You bunch of smart-asses.

I don't know whether to put words over here,

Or here,

or over here.

I guess I will try putting the pictures in the middle, and the text right-justified? Does that make everyone happy?

We found an Imperial Moth in the backyard this morning:

It was looking pretty rough...It had quite a bit of wing gone.

But how beautiful is that yellow and pink fuzz? Like a little cat with wings.

And a face that everyone should love.

The dope on Imperial Moths:

Family: Wild Silk Moths (Saturniidae) (Same family as Luna moths!)

Subfamily: Royal Moths (Citheroniinae)

Identification: Females are larger than males. Upperside is yellow with pinkish brown to purple-brown patches, bands, and cell spots, and tiny brown spots scattered overall. Males have larger patches on the forewings than females, except for some subspecies pini males which have reduced purple and are mostly yellow.

Life history: Adults emerge before sunrise and mate after midnight the next day. Females lay eggs at dusk singly or in groups of 2-5 on both surfaces of host plant leaves. The eggs hatch in about 2 weeks, and the caterpillars are solitary feeders. Pupation takes place in underground burrows.

Flight: One brood; in the north from June-August, in the south from April-October.

Wing span: 3 1/8 - 6 7/8 inches (8 - 17.4 cm).

Caterpillar hosts: Conifers and deciduous trees and shrubs including pine (Pinus), oak (Quercus), box elder (Acer negundo), maples (Acer), sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua), and sassafras (Sassafras albidum). Subspecies pini feeds only on conifers.

Adult food: Adults do not feed. (WOW! They don't EAT?)

Habitat: Deciduous and evergreen forests.

Range: Maine west to eastern Nebraska, south to the Florida Keys and central Texas. Subspecies pini occurs across the northern Great Lakes basin and the northern third of Michigan's Lower Peninsula.

**********

This explains why I found it under one of our maple trees. Maybe it just laid eggs.
I have finally figured out why I feel so drawn to butterflies and moths. Same as why I am drawn to birds: They are beautiful and they can fly.

Sad news:
Lollipop, our blue parakeet, was dead at the bottom of his cage yesterday. When I removed him from the fishtank the other day, I checked him out and he didn't have any wounds, and seemed fine. But I guess the stress of being knocked out of his cage was too much for him. Echo is lonely, so we are giving him extra attention.
Hopeful news:
I am going over to visit my bestest bud, Shannon, tomorrow. She moved into an apartment today and I want to go over and give the place my approval. She is getting divorced, and it sucks. But she has her family and friends, and of course the most kick-ass best friend anyone could ask for. That would be me, by the way.
And I am hoping to bring a little something back with me. I will post about it tomorrow.
Today's Will-Yum:
Lorelei's pre-start-of-school physical was today. We saw the new nurse-practitioner and even though she had a great way with kids, Lorelei was so in her A-game. She chatted, answered all the questions posed to her, agreed to all the poking and prodding, smiling no less. I just had to sit there and translate a few words for the CNP. Like when Lorelei said the name of her new goldfish, which has been expanded to :Lipstick Flower Zip-It.
Not to toot my own horn, but...BEEP BEEP. We have done something right with these kids. They are smart, funny, outgoing, interesting.
YUM!

Randomosity

Word of the Day:

doyen \DOY-en; DWAH-yan\, noun:
1. The senior member of a body or group.
2. One who is knowledgeable or uniquely skilled as a result of long experience
in some field of endeavor.
3. A woman who is a doyen.

Nothing happened today. It snowed, that's about it.

I went out to RAPTOR to pick up some stuff, and saw my flock of pigeons, and the little white one that I love. (He's down on the lower right)

"No, Nellie, I will NOT play ball wit you in the snow."

The snow is annoying, but it's pretty.

Stream of consciousness/free association time:
I'm watching Napoleon Dynamite. I love it when the underdog wins.

Geoff and I both have had car problems the past two days. Yesterday, he got a flat tire. Today, my car wouldn't start in a parking lot. I got it going finally, but it sounds like it needs a new starter....again.

Tomorrow, we are going to Swami and Swamette's yurt for homemade spaghetti, a tradition in this family. Swamette's mother, Swametti, is Italian and she makes the best sauce and meatballs in the world. I will take pictures, and you can imagine how good it tastes.

Napoleon Dynamite is over. Now I am watching The Miracle Worker.

The cats knocked over the bird cage today. It's not like they have anything else to do down here.
Oh, I'm boring myself. I am off to see what everyone else has been up to.

Dogs 'R' Us

Word of the Day:

kobold \KOH-bold\, noun:
In German folklore, a haunting spirit, gnome, or goblin.


I invited Kathi (Katdoc) over for a doggie play date with her two dogs and our two dogs.
Boomer was not in the best mood to greet guests, so he spent the afternoon in Geoff's office.

Three large black dogs...I couldn't tell which one Nellie was half the time!

Kathi brought a ball-chucker thingy and Isabelle tried to learn to do it. It's kind of tricky, but Kathi helped.

This is Grace. A beautiful, aged Rottweiler with a sweet personality.

This is Holly. A beautiful aged Lab/what have you with a sweet personality.

We had such a great time. What nice dogs. Kathi is like the Dog Whisperer...calm and assertive, and her dogs are well-mannered and polite. And I thought Nellie was a good dog. Well, she is, but these two are awesome.

"There it goes! I'll get it!"

"I wanna play, too!"

I had to add this one...Holly had just come by to give a kiss, and left drool on my camera lens.


After the Visit:

One seriously tired, aged, Rott/Shep/what have you- dog.

The thousand yard stare....

Boomer didn't really mind being left out of the festivities.
"Hey, little kid...you taste like cookies."

