St. Patrick's Day

My cousin F tells me that the Powers That Be on the Food Channel aren't mentioning that today is "St. Patrick's Day." Does that mean that the Liberal Powers That Be are now saying that it isn't politically correct to talk about Saint Patrick's Day?! Do we need to say Mr. Patrick's Day from now on?! Give me a blessed break....... all of that has gotten way out of control, if you ask me.

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, I made Irish soda bread.... came out very well, but I put most of it in the freezer. Our young Miss C may come for an over-night visit next weekend, so I will take it out then and we can all have it for breakfast. Irish Soda Bread French Toast? How's that for being open-minded and politically incorrect?!

My husband and I walked around the property this morning.... my husband usually does that every weekend to check on the progress in the bluebird houses. New nests, just-laid eggs, and a few tiny hatchlings to report this week. The bluebird eggs are so vibrantly blue....... and the hatchlings are so teeny and helpless, with their bright yellow beaks being the largest part of them. So impossibly cute, and so terribly helpless until they've grown their feathers and are able to leave the safety of their nests.

The barn swallows are back..... and two have taken residence over one of the kitchen windows again. That nest has been there (and occupied) for two Springs and two Summers. The adult birds are keeping an eye on Gatsby when he's out on the porch, and both Mickey and Sweet Pea are constantly watching the birds flying back and forth to the nest. One of the barn swallow nests has been claimed by a pair of wrens. Teeny birds in that nest built by the larger barn swallows..... I'm sure the mama bird has already laid her eggs because she's been guarding the nest like a sentry, with Sweet Pea keeping watch from the breakfast room windows.

As we walked the property this morning, we could see thousands upon thousands of bluebonnets..... just a few are already showing their blooms, but most of them won't be ready for that for another couple of weeks...... then we will have an explosion of color here. The Weather Wizards have been promising that this will be a spectacular wildflower season, and I'm sure they're right.

The ducks that were in the pond (19 at last count) have moved on now...... I'm guessing that they were using our pond as a resting and/or meeting place as they flew from one location to another. I'm hoping that they'll be back at the end of the Summer, as they fly from east to west (north to south?) from their summer home to their winter home.

The pond is by no means empty, though..... we have at least six turtles out there, and about 37,000 frogs...... you can hear the frog symphony at night after the sun goes down. And the poor little frogs who choose to come out of the pond and see what's on the other side of the road-- those are the ones that we see squished into the gravel and tar when we go walking in the morning. Ouch.

The stray cat...... she's still around, and I've been calling her Lady Ga-Ga....... for the simple reason that Gatsby and Mickey and Sweet Pea (all males) are watching her closely as she eats and not hissing or howling at her..... Gatsby has gone ga-ga over Lady Ga-Ga. The stray comes up on the porch to eat..... I keep food out there on the picnic table for her. She will eat and then walk across the porch, down to the back deck, out into the yard and then across the property and into the barn. I'm sure she's been living in the barn, especially after all the rain we had last week.... at least she was warm and dry, and she just got her feline fur wet a little bit when she got hungry enough to run through the rain. For as long as she's here, I will continue to feed her. Lady Ga-Ga is definitely an outside cat, though. If she sees us through the windows, she will run and hide.... she's only interested in eating her meals here... she doesn't want to have a relationship. Lady Ga-Ga is a cat, and that's that.