The birds, the bees, gummy worms, gecko eggs.

On most days here on our porch, it nearly looks like that old Alfred Hitchcock movie--- "The Birds." We have nearly 25 barn swallows, if not more, who have built nests around our porch, and that's not counting the orchestra of sparrows and purple martins in the bird houses around the yard. And did I mention all the bluebirds in the little houses out in the pastures? At any given time, there is a symphony of bird-songs on our property. The barn swallows have built nests under the eaves of the porch... about six or eight nests, very well-built and sturdy, and when one mama bird has persuaded her babies to fly out of the nest, another mama bird takes over and lays her eggs in the same nest. The birds can be seen all over our porch all day long, on the railings, the window ledges, the ceiling fans. At night, the newest baby birds sometimes go back up near their nests to sleep.

I believe that the barn swallows recognize us now..... most of them will just sit tight on the porch columns or in the nests, as we go in and out of the doors and walk around the porch. They watch us from their perches, they watch me through the kitchen windows, and they keep an eye on Gatsby when he's outside. I wonder if the birds know that Gatsby is too lazy to try and catch them..... plus it's been too hot anyway for that type of movement for Gatsby.

Years ago when we first moved to Texas, I started collecting porcelain barn swallows that hang flat against the wall. I kept finding them at yard sales and thrift shops, and I bought them to decorate the walls in the kitchen of our old house. Now those same porcelain barn swallows are on the walls of our breakfast room here..... and real live barn swallows are decorating our porch on the outside of the house.

Bees..... countless bees and wasps this year. I can't even begin to count the number of nests that I have sprayed with that green can of 30-feet wasp spray. Trouble with that spray is that you have to make sure the chickens aren't around when you spray, otherwise their feathers would be dripping with that poison-stuff from that green can. There's another type of spray that lets out a foam (like shaving cream)--- you spray the wasp or bee nest with that and the foam covers the nest and they can't even fly out.

Gecko eggs...... I found one of those in the house, right near my computer desk. Looking at it from a distance, it looked like a little white pearl-shaped button. Heaven knows I haven't worn anything with a pearl button on it since we've been here, so I knew darn well that wasn't a button on the floor. I've long since learned not to pick anything up with my fingers unless I know what it is...... so I went after that 'button' thing with a little pair of tweezers. It was a perfectly formed teeny-tiny egg..... inside was dried out white liquid with a teeny black center. Our friends H & K told us it was a gecko egg. How did it get in my house? Well, of course, the gecko got in first..... you might find other eggs around the house. Believe me, I've looked. My guess is that the gecko that got in here laid just that one egg and then found her way back outside. (One can only hope.)

The gummy worms....... our friends J & J have their daughter and granddaughters visiting....... one of the little girls had a birthday and she wanted a special cake. Chocolate cake, chocolate pudding, green icing that looked like grass, and gummy worms mixed up in the cake. Gummy worms. They didn't have that type of candy when I was a kid. And if they did, I doubt very much that I would have eaten them. J stopped by the other day to give us a huge slice of that cake.... the chocolate parts were delicious, the green icing made your tongue an interesting shade of green....... but I just couldn't get myself to taste the gummy worms. With all the insects and wildlife and creepy crawling slithering things that I've seen since we've moved here, I just didn't want to have a candy worm closer to me than the plate it was sitting on.

Candy makers, take note: gecko eggs could be the latest craze. Little white egg-shaped candy with a teeny tiny baby gecko inside it. I'm cringing as I type this..... but kids would love them.