Spring, yeah, not here

A week into spring and I'm cold.  I'm tired of being cold!  Today is windy and COLD.  Sigh.  Really has put me in a BAD mood.  Would love to get out and hike with the dogs, but it's too damned cold.  I mean, I don't mind this kind of cold during the real winter, when I can put my snow shoes on and go for a stroll.  But this, can't hike, can't snow shoe, can't easily ride the horse from the house.  AND, it's suppose to snow all weekend.  Sigh.

Aside from that, there are lots of birds in the yard and I am enjoying watching them.  Grey squirrels have been playing in the yard, which, while fun to watch, I don't trust them not to do a lot of damage.  The Golden Mantels will be back soon, then I'll have to consider getting a cat, which will chase the birds off as well.  Ah, maybe I'll luck out and the ground squirrels won't come back.  Hmmm, I'll have to check to see if maybe the grey squirrels chase them off.  If they do, I may take a liking to them and let them stay.  I know they chase the red squirrels off, cause they did yesterday.  Hmmm.

Thinking that maybe, just maybe, spring was close by, I set up my outdoor grooming and trimming station for the horses.  Managed to get one horse trimmed before it turned nasty.  I much prefer to do them outside rather than in the barn.

So, time to do some work inside the house.

Cozy Nests

Last night, just before dusk I saw a Raven fly low overhead with some thing in his beak.  I thought it odd, since Ravens are carrion eaters and tend to eat their meal with in a few yards of where they find it, even if it's quite small.  Not only that, what ever it was carrying was almost white.  I couldn't think of any small critters in the area that would be that light in color.

So, I go out to feed the horses this morning and a Raven flies by with a really big white some thing in its mouth.  Hmmm, light bulb goes off in my head.  When I brush the horses, all very light in color, I toss the hair they shed out into the paddock for the birds should they want it for nest building.

LOL, apparently they do.  The Ravens had even gone inside one of the stalls where I had tossed a couple large bunches of hair last night.  Some little baby Ravens are going to have a really nice cozy nest this year!

I quite like having the Ravens around, they come in and go through the horse manure and I almost never have a fly or bug problem.  Attracting the right birds can really help with the bug population.  Come mosquito season, I'll be wishing I had more Bats and Night Hawks, that's for sure.

Any way, the darn Ravens have not let me get close enough to get any good photos.  This one this morning was on the fly and the only half way decent one I've managed to get.  So, I'm going to brush the horses tonight, leave the hair out in the paddock, get up early in the morning and see if I can get some photos of them.  Ah, worth a try.

Bald Eagle 2011

I stopped by La Pine State Park during the Great Back Yard Bird Count last week and took this picture of a winter resident.  Not sure I don't like this picture just a bit more than the Bald Eagle I got last fall.  I almost got it in flight, almost.

Ear Buds and Ear Wax

I spent the last 4 days deaf in my right ear and limited hearing in my left.  Scared the living begeejus out of me.  I mean, I've always had super human hearing.  Years ago when I'd go in for my aviation physical, the doctor would joke that he loved to see me come in because I calibrated his machine, hearing tones that very few could.  Of course, age has taken it's toll, but still, I have pretty darn good hearing for a 60 y/o, even with a case of tinitis.

I had noticed that my hearing was not as good lately and I hadn't cleaned my ears in a bit, so, I dropped a few drops of mineral oil into my ear.  Wham, no hearing.  Okay, okay, that was what a doctor had told me to do, what the heck just happened?!  Maybe there was a bug in there and it just ran up into the canal and blocked it??  Yeah, doesn't explain the other ear.

So, long story short, called RN friend.  I have been doing a lot of listening to audio books of late and I prefer what are called IEM's, they're the ear buds that go into the canal and seal.  Turns out they heat the canal, causing the ear wax to melt and then the ear buds block the canal so the ear wax can't get out.  When I put the mineral oil in, it did what it should, softened the wax, but because there was so much of it, the wax just sealed off the canal.  No hearing in one ear and limited in the other.

RN friend tells me to not panic, put mineral oil in canal twice a day to soften wax for 5 days, then flush ear canal with body temp water, should take care of it.  5 days with no hearing, this is going to drive me nuts.  Today was day three, had to try the water flush.  OMG, you would not believe how much wax came out!  Any way, I can hear out of the right ear now and I'll start on the left tomorrow.  No way I was doing the left until I knew for sure it would work.

Switching to head phones from here on, nothing going inside my ears!!