You Capture - Fun

Beth's You Capture subject this week is Fun. At first I pondered when I could get together with some of my grandchildren to take Fun pictures but since a relaxing visit wasn't on the horizon, I thought about what I do on a day-to-day basis that's fun.

One things that's always Fun is feeding our koi. Unfortunately it's a little early in the season to get great shots so these will just give an idea of how fun it is.

Right now, though, my go-to fun activity is photographing the birds in our backyard. I try to capture them in flight or in quirky poses or just going about their day-to-day businesses.

Or sometimes in a series. Starting here, the guys at the lunch counter must surely feel like somebody's watching them.

Soon he joins in - unobstrusively.

Then he takes over.

For see more Fun shots, go to Beth's I Should Be Folding Laundry. Or join in, what could be more Fun?

The Birds

I wrote about the flowers heralding the onset of an early Spring. Now it's time to write about the birds.

I waited all winter for the terrible weather to save the birds by putting out the feeder. It really never came so the couple of times that we had a little snow, I put it up. And about the time the birds would get used to it being there, so would the squirrels and every time I'd look out the window there'd be one or two dangling from the feeder. So I'd take it down. You know a person should almost trap them and relocate them. Maybe I'll write a post about that later but right now it's all about the birds.

They're all back and I have pictures of a lot of them to prove it.

Of course these guys never left.

And these guys I could live without but I guess you have to take the bad with the good.

In fact a lot of these were around all winter I guess. It's just now that we're seeing so many of them. Surely it's the amazing weather.

But the ones that really fill my heart with joy? The beautiful bluebirds.

They don't visit the feeder so I have to enjoy them from a distance but that's okay. I just love bluebirds.

And I promised to include a picture of the hyacinths in my Flower Power post so here it is. Later I'll go out and take a better one but this is all I have in my file right now.

I really need to get more pink. These are right outside our door so every time you walk in the house, the air is perfumed with their scent.

And, finally, Harry and I had a little getaway last week. We had a good time visiting the money stealers - I mean casinos - in Tunica, Mississippi. The weather was lovely and we really had a good time. Here we are near Rend Lake in Southern Illinois.

That's all for now. Later on, I really will write about what it would be like if we ever did trap and relocate squirrels.

Bird Feeding and Watching

We had such a difficult winter that I became concerned for our struggling feathered friends and finally bought a bird feeder. Within a couple of days we had a pretty respectable variety of visitors.

See how cute they are? And not only are they fun to look at, they're fun to listen to also.

Life was better despite the cold and snow but then as it began to warm up a little, we had more, less welcome visitors.

One day as I was exercising, I glanced out the window and the bird feeder was hanging sideways. I asked Mr. Right why it looked like that and he said, "oh, because there's a squirrel hanging on it". Sure enough, a squirrel had it tilted sideways so the seed could pour out more easily as he assisted it with his paw - reaching in and dragging out more and more seeds. He had his tail wrapped around the front of the feeder which for some reason added to the offensive sights.

Soon more and more squirrels came. I understand that they have to eat too and I'm really not adverse to feeding them .... except they never get full. It's unbelievable. And they're so bold. I finally started trying to scare them off. But they weren't scared of me. When I came out the door, they just looked at me while munching the birdseed that was filling their cheeks. No I had to go almost right up to them before they'd scamper off just far enough for me to leave and then they'd calmly come back.

You would think I'd have pictures of some of them but the truth is that when I saw them I spent my energies trying to get rid of them and didn't even consider photographing them.

Finally, they were so bold and so annoying that I decided it was time to take action. Tomorrow I'll write about what we decided to do and how that has worked out for us.