Spare ham, missing cheese and the traditional Thanksgiving Coop

I didn't chase the Snowy Owl the other day. And I am glad I didn't because there have been no further reports of it.
The reason I didn't chase: As I was getting ready to leave that morning, Geoff and I got into an argument. About cheese.


Yeah, I said cheese.



Two minutes before taking Lorelei to school, he said to me, " Remember the cheese. "

Me: "Cheese? For what?"

G: "Lorelei's class feast today. It was on the newsletter. We need to bring in a bag of mild cheddar cheese, cubed."

Me: "Is there a particular reason you waited until now to tell me?"

G: "I thought you knew about it."


Well, we didn't have any cheese. Cubed or otherwise.

I threw him a seriously dirty look and a few choice words, grabbed Lorelei and flew to the local convenient store and paid $4 for a block of cheese. The teacher could just cube it herself.

All the life-bird-chase was just wrung out of me, so I went to Armleder and walked.

Here's the kicker: When I picked up Lorelei from school, I asked if her class enjoyed the cheese. I was thinking, "They better have shouted to God and the World that it was the best damn cheese they have ever been given."

Lorelei said, "We didn't eat the cheese."
Me: "What?! Why?........wait a minute. Did you tell your teacher you had the cheese, like I told you to tell her?"
Lorelei: (sheepishly) "No."

I looked in her bag. No cheese. What. The. Hell.
The cheese had been absconded.

So here's what I think happened. The teacher took my FOUR DOLLAR cheese home and served it on crackers for her family on Thanksgiving. That's what I think.
: )

My walk at Armleder did yield a life bird.
While taking a deer path to the river, I flushed a bird (more like nearly stepped on a bird!) in the underbrush. I saw brown and a reddish tail, a bird the size of a quail. I looked it up in Sibley's and found that it was a Northern Bobwhite. Life Bird #207!


Tuesday was Swami's birthday, and Swamette asked me to make a cake for him. The girls helped me (yeah, right. Lorelei made an egg explode all over me, the floor, herself...) make a square, two-layer chocolate fudge cake, with milk chocolate icing.

To cut all that chocolate, we crushed Mint Oreos and sprinkled the middle and the top of the cake. I have to say, it was pretty damn good.


(We didn't count out all of the candles to represent his age. Their smoke detectors are sensitive)


Thursday:
In what seems to now be a tradition, we were visited by the Thanksgiving Cooper's Hawk:


A most cooperative bird...sat there in a patch of sunlight, with a good background, for about 15 minutes.



A Ham Story:
Swametti, Swamette's mom, was supposed to bring a baked ham for Thanksgiving, to have alongside the turkey. She forgot to bring it (we forgive her....she's in her Eighties, for goodness sake), but Swamette just happened to have a ham in the fridge. This is testiment to just how organized she is.
Maybe you have to know her to appreciate the story, but it just blew me away. Just happened to have a big spare HAM.


(Swami and my Mom carve the Spare Ham)


I begged for the turkey carcass (how many times will you hear that sentence?) and right now, I am simmering fresh turkey noodle soup.
Hooper has gone postal about the aroma filling the house:

GIVE. ME. TURKEH.
NOW.
BEFORE I KEEL YOU.

August sucks so bad, it can suck a softball through 25 feet of garden hose

It was around 100 degrees today. Or 96. Or whatever. When the temp gets in the nineties, it all becomes academic anyhow. But I did make it rain. How? I washed the car. Murphy's Law.

While I did my RAPTOR thing last night, Swami was taking photos:

Elvis. The Evil One.

Poor Rufous.
You know, it's not that his feathers are coming in too slow...you can see pin feathers all around his eyes and head. It's that he is dropped the old ones too fast. But the public loves him anyway. They can't believe this is Ohio's most common owl. When I do outside programs, and there are trees nearby, I walk over and put up next to the bark (the gray SO is even better with this) and tell people to imagine him about 20 feet up in the tree, sitting perfectly still. That's why you don't see screech owls. Or any owl, very often.
Now, to educator mode:
Eastern Screech Owl (Megascops asio, formerly Otus asio)
Eastern screech owls have a pretty rapid flight pattern, about 5 beats per second. They are an "edge" bird, hunting along open fields and wetlands, using what I call the "Perch and Pounce" method. They will swallow small prey (like deer mice) whole, but take larger prey to a perch to rip it to pieces. Some song-and-woodland birds that SO's eat are Northern Bobwhite,
Rock Dove, and Ruffed Grouse. (!)
Other prey include: small fish, small snakes, lizards, and soft-shelled turtles, small frogs, toads, and salamanders, and invertebrates such as crayfish, snails, spiders, earthworms, scorpions, and centipedes.

Breeding season for Eastern Screech Owls is generally around mid April, but may range from mid March to mid May. They have an elaborate courtship ritual: Males approach females, calling from different branches until they are close. The male then bobs and swivels his head, bobs his entire body, and even slowly winks one eye at the female. If she ignores him, bobbing and swiveling motions intensify. If she accepts him, she moves close and they touch bills and preen each other. Pairs mate for life but will accept a new mate if the previous mate disappears. Gray and red color phases will mate together. They nest almost exclusively in natural tree cavities, but can be enticed to use large nest boxes.
They aren't quite the top of the food chain... they can be preyed upon by great horned owls, barred owls, long-eared owls, great gray owls, short-eared owls, snowy owls, mink, weasels, raccoons, skunks, snakes, crows, and blue jays.

Okay, onto other stuff:

One of the lovely event coordinators brought over a fan for the birds, so I kept spritzing Lucy and she would spread her wings and revel in the breeze.
(That fan was farther away than it looks, by the way)

And a pic from Sunday lunch:

Swami takes a picture of me taking a picture of a ground hog.
Fascinating stuff.

The Will-Yum of the day:
Isabelle said to me today, "Oh, Mommy...you are the best Mommy we have ever had."
***
Please, in the name of all that is good and holy, make it cooler so I can go birding and not fall over when my bones dissolve into a large puddle of goo.

In honor of the anniversary of the birth of Swamette

Word of the Day:
apotheosis \uh-pah-thee-OH-sis; ap-uh-THEE-uh-sis\, noun;
plural apotheoses \-seez\:
1. Elevation to divine rank or stature; deification.
2. An exalted or glorified example; a model of excellence or perfection of a kind.

Today is my mother-in-law's birthday. You know her as Swamette.
I know her as the single best mother-in-law I could ever ask for. To use the Word of the Day:
"Rita is worthy of apotheosis in song of her mother-in-law skills."




Kevin and Rachel brought this beautiful cake for dessert.

And it had a wee sugar bird on it!

Rita and her oldest, my Geoff.



I couldn't stop taking pictures of the cake. The icing was delicious.

The Wall of Fame at the yurt...Jim and Rita have photos up of everyone who is important to them. I think I am in there somewhere...


Butterscotch (Jim calls him Quagmire), quite possibly the coolest cat in the world.

He even watches TV!

Rita's crocus bed.

I love the Macro function on my camera, now that I know how to use it.



Our daughters are never safe from...
"Attack of the Swami" !!!

Happy birthday, Rita. I love you.

***
Update:
I started a blog on Blogger for RAPTOR. Let me know if you find any glitches.