A blackpoll warbler just passing through on migration.
You can see by the range map they don’t spend much time in places we can see them in the U.S.
It looks like this gray catbird didn’t like seeing him though. Here the warbler is, getting chased.
Little insect eggs on stilts. The insects lay them on the underside of leaves and things. These are on the bottom of the compost tumbler drum. I turned them up to photograph them, so really they are upside down in the picture.
I wrote about them a couple years ago, but now I couldn’t remember what they were, so I had to resort to google once more. I figure if I can’t remember, you can’t either, so here they are again. Green Lacewing eggs. They’re a beneficial garden insect. They eat destructive insects like aphids. Laying their eggs on filaments like these, the voracious larvae will be less likely to feed on each other as soon as they hatch.
The adults look like this:
(Not my picture.)
Cool, huh?
Duolingo is a language tool. It’s also a game. It is meant to keep you engaged so while playing the game for points and rewards, one also learns a bit of language. Each Monday, people are grouped into batches of 30 by the order they log on and do their first lesson. That’s the competition for the week. Finish in the top five and advance to the next level. Finish in the bottom five and get demoted one level. Get promoted enough times and end up in the top level, the Diamond League. From there, you can’t get promoted any higher, so they offer recognition for finishing in the top three. Duolingo tells everyone you know that you finished in the top three and they send back congratulations.
So every week, I do my Spanish each day, and near the end of the week I pay attention to where I am and if there is a shot at finishing in the top three. If I think there is a chance, I wait until just one hour, or maybe two, before the end of the week’s count on Sunday, and I blast out as many points as I can, as fast as I can, to finish top three. Recognition.
Last week, it was there. I was about number 7, lurking. Number one and number two were well out of reach, but if the other ones in front of me weren’t paying attention, I had a shot. I was well back, so two hours before closing, I went for it. I cruised past everyone else in front of me, but number three was watching and started accumulating points as well. After an hour I checked the scores. I was still behind number three, but number three wasn’t accumulating points as fast as I was, so I kept on. I closed and closed, hunted down number three, and with four minutes to go I passed him and finished with that number three spot. Success!
Then I started to wonder what I had done. Somebody worked as hard as they could for two hours, trying to stay ahead but watching me get closer and closer, nothing more they could do, and losing out right at the finish. Who was I playing against? Whose heart did I just take? It could have been anyone. Duolingo is kind of structured as a kid’s game. Oh no. Did I just hunt down and crush some thirteen-year-old kid, dashing her hopes of being Spanish queen for the day? Am I relishing my victory over a bunch of schoolkids? I looked up the name of the person I passed. Looks like a dude. Carlos. I checked out his status. He’s been doing this for a couple years. He’s got a lot of points. Nevermind. He can take it.
Sometimes we get this.
A veritable plethora of buntings!
It has been quite the ride.
Henry is currently acting like a comfortable older dog again. It hasn’t always been so. Remember back to where he had quit eating and was losing weight, but every few days we were able to come up with some different food to tempt him with. That always only worked for a few days for each effort. Cycling through all the food alternatives continued for a couple weeks, then it got worse. He quit eating entirely. Down to skin and bones, he was out of energy. Nothing was working. On a Friday afternoon, we were texting the veterinarian, who works so hard with us to take good care of him, saying we didn’t think he was going to make it through the weekend. He seemed restless though, and maybe that meant he was uncomfortable, so the doctor prescribed a pain pill for him. I was sitting at the keyboard crying, knowing I was going to have to say something about his passing.
We gave Henry the pain pill. He settled down and slept for a few hours and woke up hungry. He ate a little bit. He ate more the next day, and more the day after. Judy found a kind canned dog food he used to eat and he’s eating that every day now. He wakes up every morning happy and wagging, getting pets and inviting Jess to play and make a few runs back and forth though the house with him. He has gained back a pound.
Now he’s just a comfortable old fourteen-year-old dog hanging around the house, waking up for anything interesting, and sleeping away the rest of each day. We all went for a driveabout last weekend and he rode with his head out the window savoring the sights, sounds, smells, and flavors. He walked in a park with Jesse and Judy for several hundred yards. Whenever he seems a little restless, every few days or so, we give him a pain pill and he gets comfortable again. No way to know what issues he might be dealing with that the pain pill eases, but it’s so good to have him back enjoying each day again, as long as possible.
