A pair of wrens made a nest in a decorative container hanging on my neighbor's gate. You can see the gate in the background there of this picture. The eggs have hatched and there has been constant flying back and forth as the dutiful parents feed the young. I can't see them in the container but I hope to see the little ones fledge. But I certainly can hear the daddy wren. All day long he hangs out on the fence top and chortles and chirps and razzles and chatters. It's almost as annoying as having a barking dog next door. But these critters are a lot cuter and more melodious. Mom is the main brooder but when the babies pop out both of them are involved in feeding them. So, off goes Daddy Loudmouth at intervals to find a juicy butterfly larva to feed to his kids. But once his load is delivered he sits back on the fence and gives a constant reassuring song to his mate as he keeps a good lookout for predators. Like just now when there was a stray cat sidling through the yard.

I saw our resident raccoon--I believe his name is Roscoe--two nights ago looking all around the woodpile trying to figure out where the nest was. Mom and Pop were frantically trying to lead him away. Raccoons like to eat bird eggs. Maybe young hatchlings, too. Speaking of raccoons. We made a big mistake in keeping the sunflower seeds that I feed to the birds outside in the Zinn Center. They stayed safely there all winter but now Roscoe sniffed them out and clawed his way through the screen where the bins were sitting. The chutes were open and seed was scattered about on the floor. We had an extra patio screen door lying around so Bill laid that alongside that torn screen wall to try to keep Roscoe from repeating his performance. And, of course, we brought the seed bins back inside. So far, there have been no reoccurences of entry. I took this picture last fall while I was sitting four feet from him as he enjoyed wolfing down grapes. He came over by my feet at one time to see if there was anything else to eat. I have observed that he will eat every single bite of food that I put out there before he goes away, no matter how much it might be. I've deduced that is because once they find a food source they know it won't be there when they come back.

Speaking of nesting... The Muckheads moved last Monday. They took their mattresses, necessary clothing, and a lot of kitchen stuff over the day they closed on the house and have been there ever since. Then there was the big push over the weekend to get out what stuff they could while Kip was down helping. Trouble arose with the truck as Todd was driving it over it. The engine light kept coming on. He took it back and exchanged it for a smaller one--the only they could get. That put their starting time back two hours. And Kip couldn't get down here Saturday till 4:00 since he had to make UPS deliveries till 1:00. So all they accomplished was moving the big furniture from upstairs out and all the huge plastic toy yard structures. And some more boxes. They have a van so all the smaller stuff can go in that at their leisure. It's not like Bill and I are moving out anytime soon.

Their moving out has sparked a renewed energy in fixing up our house. That nesting feeling has come out all over again for us. It's been rather exciting to think about all the changes we can make with the space we'll be left with. I would say that it's mainly the dining room that will be the most changed. I've requested that Bill move the washer and dryer in there so I can take over doing the laundry for the first time in six years. I have missed doing the laundry. The living room will only have our stuff in it and their stuff won't be left in it cluttering up the table and the couch and the little chair by the door. Heh, that reminds me of what George Carlin said about stuff. He is so right.

The breath taking moment in the whole move was the moving of their huge leather couch down the narrow stairs and getting it through the two doorways at the bottom. Here's a picture of the couch as it looked at the bottom of the steps. It looked for quite a few moments that the couch was going to be stuck there. Todd had to maneuver it painstakingly around several times before he found the way to get it past the unyeilding openings. Four years ago when they were moving in, they had a very rough time getting it past the top of the steps. It did get stuck. It took them an hour to unstick it. So they were dreading trying to get it around the top again. That part only took a couple of minutes to execute this time. This time the trouble spot was at the bottom. But it didn't take an hour to get it positioned the right way and get popped through the doorframe. A huge sigh of relief from everyone, moving and watching, was let out. I think, though, that it went amazingly well because I was sitting in the glider in a meditative pose and sending huge waves of power, strength, and lightness their way.

I had to go off to the grocery store so I couldn't finish this entry all in one sitting as I usually do. After putting the groceries away, I watched some TV shows I had taped till 4:30 then came back here to the computer to write some more. I became aware of how eerily quiet it was outside. After half an hour Bill came home and there had been no appearance of the wrens in that half hour. Something was definitely wrong. I asked Bill to go over and look at the neighbor's gate which had been left open for the last day and a half after the neighbor had mowed his lawn yesterday morning. With the gate open, that put the little nesting decoration up against the trellis they have there. But that hadn't stopped the birds from getting in to feed their babies, as I had witnessed most the morning. Bill came back and told me that the nest was empty, completely empty.