the birds and the bees.

a few days ago, i noticed that my morning dove friend was back.  i know.  i'm announcing her return to my little corner of the world with non-mindy-flare emotion when normally i would be making welcome home signs and making everyone in a two block radius come to see her.  it's all about balance.

we can't always have fan fare.

although...my friend deserves it.

after what she's been through.

i saw the new nest in the tree one day last week.  it's not exactly in the same place that it was...but right next to it.  i think it's sturdier.  and her nest is definitely bigger this time.

i know what you're thinking.

how do you know it's really the same bird?

well...either that...or...

is she seriously telling us about this bird again?

to answer possible question #1...

i know because she told me.

i'm just kidding.

that would make me sound crazy.

i really don't know.  but i am choosing to believe that it is.  and we all know that if you tell yourself something long enough........you start to believe it.

why do you think there are so many people in counseling as a result of ridiculous things that they were told as children?  why do you think i still call myself "flamingo legs?"

and to answer possible question #2...

yes.  i am.

i went out this morning to get a good look at the nest and to see if there were any eggs in it.

little did i know that there was a platoon of mosquito's waiting in the bushes to attack the first sign of human flesh.

while i was trying to get in a good position to take a picture...i looked down and witnessed the sneak attack.  now i have...literally...like 14 bites on my legs and arms.

naturally i started swatting and flailing and jumping around in the flower bed...before making a mad dash back into the front door...because that's how we roll around here.  i hate mosquito's.  i'm convinced they are from the devil.

****

on friday afternoon, chad, colton and i were sitting in the "lodge" room when we noticed a massive swarm of bees in the front yard.  i have never seen anything like this.  it looked like a plague.  after about 30 minutes of swarming all over the place on their part and frantically calling local bee keepers on our part...they settled nicely into our tree.  the bee keeper said it was a thermal bee ball.  evidently, the queen bee was tired of flying and needed to rest.  so...she picked this spot in our tree and all of the other bees surrounded her.  this is where they will stay until she is ready to fly again.  we put cones all around the sidewalk and wrote "BEES" really big with an arrow pointing to the tree so that people wouldn't walk under them and disturb them somehow.

the problem was that this was the night that we had sleepover 2012 at our house.  colt had some of the boys from his class and a bunch of the girls from their class were at another little girl's house.  chad brought up the possibility of the girls coming over to either wrap the house...put a sign in the yard...ding dong ditch...etc to my attention at 11:45 pm and then i obsessed and panicked and entertained the movie "My Girl" for a while until i finally called and woke up one of their parents.

apparently the girls were making duct tape purses and had not even entertained the notion.

so...all was ok.

and the bee keeper was right.  when that queen was rested and ready to fly again the next morning...

they disappeared as quickly as they came.

it's just a good thing they stayed away from my bird.

or we would have had problems.

and that, my friends is your nature lesson for this fine tuesday.

****

speaking of the birds and the bees...

i am attending a showing of some film on puberty that is being shown to the 5th grade boys at the school this week.  i can't wait for that.  the entire group of boys from the 5th grade...my 11 year old son...a documentary on puberty...and a few mom's who thought that it might be a good idea to see what they are being told...all in one room?  that's my idea of a party.

what if i'm the only mom that decides to go?

i'm gonna need some kind of disguise.

futher more...

doesn't this fall under "dad" duties?