Snoopy House Resident

May 12 -- This is a house I built in November of 2011. Now it is spring, and we have residents. They appear to be House Sparrows.

Jesus said, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." Matthew 10:29-31

Bird Nest 2012

This nest was built about a month ago, but never occupied. Then, all of a sudden, mockingbirds have taken up residency, and there are four new eggs.

May 10

We have a nandina bush just outside our side door. Birds have built nests in it for years.  The circle is where the present nest is located. 

May 11

I will be checking on the eggs for progress and will post further pictures and comments. Hopefully, I will get pictures of the parents soon.

May 11

May 11

May 12 -- I took a look today and as soon as I got close to the bush, mama bird took off.  I took a picture of her from far far away. It was a little shaky, but it is the best I have of her yet. I will try later to get a better picture.

Mama Bird - May 12

I got these next two later in the afternoon. She flies away easily.

 

May 23: I have been in the hospital for a week and after two days at home I discovered we have some new baby birds.

May 23

 One bird has his mouth wide open in the above picture. Just to the right you can see an unhatched egg. It is hard to tell if two or three of the eggs have hatched. Will check again tomorrow.

May 23

Updated May 31: Well, something got to our little Mockingbird nest. I haven't been up to checking the nest, and now the nest looks disturbed. I don't know if a cat got it or what. The unhatched egg is still there, and what looks like dried out little birds. I didn't spend much time looking because I am still a little weak from my surgery. It was very sad to see my little birds were dead.

Double Edged Shaving

I created a new page on double edged shaving. It is about my return to an earlier shaving technology.
http://jayaruh.blogspot.com/p/double-edged-shaving.html

Whereas shaving used to be a chore, it is now a delight. I generate my own lather and shave with a double-edged razor.

Pictured above are a vintage Gillette Aristocrat DE razor (1940's), my dad's vintage Schick injector razor (1940's), and Marcia's grandpa's shaving brush.

The Schick has a wooden handle that my Dad had fashioned. Evidently he replaced the original handle at some point. I got this razor from my brother Dick who told me that Dad had given it to him. In fact on one side of the handle you can barely see where "Dick H Roe" has been inscribed. There is what looks like a little palm tree on the other side.

Baby Robin

This morning as we were leaving for breakfast, I saw a little visitor perched in a brace on the back of our utility trailer.  It was a fledgling robin. Note the lack of tail feathers. I ran back in the house to get the camera and took this picture.

I came around front and took this one. His coloring is not all in yet either.

 Here I zoomed in to get a close up.

When we returned home he was sitting on the wheel of the trailer.  I was going to get the camera again, but he spooked and flew away. I saw him around for a little while, but I mowed the yard today, and he disappeared

Happy Birthday Eli

Eli turns 5, and he loves Bingo.

There are 10 kinds of people.

Those who understand binary and those that do not.

Happy 101th birthday, Eli.

That's a little binary birthday wish.

New Hunter Fan

We bought a new ceiling fan at Lowes today. It is a 42 inch brushed nickel fan that was billed as a "five minute fan." Well, it took me about 30 minutes to remove the old fan and install this one. It is pretty nice though. The motor and arms are fully assembled. Once you get the fan hung, the blades snap onto the arms. Usually, the assembly of the blades and arms take up the bulk of the time, but with this system blade assembly  only took a couple of minutes.  I attached the light kit, and I was done. It is a handsome fan, very quiet, and there is no wobble. What more could you ask for?

This a well thought out fan. The next one would go up much quicker. If you don't count removing from the box, you could probably install one in close to five minutes.

Fixing a Broken Recliner Spring

One of our recliner's foot rest would not return completely, so I turned the recliner over and found that the spring responsible for pulling the rest back had broken. I searched hardware stores and online before I decided to try to "fix" the spring itself. 

I used five links of Peerless #16 Jack Chain (Max load: 10 lbs.) that I had left over from hanging bird houses.

I just slipped each end onto the coil until they were opposite each other and 90 degrees to the opposite hook. 

This is the spring in place.

I put the chain loop around the stud.

I hooked the other end into an appropriate hole. It was the one that was obviously worn.  That's all it took. The chair retracts as good as ever, and I didn't have to buy anything.

Another successful story from the annals of Jayaruh.