Flying By

As in, the summer is flying by!  Today there was a huge flock of grackles in the woods, a sure sign that fall is coming.  When they left the woods to fly off, there were hundreds of them - always an impressive flight.  The hummingbirds, who were also flying around, were unimpressed by the grackles and really only concerned with guarding the feeders.  There are non-stop chases going on along with constant angry chatter.  This is a juvenile female, looking very healthy and robust.  

We had to do the unthinkable this morning and have an exterminator come and deal with a huge nest of German Yellowjackets in the soffits of our roof.  Hubs noticed them swarming yesterday and I've noticed that they are thick around the hummingbird feeders.  And yesterday I watched one attack and kill a large orb weaver spider which was pretty gruesome.  Anyway, a nice young man named Justin came this morning and sprayed a toxic powder into the soffit, while perched on a big ladder.  He said it may take several days to know for sure if it has worked so we are giving that area wide berth.  Not much is meaner than a pissed off Yellowjacket.  I hate using any kind of chemicals anywhere on our property but having hundreds/possible thousands of Yellowjackets in the structure of our house is a solid NO.  

Jax is at daycare today hopefully having a reunion with a female pitbull that he used to play with all the time - she (Gidget) belongs to an employee who left for about a year but is now back.  Jax and Gidget are the same age and used to have the best time playing with each other - I'm hoping they get some video of the two dogs together.  

Hubs is working on nailing down a contractor to install our fence so that we can actually let Jax run in our yard.  I'm hoping that we don't have to wait too long, but expect it may be a month or more before they can schedule us.  Sigh.  And meanwhile, we have three different species of nut trees in our woods, all dropping nuts right now, which bears dearly love.  We saw a bear last week "grazing" on the lawn next to the woods, scarfing up hickory nuts.  Nuts are a high fat/high protein food that is favored by bears as they try to bulk up for hibernation.  And wouldn't you know it - we have a black walnut tree that is producing nuts for the first time this year, too.  A buffet.

I think dark with chili again today.  I am having another nearly pain-free day which makes me very happy.  I had actually hoped to take my kayak out today but it is very windy so I opted not to.  

Cheers.

xo
Debbi