The Bird Man of Matthews

Yesterday I was refilling the gas tank on the wood chipper and looked up to see an eastern phoebe (a flycatcher) had landed on a small limb about ten feet away. This was pretty unusual, I thought, especially considering all the racket I had made with the chipper just moments earlier. I watched the bird for a minute and before long it swooped toward me to catch a bug, then landed on the hopper of the wood chipper, just three feet away! I stood very still, not sure if the phoebe was somehow unaware of my presence, completely unwary of humans, or was rabid and about to peck my eyeballs out.

Moments later I found out. It WAS rabid. It flew right at my face and when I ducked my head back, it fluttered around for a moment in front of my face, but then settled back to its perch on the chipper.

So I decided it wasn’t rabid after all and was uninhibited. Seeing how tame it was I slowly stretched my hand toward it, got within six inches, and amazingly, it flew up and perched on my index finger!

About this time Audry came out to see why I was standing so still staring at the chipper and as she approached I turned toward her, my arm still outstretched, to present my new friend. Imagine her face to see me standing in the woods with a wild bird on my finger! I could have eaten this bird like Golum if I’d wanted to, he was so friendly.

He swooped to get another bug and landed on a limb, but not long after that, he flew up to Audry and landed right on her head! I guess that’s what he (or she) was trying to do when it flew toward my face earlier. So, it stood on Audry’s head for a minute (fortunately didn’t poop) swooped for a bug, then perched on my arm for a while before heading to a limb again.

A funny thing is that this phoebe would not leave us. For ten or fifteen minutes, until we finally went inside, he hadn’t flown more than a few feet away. He was swooping and diving in between us, always perching within just a few feet.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. At the apartment I had Carolina wrens eating lunch with me in the living room, anoles and skinks eating from my hand, and now an eastern phoebe finds me in the woods and wants to be pals.

Just call me Jeffrey Doolittle.

That’s Doctor Doolittle, please.

Yuck

So, the first day of class is over, I'm in my hotel room at the Hampton Inn waiting for the clock to turn seven so I can meet a few collagues for dinner. Meanwhile, someone is changing my bed. When I sat on the bed I noticed several (many severals actually)long dark hairs on the white comforter. Ok, not the worst sanitation offense in history, but, when I turned the comforter down to hide the hair while I waited for the front desk to send up fresh bedding, I saw (I hope you've eaten your dinner) a blood stain on the sheet! Not a drop, but a stain about 2-inches in diameter.

This is not acceptable. Obviously nobody changed the bedding after the last occupant checked out. And by the looks of the stain they may have checked out in more ways than one.

It took the young Asain man who just left my room about 10 minutes to change the bedding, but he was good-natured and appologetic so all's forgiven.

I just hope I can forget the image of my bed before appetizers arrive.

Away for the week

When I started my new job with Union County it was understood that after about a year I would have to start taking classes to enhance my skills as a tax assessor. But because of scheduling issues, I think, my department has me going away to Chapel Hill—after just four months—for a week of training starting on Monday. The class is called Judo-Yoga and the Art of Tax Payer Dispatch. Okay, no it isn’t. It’s called Property Tax Listing and Assessing, but I like the sound of the Judo-Yoga class much better.

The class runs four days, Monday through Thursday, and there’s a test Friday morning (how dare they) at nine, and then I’ll come home right afterward, which is nice of course, because I’ll get back by mid-afternoon making for a somewhat abbreviated work day. That’s right, a workday. Just because I’m eating eggs benedict on the County, copying answers for the test from the geek next to me, and charging a Starbucks to the county for the drive home doesn’t mean I’m not working.

Incidentally, I’m not a big fan of overnight travel for work-related purposes, especially trips that require several consecutive nights away from home. But I've been fortunate up to this point in my life to not EVER spend a night away for business. Of course, a good number of my vocational years I spent in self-employment, but that’s not the point.

The point is I don’t want to be away from home unless I'm with Audry (I can hear your heart-felt sobs). In five years of marriage we’ve been lucky not to have been apart on more than two occasions, and for only two nights both times. The first time is when Audry stayed with her friend Jennifer to attend an architecture seminar in Boston, and the second is that time early in our marriage when I neglected to change my socks for several days straight and had to sleep in the tool shed until I promised to submit to regular hygiene inspections.

But those days are over. Thank goodness for all of us.

Anyway, that’s the sad state of my (and Audry’s) life this week. So do your health a favor and give Audry a buzz this week. Or I’ll mail my dirty socks to your front door.

Biting, stinging ants

Saturday morning while cutting the grass I was bitten on the ankle and leg by several small brown ants that became agitated after I rolled the mower over their nest and then accidentally stepped on them. I can't say that I blame them for getting angry, but these little buggers attacked me with, I believe, the purpose of bringing me down and dragging me to their queen as a kind of peculiar trophy. Fortunately I sensed the attack early and kicked off my shoes before the 20 or 30 ants swarming over them reached my legs.

These aren't fire ants or carpenter ants but look like the small brown ones that you see on sidewalks or surrounding a potato chip you left behind on the picnic table.

But apparently they eat people too. And now I'm up very early Sunday morning with swollen itching bite sites and a mild case of nausea. Although conceivably the nausea is a result of being up so darned early on a Sunday. Or too many potato chips.

