendation, saying that they don't need it any longer. I'll miss all the shows and the cheerful racket, but can do without the drama.

Mike's Awards

Last week at the Business School faculty meeting, Mike was given two awards - one for Best Teacher of winter term, and one for Most Inspirational, a student-nominated prize. He got both last year, too, and the Dean apparently looked at him funny and murmured something about needing to do some monopoly-busting or some such. The only way that they can do that - and it has happened, three different times - is to rewrite the rules of qualification so as to exclude previous winners of x or more awards. Which seems a tad tainted, if one asks me, but no one did.

Here's to Mike, Best and Most Inspirational Teacher! You rock, love.

The Birds!

This is, apparently, the year of the birds. We must have dozens of goldfinches, and the house finches, purple finches, and two kinds of grossbeaks (evening and black-headed) are also very plentiful. There is one male goldfinch who has no yellow to him- he's white with black markings instead. I call him Whitey. Not too original, but he ignores us no matter what I call him.

One day a couple of weeks back, Mike commented that he had only seen the Western Tanager once in all the time we've lived here. The very next day, he saw a male twice!

Yes, there he is! Right outside the dining room door. A tad fuzzy on focus, but decidedly a western tanager. Handsome dude, eh? Mike took the photos.

Just for a fuller effect.

While I'm writing, there was a starling hanging out in the garden. We have over half a dozen tree swallow birdhouses under the eaves of the barn, just above the garden beds. The swallows seemed pretty provoked by the starling's presence, and dive-bombed him until he gave up and flew off.

The swallows also nest in the purported bluebird houses, and usually manage to pre-empt any western bluebirds. However, this year a nesting pair of blues have held out against the swallow bullies and are out, feeding and adding their unmistakable color to our world. They are the legendary Bluebirds of Happiness, and they live right here.

As every year, we have two varieties of humming birds. They arrive pretty early, so I'm glad when we have viburnum and early rosemary in bloom to get them through until the big bloomers make the scene.

We've seen great blue herons, Canada geese, mallards and merganser ducks down on the creek lately. All seem to be nesting.

I've seen a red-tailed hawk drop on prey just in the front pasture twice in the past week and a week ago I was out throwing the blue rubber ball for Charlie when a bald eagle flew over the far end of the back yard.

My best and worst story, though, is that the next day when I was out throwing the ball with the ball launcher, the ball arced out and hit a tree swallow, dead-on, mid-air! About 15-20 feet up. The bird was badly stunned and only managed to flap feebly - enough to keep from crashing to the ground - a kind of slow spiral down. Then it lay there, twitching, on its back. I picked it up and wondered where I could put it safely to keep it sheltered and out of the way of the cat. I put it up on the fiberglass roof of our compost pile where it sat, bewildered, until it suddenly flew off. No weird maneuvers, seemed OK.

My hope is that the incident will create buzz among the swallows about a really big, fast, and belligerent bluebird and that the blues will gain some street status.

This Blog's for you, Bud!

After a several month hiatus, I am resuming this blog. I sent an e-mail to my dad, Bud Hoffer, and tried to attach a photo easily from my computer's library and it simply didn't work. Dad likes to have a printed page to be able to read, and loves seeing the photos we collect. So, here goes, Dad, this one's for you!

 Every summer, we have a project that commandeers Mike's time. Last year, he spent most of the summer preparing for teaching in Italy, especially for the Consumer Behavior course - one that he never teaches at the U of O. But, here and there, he also found time to complete the guest cottage sufficiently for our summer guests.

The outside of the guest house, fairly complete.

An interior shot, showing beams, fancy wood working touches, and salvaged stained glass window.

Mike stands below the site of our next project: the tree house! This lovely oak is behind the main house, and is one of several old giants back there. We intend to build a platform on which the tree house will be constructed this summer. It will connect to another oak via a rope bridge that an engineer (!! someone we know!!) is designing. There is noise about a possible fire pole and a zip-line. If only it stood over the swimming hole.....