A Bad Year for Bluebirds

When I left for Myrtle Beach two weeks ago the bluebirds had four eggs in thier nest. It was the second try at a brood this summer. The first batch of eggs were simply abandoned for some reasons; she never really incubated them, and after waiting almost a month (they're suppose to take 17-19 days) I cleaned the box out and threw the nest and eggs away.

On June 21 momma bluebird had just begun sitting on the nest and we were looking forward to batch of babies sometime in around July 8 or 9. We've had baby bluebirds for five of the last six years, and one year we had two broods.

But the nest was empty when we got home on the 28th.

Since the bluebird box was latched, I figure a human took the eggs. One of my neighbors tells me a neighborhood boy (age 8 or 9) spent some time in our yard while we were gone. But I suppose there are other possible solutions to the mystery of the eggs that disappeared...

Myrtle Beach, etc.

It's been a busy life since getting back from Myrtle Beach on the 28th. We took Holly to Christiansburg on Tuesday and her dad met us there. On Wednesday we took the Avalamche to Coles Chevy for a recall fix that was supposed to take 45 minutes. It took five and a hlaf hours. Then today a contractor came to fix the hole in our livingroom ceiling that a leak in the roof had caused. He came to replace the sheet rock and discovered that the ceiling was plaster. What a mess!

Myrtle Beach was mostly pleasant. I'll probably write about specifics later - including a couple of restaurant reviews. We took two different trips to Brookegreen Garden, spent an afternoon (low tide) on Pawley's Island, took the boogie board out to the beach across from South Beach Resort a couple of times, and spent a couple of hours in the lazy river.

It was too hot. THe heat index Saturday (6/27) was 106F in Myrtle Beach. Then there was the thing about the governor in South Carolina and his mistress. And it became impossible to watch TV or listen to the radio without hearing about Gov. Sanford (or Michael Jackson). And my annual meeting with the owner reps at the resort left some unanswered questions about the recent sale of South Beach to Orange Lake Resort.

But overall, it was a good vacation...

Storms...

I thought the rain was bad in Tazewell!

Cheryl and I are in Red House, Md. at the moment and the sotrms here last night were aweful. A power surge burnt up a device that my father-in-law uses to wake him up when the electricity goes off. The phones were also down for 14 or 15 hours.

North of us about an hour to 90 minutes, Pittsburgh almost washed away. Some places got almost 5 inches of rain.

Tomorrow we go home...

Tree Swallows - an Empty Nest

Well, the tree swallows were in their nest yesterday. Today is day 21 in their little lives, and this morning they're gone. At least, five of them flew. A sixth didn't see the outside world. It laid motionless in the nest this morning at 8am, dead. I cleaned the nest out of the house and left the front open for the sun to him for a few days...

Sad (Missing History)

Well, because of a computer glitch I've evidently been getting the History International channel for free. A few days ago it went away. I called to find out why and they want to to buy a more expensive package... Oh well.

Working the Election

The Democratic Primary was yesterday in Virginia. This morning I tore the Brian Moran bumper sticker off my car. He came in third out of the three candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor in Virginia. Now I have to find a Deeds bumper sticker...

Of course the real race was the one for our Board of Supervisors seat (County Commission, in most states). No incumbent. Three candidates. Tom Childress has been active in the district's Democratic Party as local chair since the 1970's. Robert "Spot" Steele served previously on the school board and tried to take the seat away from a sitting board member in the caucus process a couple of years ago. Davy Woodard is a sitting member of the School Board.

I picked up voting machines on Monday after work. Monday was my last day of the year as a teacher. Other teachers worked Tuesday; I took a personal day. I got to the polls just after 5am. We set up the machines and looked at the new computer-based poll books. All the voter records are on laptops now instead of in big computer printouts. It worked marvelously and I spent the day with two other very pleasant poll workers - waiting for voters to straggle in. Not many did.

Tom is easily the most qualified person on paper. He came in third, despite being well organized and having workers out at the crack of dawn at the poling precincts.

Spot and his wife, Rene', manage a mission that provides food and other items for needy people in the county. That provided for the appearance of conflict of interest (or something like it) in the caucus process a couple of years ago. There's some overlap between those who vote for him and those who are served by the mission.

Davy's a nice guy without much political experience.

Tom and Spot had signs and people at the polls. Davy won by six votes.

Voter turn out was just the other side of pitiful. In my precinct, 51 of the 778 registered voters turned out. My precinct was strong for Spot in past elections. If 10 more people had made it to the polls in Adria, Spot would have won the election by a vote or two.

And people feel like their vote doesn't really matter...

Tree Swallows, Day 15

Baby looking out...




Moma feeding the babies.

Tree Swallows - Day 13

First, one picture from Day 12:



Now Day 13 (today):









You can watch a brief video from day 12 here.

Tree Swallows - Day Eleven (and a bluebird egg)

I wasn't home to take pictures on Thursday and Friday. Cheryl took these two for me on day nine:





Here are pictures for today, day 11 in the life of the baby tree swallows...









The bluebird house has a nest in it again. You'll recall that our bluebirds abandoned a clutch of four eggs in May after a cold snap. We now have one egg again.

Tree Swallows - Day Eight

Day eight. We have eyes...