May 21, 2014

Woodpecker Watching

May 21, 2014

What fun it has been to watch the woodpeckers!  God must have told the male Golden-fronted Woodpecker last September to dig out his hole in the tree right in that spot.  God knew how much I would appreciate it being in that exact spot and how it would lift my spirits on days I was needed a little lift.  The first day or two the woodpecker had worked on the hole, he saw me watching and I thought he might select another spot, but he stuck with it.  I am so glad he did.  I have watched the comings and goings in that hole ever since that time last September.  I have read that they will normally use a hole for two years and then move on, but occasionally they will stay as long as 4 years.  I am hoping for 4 years.

I had gone to sleep early last night so it was easy to get up early this morning and spend time in the yard filling ponds, birdbaths, and bird feeders, as well as taking out fresh citrus for the woodpeckers to feed to their baby/babies.  I watered the hanging plants and spent a few minutes pulling weeds in the yard before coming in to find that my brother-in-law had already arrived to spend an hour or so photographing the baby woodpecker.  I still am hoping I am right and that there is more than one baby in that hole, but he could be right.  I just can't believe the amount of food they have taken in and how they could have fed more if one ate all that they supplied.

While Jim took photos, I worked in the kitchen.  My oldest grand daughter had used her mom's cell phone to text me a couple of days ago to ask if I would make chocolate chip cookies for the children's choir at church.  They had presented a musical last Sunday morning in the worship service, and tonight they were having a party to relax after all their hard work to prepare for the musical.  I love to bake, so it worked out fine for me to make them and them get them out of my house so I would not eat them all.

Even with my Cochlear Implant, it is hard for me to hear the timer on my oven going off.  A couple of times Jim had to let me know even though I was working in the kitchen.  If I am home alone baking, I have to turn off any noise making item like the TV so that hopefully I can hear the timer.  The cookies were great.  After I finished them Jim headed back to Mom's house and I took the cookies to Jeff and Barb's house.  It was good to see the grandchildren since we had been out of town and not seen them this past Sunday.


At the office, Ron was out on jobs several times during the day.  That meant I had frequent contact with customers.  All went well with them.  Besides that, I worked on the blog entry for Monday and Tuesday of this week.  With this blog posting, I will be caught up for now!  This afternoon I wrote some overdue letters/emails.  I was glad to have some spare time to do that.

After work we met Mom and Jim for supper.  We ended up at a corner table - me in the corner - at supper.  That made the voices sound like we were in a well.  There was a very loud child when we first got into the room and about 2/3 of the way through our meal, they left.  That helped my hearing some, but not enough.  Jim is leaving tomorrow about noon and we wanted to have one last visit, but he may end up coming by here for a while before he leaves in the morning, in hopes of seeing one of the baby woodpeckers come out of the hole.  There is one (maybe the only one) that I think in a female.  She kept sticking her head further and further out of the hole all evening after I got home from supper.

Back to our supper, we had a fun visit.  There were times we laughed so hard it was good we were the only ones in the room where we were eating.  We would have disturbed others.  As we were leaving we ran into some friends.  The lady is going to be having a thyroid biopsy soon and I was able to tell her about my experience of it being a painless, easy procedure.  I pray that her results are good.  It was interesting as we talked, how many friends and family came to mind who are having assorted types of thyroid problems.  Interesting.

Once I got home it was time to take care of things in the yard again.  When I came in, I spent about 30 minutes photographing the woodpeckers.   The young one reminds me of children who have been sent to their room and they keep peeking out a little further and a little further to see if they can come out and not get in trouble. 

Come on out, little one, so Uncle Jim can get photos before he leaves town.  

You could end up in one of his books some day!