So I was bitten by a tick right on my ripe looking abdomen about a week ago. At first the spot just itched. But the itching was intense. So I pushed aside all these parts of me, lifted up my belly. It was a deer tick. It totally freaked me out. There was this small - yet ominous - parasite sticking out of my belly, beyond my breast, below the roundness in a spot I could barely see or reach. I made for the bathroom and the tweesers. I steadily, yet probably too quickly pulled this thing off. The spot has continued to plague me with itching. A few days ago I begged Mark to pick it open like a splinter and let out the ooze and try to find a tick head. There was no head that he could find but I took a tremendous amount of pleasure in having my belly picked at with a needle. It made Mark nervous and I kept making jokes about performing a ceserean. He didn't think it was funny.
Mowing the lawn has had some interesting effects on the veiw of our yard. It looks neat and clean when we are done and I feel proud as I begin to scratch. Chopping (mowing) up poison ivy in order to keep it from growing does infact turn it into an aerosol. Every time I mow I throw every item of clothing into the wash including my tennis shoes. Then I go straight to the shower and soap up a minimum of three times. No matter, each time I mow the lawn I get poison ivy somewhere. This time it is right next to the tick bite. Joy.
The bird population shifts in our backyard when it is mowed. Last week I finished up doing the entire yard once over. That eveing we had a flood of Starlings, a bird I hadn't seen here yet. Then we had a wave of Grackles, folowed by Crows. All these crews took great pleasure, in shifts, of eating all the exposed and traumatized insects.
Since then I have seen considerably more Mocking Birds. I have also heard Robins though I havn't seen them. The swallows I have been seeing are a little scarce now which is frustrating because I have yet to really nail their identification. They are either Rough Winged Swallows or Barn Swallows. Today for the first time in a while I saw the Meadowlark here again, sitting on our roof.
Mocking Birds spend alot of time being territorial. Yelling at eachother and chasing eachother around. One will chase another into the territory of a third one and around and around they go.
We have also received alot of rain here lately and a bit of hail as well. The storms have been very strong and now routinely scare Ginger into the bathtub - her new comfort tool. I have spent the brunt of two storms in the bathroom with her.
Now we have Alberto! A steady rain started this afternoon. I am not going to complain because apparently our area still has not recovered fully from our drought. My vegetable garden will also be pleased. I am working on a expantion project. If we are lucky I will have pumpkins for the neighbor kids.
The birds nest may not be getting any use. It is so neatly and tighly built, by a Mocking Bird. I observed the bird hanging out in that tree and I thought maybe it was nesting. The outer part of the nest is made of notchy and rough twigs. The inside is made of roots. I think the roots come from the garden I have been turning over where there is a ready supply of unrooted grasses. Just inside the nest are not eggs but what appear to be two leaves, hard, dried, and brown from our Magnolia Tree.
(The photo above is of the tree where the nest is located, perhaps if you use your imagination you will be able to see it. When out in the yard looking at it it is at eye level.)
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