Category Archives: Birds

Q is for Quail and Questions

Q is the letter of the alphabet that we are on for Monday April 20th.

We are always pleased to see a covey of quail show up on our property.

We are headed to Spokane today to buy some replacement tiles for our backsplash in the laundry room. One piece cracked when Dear was fitting the electric outlet. Oops. We are buying two pieces of the tile this time around…just in case. We are so close to that room being completed.

Questions for you since we are on the letter Q:

  1. Do you know what day of the week it is without double checking?
  2. Do you have a good supply of toilet paper and other paper products?
  3. Do you know where you will spend eternity?
  4. Do you have good internet service and cell phone service where you live?
  5. What restaurant do you miss most?
  6. What is the latest Bible passage you have read that gives you hope?
  7. lf you enjoy sports what sport team do you miss the most?
  8. What is something you have baked during COVID-19 for the first time?
  9. Who do you miss hugging the most?
  10. Do you have a prayer request for me? I will pray if you share.

Woodpecker

I believe this is a Northern Flicker that comes to find bugs on this post in our back acres. I wish someday to get a photo of it flying in full wing spread to show it’s beautiful copper underside.

I’m looking forward to the time that our backyard is full of birds again. Soon enough.

Today is Lunar New Year and we are heading to the one Chinese Restaurant in town for Linner. This will be our first time to eat in this restaurant. As I finish up this post Dear is finishing up the painting of the walls in our master bath. Soon I’ll share more before and afters of that space.

Happy weekend everyone.

Quail and Chewbacca…

We always get a big kick out of watching the quail around here year round.

I’m taking these photos from our family room slider zooming in.

There always seems to be a leader that everyone else follows.

They are on the move…

Away they go.

Couldn’t resist sharing this fun photo of our son Josh getting a surprise embrace from Chewbacca at Disneyland today. Our kids enjoyed the day there with a few of their cousins. It was fun seeing what they enjoyed and the people they bumped into. Looked like an absolutely magical day at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Preparing for Winter…

This covey of quail were in our backyard before our latest snow.

Looks like this one is ready for winter for sure.

It is always a treat to see a covey of quail in our back yard. Right now our yard is covered with a few inches of snow so finding treats will be a little tougher.

Winter is upon us with it’s official arrival on Saturday. We had about four inches of snow on Thursday. We have warmer days coming, into the forties predicted with rain, so our snow will soon be a slushy mess. It is snowing while I type so we’ll probably have over five inches by Friday morning.

Addy came for a short visit this morning so her mommy could finish up some shopping. She helped me wrap some gifts and played. All my wrapping is done except for a few gifts still ordered and on their way. Living in the country we end up doing more shopping online with deliveries to our door. On our road we have a rural mail carrier. They deliver the mail in their own vehicles. We do not see U.S. Postal vehicles on our road.

Hope you all have a peaceful joyful last weekend before Christmas.

Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s strength and consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

Charles Wesley

Summer Visitors

This buck that has visited our back yard has an antler out of whack.

I wonder if his deer friends notice?

We have other summer visitors on a smaller scale, too.

Baby quail are getting bigger every day.

There are also lots of baby turkeys in the area that cause some road hazards.

We will enjoy some human summer visitors, too, soon. Are you expecting any visitors or have you already had summer visitors? If you are or have I hope they were or are of the encouraging types.

Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV)

24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Woody Woodpecker

Seems like it’s time for these babes to be out flying on their own.

These Peckers chose a tree stump in our front yard to nest in.

I was wondering if mama is inside getting food from daddy for the baby woodpeckers.

She seems to be telling him a thing or two.

Our satellite internet has been extremely slow and uploading photos takes a lot of time. Sigh.

I had a couple projects with a twist on my agenda today and mowing the lawns is on the agenda for tomorrow. Hope to get around to any new posts in blogland on Wednesday evening. Half of July is in the record books. Hope it’s going well for you.

Saturday, Bath Day

It’s fun to see our birdbath in use from time to time. Sitting in our family room I have a clear view of the birdbath through the sliding glass doors that open to our back acreage. I keep a camera handy with a long lens on it to capture moments like these.

In for a dip and then it was all in.

All washed up and ready for church tomorrow morning.

If I recall correctly, growing up we only had baths once a week on Saturday evening so we were all nice and clean for Sunday church. Every morning we’d have to wash our faces but baths were once a week. Things changed when we hit junior high and high school. When we had kids of our own it was normal to have a bath a day instead of once a week. I wonder sometimes if our little ones are too clean and not able to fight off common infections as when we were little. I remember having the diseases like measles and chicken pox but I don’t remember having lots of colds or the flu and we were never on antibiotics. I do remember having pink eye. I also had some mystery ailment (kidney infection?) that landed me in the hospital when I was in first grade and I was in recovery at home for a long enough time that I had a teacher come to our home for studies. The reason I think it might have been a kidney infection is because I had to drink a lot of water and I wasn’t allowed to have salt. My parents probably didn’t really understand what was wrong with me because they were never really able to tell me when I asked them about my mystery ailment. On the subject of communicable diseases I recall standing in a very long line with my family at the local junior high for polio vaccinations when I was elementary age. We also got smallpox vaccinations in elementary school. That smallpox vaccination was pretty primitive and left an interesting scar. Since we are on this subject of communicable, thankfully I only remember having lice once, in elementary school. Oye! My mother worked very hard to eradicate them. When I was an elementary school teacher there was an outbreak of lice and it made me squirm.

Hope you have a nice last Saturday in June! Happy Canada Day weekend to our friends to the North.

 

Seek First…

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

~Matthew 6:26-34 (ESV)

It has been such a treat to enjoy the variety of birds that fly and perch in our back acres. How is your week coming? We are having a heat event with temps predicted in the 90’s tomorrow and Thursday and upper 80’s for Friday and the weekends. We are doing yard work in the early hours and watering in the evenings.

So far we haven’t managed to kill off any of the pretty things that are blooming in our yard. We purchased some rain bird sprinklers to use in our front acres so that they can do the watering for us. Gradually we are learning what are the best techniques and devices to use for the upkeep of our country bungalow.

Spring Visitors

In April, before we drained our pond, we had 3 real ducks land in it. I had to look up their name on google images. They are Common Mergansers.

In May we had some more visitors. This Quail sat on top of this birdhouse for the longest time calling out.

This turkey kept pacing our side fence and it seemed like it’s bird brain could not figure out how to get out of our backyard. Dear went on the deck and made some noise and it finally realized it could fly over the fence.

Finally caught a Tom Turkey fanning it’s tail feathers!

Colville claims the title of the Turkey Capital of the Pacific Northwest.

The Swallows continue to entertain us with their flying.

Our Spring clean up continues. We are working on getting the pond liner cut and removed. It’s a toilsome job especially because of the scum. Pond scum is a real thing.

We’ve been in the 70’s and there are predictions of soaring in the 80’s on the weekend!

Hope the merry month of May is going well in your corner.