bits and pieces

We've been fairly busy this spring. Scott's been in and out of town and I've been spending my time studying. My finals are next week, otherwise I would be camping with Scott this weekend.
Last weekend, we went to Huntsville so Scott could meet our new nephew, Mark, and we could visit with John. We had a great time. Scott helped Jay work on the boys' new fort.

the fort prior to completion


Mark Austin


the very busy big brother...



After finals, I go back to working full time throughout the summer, but we do have a few fun things planned.

Blue Angels and Bluebirds

The yard in April 08. Looking good with all the blooming flowers!! The iris's will bloom by the end of the week and the tulips are opening now. Some of the stuff we planted last year and got "burned" in the freeze in April and suffered in the drought are blooming for the first time and growing rapidly!


So we have a pair of bluebirds nesting in our bluebird box. She had 5 eggs today and should start incubating today. Last year we had only titmice in the box, after bluebirds tried to nest and a House Sparrow killed the female bluebird on the nest (that happens a lot). Hopefully our bluebirds will make it this year.

Bec took this shot of the daddy bluebird, while I was off working on yard stuff.

There was also an airshow in Smyrna this weekend. The Blue Angels were here flying low over the neighborhood. Rather then spend $20 a person and have to be with a lot of rednecks, we could see a fair amount from the yard, not use portajohns, relax in our yard, and not spend $5 for a hot dog. There were shows on Sat and Sun. Pretty cool. Glad the airport isn't active but for tiny planes anymore!


Bec got this shot Saturday.


I got this one Sunday.


Not a Blue Angel, but cool plane! (taken by Scott on Saturday)

Hopefully next weekend I'll get to meet my new nephew Mark. The following weekend I may see Brian and Kelly as I'll be in town for the state ornithological society meeting (old birders), so I may skip the banquet and go have some fun! Can only deal with old birders who want to grill me on birds all day and whom have no idea about personal space. I don't like to be able to tell what they had for lunch, yesterday!

The new Trellis

So my weekend project the last 2 weeks has been putting in this trellis. Basically it keeps Nick from sprinting through my garden, but also will eventually look cool with the flowering vine on it. It was fun digging holes in the yard, using my circular saw, and mixing quikrete.





Note also the gravel is disappearing from the back walkway. We are getting rid of it and folks from my office are getting it bit by bit. It was a nice walk, but not real practical. Actually it was a hige pain when mowing the stupid grass. Soon to be gone and the back benches and table will be moved to another spot in the yard.





This weekend I am expanding my horizons when we go see "Rent." I'll let you know how I like the musical.

Nearly a month?

What? It has been nearly a month since the rodeo? No way. Well I guess since that was the last post. Time flies when you're bird hunting.

A lot has happened in the last month, including spending 7 days (11-17 Feb) in McAllen TX for a meeting, a lot of bird watching (lots of new species I've never seen before) and a trip to Mexico for dinner and booze (and to watch 2 international students with the conference get detained by Border Patrol for a while, they made a boo boo on their visa's, they were later released into the US). I got to see a lot of my colleagues from across the US and had to run a 4 hr meeting as I'm too involved in things. It was a fantastic meeting, great food (closer to real mexican food), and just a lot of fun. The one morning we had every room, except one, booked for our conference at the Convention Center. The other room was used by Hillary Clinton. I was birding that morning, so I missed the Secret Service and hooplah. Thank gosh. Birding, seeing illegals swim the river, and getting yelled at by Border Patrol is way more fun:)

I have a lot of bird pictures posted here: http://www.pbase.com/shoeman

Just click on McAllen Texas and click on the first bird for a larger image, then you can click next and make a slide show. Before you ask, yes I took all those pictures. I'll add more bird pictures from other places, but I haven't had time to put them up.

We then enjoyed me being home for a week, but had to give a talk to the local bird club one night. Total in attendance: 14, including me. Never a big turnout with that group. At least they pay attention and ask questions.