Later on, we took a drive to check on some nests:

The GHO is still sitting. The first day I saw her incubating was January 16, so she has maybe a week to go (33 days average incubation) I can't wait to see those little piles of dryer lint!

This was exciting:
Marc (RAPTOR, Inc....LURKER!) told me about this nest right off Interstate 275. I haven't paid attention to it until recently, and today I saw a red-tailed hawk sitting above one of the nests (there is another one just one tree over from this nest) and another red-tailed was sitting just down the hill from the nest. Birds are starting to pair up! The end of this crappy, weird winter is near.
And in that vein, we are awaiting3-6 inches of snow. That's a big difference they were forecasting yesterday. (12-18 inches)

A castle, tracks in the snow, Boomer, raptor

Word of the Day:

redoubt \rih-DOWT\, noun:
1. A small and usually temporary defensive fortification.
2. A defended position or protective barrier.
3. A secure place of refuge or defense; a stronghold.


Pam recently posted about a castle in Syracuse, and it reminded me that Loveland has its own castle:
It's official name is Chateau La Roche, but everyone around here just calls it the Loveland Castle.
From the Dupont Castle website:

"Chateau La Roche is the work of one man, Sire Harry Andrews, who started building the castle in 1929. Most of the stones from which it was constructed were carried in buckets from the nearby riverbed. Mr. Andrews would on occasion let someone else do odd jobs such as mixing mortar, but he laid every stone himself. Some bricks used in the building of the castle were made by pouring cement into used milk cartons and removing the cartons after the cement had hardened.

Over the years a group of people known as the "Knights of the Golden Trail" was formed to help Mr. Andrews with the castle. When Mr. Andrews died at age 90 in 1981, the castle was willed to the Knights of the Golden Trail. The Knights are keeping Sire Harry's memory alive by taking care of the castle and putting the finishing touches on it. They also make sure someone is there to guard the castle at all times. The castle can be toured or rented for weddings, or perhaps a party. Each Halloween, it is made up to look like a haunted castle."

And if you are really riveted, here's the Loveland Castle's official website.

It's impossible to get a good view of the castle when it's closed. This is the best I could do. The above website link has an aerial view of the castle and courtyard.

No castle is complete without a medieval Hibachi.

The castle is "guarded" by a live-in caretaker at all times.

If Julie can do posts about tracks in the snow, I can too. This is the railroad track that runs through Loveland, Branch Hill, Indian Hill (blech), etc. And no trains have run since the snow fell...makes for a cool picture.

Still here...but Julie has a few nibbles, and so does Jane Streett, Chet's breeder. Everything that I can cross, is crossed. I am rather uncomfortable.

A very cold red-shouldered hawk around the corner...I will go out on a limb and say it's a second year. I love the face of a red-shouldered hawk. They have a much softer expression that red-tailed hawks.


Yawn...so little has been happening. But the school system around here will probably decide our children can attend classes, so I will go out and get me some birds tomorrow!
I have lots of photos on my flickr page now. Have I mentioned that I love flickr?

@#$%&ng snow

Word of the Day:

thaumaturgy \THAW-muh-tuhr-jee\, noun:
The performance of miracles or magic.

The snow began at 12 pm today, and just now stopped (9 pm). We got a good 8 inches of the crap. The girls' school was canceled before any snow even fell. Cincinnati sure knows how to panic about snow. But this time it was warranted. Swami called after he got home and it took him 2 1/2 hours to get back from the....yak corral.

Nellie and Boomer are bird watchers, too. Since I spent the day looking out the window, they did the same, trying to figure out what the heck I was looking at.

@#$&*ng snow.

The birds ate and ate all day. I supplied them with sunflower and safflower seeds, peanut butter, peanuts, insect suet, thistle, and granola bars.

Boomer loves to play out in the snow, but his little Boston body is ill-equipped for this kind of cold, so I limited his outside play time.

Nellie, on the other hand, being a Rottweiler/Labrador/German Shepherd/What-have-you type of dog, she can stay out there all day, it seems. She has taken to rolling every time she goes out, because she has some dry skin and needs to scratch.

This was the scene at 1 pm. Not too bad.

This is 4 pm. About 5 inches so far.

I kept going out with the broom and sweeping the snow away from the ground under the feeders to help the ground-feeding birds. The snow was so fluffy that the birds would land and they would sink up to their breasts. It would have been cute if it hadn't been so sad to watch.

Ahhh...I love my red-bellied woodpecker. Oops! He has peanut butter on his beak!

I picked up some dried mealworms, instead of live ones, because I have no way to keep them awake and alive in the cold. The starlings found it first. Any wonder they have taken over the country? They are always the first to exploit a food source.

I was hoping the Carolina wrens would take a few. But they wanted to either sit on the front tire of Geoff's car, or eat the spilled peanuts off the ground.

I made a lean-to for the dish of worms, to keep the snow off. One of the juncos investigated, but decided to go back to the seeds.

While Nellie keeps watch over the birds, Isabelle takes a picture of me taking a picture of her.

"Aaaaarrrroooooooo!"

Who wouldn't want this dog? Look at that. A kid scratching his belly while another dog licks his face. What a good dog.

Boomer Buns

Boomer lick

Nellie lick

A prayer for tomorrow:
Please, let me get the car out of the driveway so I can get the Hell out of this house
before I go coo-coo bananas.

Since I sat on my duff all day, when Geoff came down for dinner, I just HAD to do something constructive. So I went out and shoveled the driveway. Ever sweat and freeze at the same time?
Right now, Deliverance is on AMC. I have never seen the whole movie, but I always seem to turn it on right at the 'squeal like a pig' scene. That's disturbing. And what's on next?
Children of the Corn. Jeepers. More unfriendly locals.