Anyway, this is not the first time this has happened. Two weeks ago I was bitten on my ankles in 3 places--just at the top of my sock line (these ants don't waste time crawling any higher than necessary to find your flesh)--after mowing over nests (yes I know, you'd think I'd have learned) and the bites itched for a full 10 days afterwards.

Evidently there are plenty of biting and stinging ants besides fire ants, and some of these smaller ants bite you and then spray (spit actually) acid on the bite. Talk about rubbing salt into a wound. These tiny villains are merciless! Much worse even than mosquitoes.

Unfortunately there are several nests of these people-eaters hidden in the grass of our front yard, and since I don’t have a riding mower I suppose I’ll have to be extremely careful from now on each time I mow.

Or, I could ask that loud-mouthed chubby kid down the street if he’d like to earn a couple bucks cutting my grass.

Charles, any thoughts on these ants? Or chubby kids?

Facebooger

After spending more time trying to navigate around Facebook's website than actually doing anything useful or fun, I've decided to cancel my account. So don't look there for me any more. Not only is the site difficult to get around, but it posts questions on the user's behalf without any authority to do it. I just don't like it, and I have better things to do.

Like stand in the driveway after dark filling buckets with water from a hose to carry to a magnolia tree suffering from the drought. This a much more useful way for anyone to spend their evening. Unless you're going out for ice cream.

Busy busy busy

By now everyone probably knows that I haven't made a recent post because the new house has been keeping me VERY busy. But I'm leaving this very brief note just to say that my blog won't be idle forever, so keep checking back every five minutes or so, like I know you've been doing, and soon there'll be real hot topics to read about.

Well, all right, luke warm topics at best.

Ciao for now.

Birds in my Belfry

Here’s something fun to try when you’re sitting around at home all day and happen to have 500 mealworms on hand which your bearded dragon has turned his snout up at: make friends with wrens. A pair of Carolina wrens outside our apartment has been feeding their young brood for a couple of weeks so I’ve been tossing worms to them on the patio. I’m doing this chiefly to make their hectic little lives simpler, but also in part, I have to confess, to make my own simple life more fulfilling.

Two days ago I left the sliding screen door open after I “wormed” the birds, and while I was back at my computer I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. One of the wrens had come into the apartment and was hopping around on the living room carpet, presumably looking for more worms.

But as I watched this bird closely, I noticed a certain look of malcontent growing in its bead-like eye. A chill crawled up my spine.

These visits went on for a while and eventually I got tired of these fearsome birds harassing me so I just gave them the whole worm container out on the patio and, of course, it didn’t take either of these wormmongers long to figure out what was inside.

Then yesterday I decided to test our friendship again. I put the container on the carpet, opened the screen several inches and, just after the noon hour, ate lunch—although somewhat reluctantly—with the wrens.

Different lunches of course.

But after some time of this, when I felt my guests had crossed the line of appreciation and fallen into greed, I spoke to them. I wanted to know if they intended to finish off every single worm in one sitting, and if they would require tea afterward. But I got quite a surprise in return. One of them, the larger malcontented one, turned slowly toward me and said, “Beak quiet!”

Can you imagine? And after all I’ve done for their little ones.

Aerial view of house

Here's a satellite veiw of the house we're buying. We stopped at the house today after church and met the sellers who were very willing to show us around a bit and tell us more about the home. Tuesday afternoon is the inspection and both Audry and I will be there going around with the inspector to learn all we can about the various mechanical systems and general condition of the house. We don't anticipate any problems but the inspection is ordered by the mortgage lender before they will issue the financing. Plus, it would be really stupid not to get an inspection.

JOB!

Well, the heading says it all, I got the job we wanted with Union County. What a day! Soon I'll be roaming the countryside collecting information about houses, mostly new ones initially, for the tax assessment division of the tax administration department. Kind of a mouthful, but you wanted to know because here you are reading about it. I'll have a car to use, I think it's a Ferrari, and I'll use it to drive back and forth to work. 90% of my time will be spent in the field, in new home developments mostly, and the rest will be in the office drinking coffee.

Not really, the Ferrari is equipped with a European double boiler espresso machine. Self-cleaning.

Anyway, now we'll actually be able to afford the house we just contracted to buy, and Audry can rest peacefully again at night knowing I have a job and that I'm not sitting around all day long talking to our lizard and catching dust in the sunbeams.

Poor little guy. He'll soon be very lonely.

First Blah

You'd think with my interest in writing that I'd have started a blog a long time ago, but what's kept me from doing it until now is my impression that blogs are, for the most part, a forum for narcissistic wind bags who have either run out of minutes on their cell phones, or thrive pathetically on the comments others post about them and their menial endeavors.

But my impression is changing. And I really don't want to be left behind. After all, I wouldn't be hip (blah blah blah) if I didn't have a blah blah blog.

I'm sure you don't believe that any more than I do, and I really am interested in hearing from you, despite my cynical ramblings and meanspirited cat-kicking nature.

Anyone want to talk about stocks? The advatages of living in the Charlotte metro area instead of wherever it is you happen to live? Why it's illegal for landscape contractors to hire American workers?

:)