Recently I spent time in west Tennessee searching for that recently found woodpecker that was extinct since the 1940's. It was rediscovered in 2004 in Arkansas and so we have the duty to spend some time (not much, as I was told by my bosses) searching in TN. After being skeptical that the bird was actually refound for a couple years, I've decided in the last couple months that they survived to today (long story on why, even though we don't have a picture or actual proof). Anyway, I'm contracting with someone to do a lot of the work for me, but I went last week to scout out a small site (very unlikely to have the bird, but we had an interesting story about someone seeing the bird irregularly), and within an hour I'm pretty confident I heard one. I just don't know how else to explain what I encountered, it was unlike anything I've ever heard in the woods and is fairly diagnostic of what this species does. The next day I heard it again while with a colleague on 2 occassions. So I'm not crazy. Now some experts have been to the site and I think they believe we have the birds, so all my time now for the next month will be searching in west TN. Hence a lot of travel the next few weeks. I was planning to be home pretty much all March, but that changed quick. Many good things would come of this if we found one!

It also snowed last night. They called for 2-4 inches, but we only got a coating where we are. I was hoping for more, but alas we didn't get much. I took some Brian Athow artistic pictures for you. Enjoy.

Welp, time to clean up a plant a cat knocked over this morning, leaving a pile a dirt across one corner of the living room.

It's boots and chaps; it's cowboy hats...

And they call the thing rodeo. (My thanks to Mr. Brooks for those words.)

We went to the Toughest Cowboy rodeo on Saturday. It was Scott's first rodeo and I think he enjoyed it. It was a little different than full rodeo as it didn't have all the events. We saw the cowboys compete in bull riding and in bareback and saddle bronco riding. Very exciting stuff. The tickets we had were in the fourth row, so we were close enough to be hit by flying dirt. (The tickets came from Scott's coworker who had won them from a radio station and they were pretty awesome.) Here are some pictures; they're a little fuzzy, but you'll get the idea.

Bronc bucking the cowboy

Bronc riding

Bull riding

The bull won this round.

One of the competitors.

Barrel racing (this is a cowgirl event.)

Trick roping

My favorite cowboy...a capuchin monkey who herds goats. I have a sneaky suspicion that the dog is the power behind the throne so to speak.

Following the competition, Blue Oyster Cult took the stage. They played a good show, but I really only knew three of their songs. I did apreciate that they are good sports and embraced the old SNL joke and kept asking if we needed more cowbell.

The band watching the rodeo. It was their first time to play at a rodeo. I'm guessing they were wondering why their agent did this to them.

More cowbell!

Nothing too exciting going on right now. This week Scott will be in Texas for a birding meeting/conference. He's looking forward to seeing a bunch a birds we don't have around here. I'll be studying while he gone. I have a few tests and skills checks this week. Soon (in 2 weeks) I'll be headed to the hospital.

Freezing Rain

On Friday some 10 days ago or so, I drove back to Nashville from Vicksburg, where I "worked" for the week. I was there the week of MLK day. Anyway, on the way home on the way through the delta, I hit freezing rain for about 3 hrs. The roads were just wet, not icy, but my truck and bike got slathered in up to about 1/3 inch of ice. I stopped 4 times to de-ice my windshield and windshield wipers. It was all worth it since I stopped in Rolling Fork, MS and got the best egg and cheese biscuits in the world. I had to make the expected resulting pitstop from all the grease in Indianola, but it was totally worth it. Mmm, mmm, good.

The bike doesn't like ice.

Well a bunch of days later, we went to Huntsville for the day for John's second birthday. We had a good time seeing Brian and the outlaw, Jay and preggers, Pete and Carol, and more of Bob and Susan (they spent Fri night with us). John was thrilled with cake and singing happy birthday.

The train cake.

This boy is SOOOO excited!

Brain being Brian.

Juice box, yummm.

I slept through the cake portion of the party. I was zonked! I'm lame.

Racing? Heck no!

The low was in the teens last night and it never got above 28 today. Very glad I slept in rather then race. I ended up 9th of 15 yesterday. Not too shabby.

Bec and I went to an Open House for a house up the street that is for sale. The realtor is the lady that sold our house for her mom. After a brief tour of the house and some social banter, some other folks came in. All was fine, however the other folks were the family we bought our house from, including the old lady. Awkward. They were nice and we chatted it up a bit, but yuck.

In any event the house was nice but had a different layout then ours. They fixed a lot of stuff up, but left a few details undone and/or dirty. I nitpick I guess.