What I Really Think

One more quick shot of those fecal sacks. The mother and father (yes, he's an active participant), pick up the sacks and drop them around the neighborhood. The father seems to prefer my neighbor's driveway. :)

Maria, requested and we aim to please here at the home of the robins. First off, they're getting very big, and soon will be forced from the nest, to live on the ground, where they will practice using their wings and learning to fly. Their father will stay with them there while their mother will lay the next set of eggs in the nest. We're a little nervous about this stage as we have lawn care, so are keeping a close eye, so we can put up some sort of temporary fence/warning signs to keep the lawn service from mowing the lawn in that area.

Here's a shot of them, hanging in the nest - can you see the wings? How about the open eyes?

Here's a shot of mom feeding the "teenagers." Sometimes she gives them entire worms. They're big enough now so we can actually watch from our family room window which is just a few feet from the tree. She doesn't seem to mind.

Do you know, it's not the sound of the mother returning that initiates the open mouth reflex of the babes, it's the vibration of her landing on the nest. Baby robins are born with three basic instincts, 1) to open their mouths when the mom returns 2) to lay low in the nest, avoiding predators, 3) to poop as soon as they eat. Kind of gross, no? But really, they poop these white sacks (fecal sacs I think they're called), that the mother picks up and removes from the nest. It's how the nest stays so clean.

Here's one more of mom and her babes:

So how is that?

No videos so far though.

Cool eh! Photos courtesy of Becky.

Here, I lightened it a bit and made it a little bigger.

Today's the day; Chris is running the Boston marathon. He left our hotel, the Courtyard Marriott, about 6:00 am to catch the bus from the Commons to take him to the starting line. The race doesn't start until 10:00 though, so he'll definitely have some time to kill.

Somehow, he sent me the above photo from his Blackberry (when last I checked, he couldn't figure out how to do that).

I'll update more, if I have a chance, later this morning, and again after the race, before we catch the train.

Oops - he just sent one more shot of Athletes Village:

Continue reading "Boston Marathon" »

This week for our Sunday Slow Bakers, Deborah chose Sicilian Pistachio Bars. Like the other recipes, this one came from Gina DePalma's Dolce Italiano.

Normally, with pistachios, the hardest part of the recipe for me, is finding unsalted, shelled pistachios but I lucked out and found them at Whole Foods last week. The second hardest part is not eating them before I actually use them in the recipe. While I made it to the recipe with pistachios in tact, I can't say as much for the leftovers.

Continue reading "Sicilian Pistachio Bars - SSB Week 2" »