The protective parents...

Follow - up on a Robin's story:
While Momma is gathering worms, Daddy is right there, and vice versa. Here both of them are trying to distract those horrible giant with the camera. I never thought that there was a Daddy involved until later when the babies were getting bigger. Momma built the nest, laid eggs, then incubated. It was a surprised for me seeing those protective parents both watching their babies. The female is slightly paler in color and a little bit smaller than male. (Pls. click the photo to see the slight difference)

A glorious morning in New England

Hanna went by without any damage done in our area. It was a glorious morning when I woke up and it seems it will be beautiful for the rest of the week. My prayers to those affected with the hurricane. DH received an e-mail from my BIL telling him that the storm was the worst Baton Rouge, LA ever experienced. He mentioned that all trees on their yard were gone. His neighbor's house was severely damaged by a treefall. The good news was, they were safe except that they might have no power for a week. I hope the power comes back sooner than they expected.

By the way, yesterday I planned to have a barbecue for dinner but since the bad weather was to start late afternoon, we decided to have it for our lunch. Got the barbecue recipe from Kusinera sa America. It is a very good recipe for a pork barbecue.

Nature's Bounty...

Last year, we had a lot of vegetables from our garden. I even gave some to my friends and made tomato sauce since we had a lot to consume just for ourselves.


This year, I had to compete with a gate-crasher just to have tomatoes for our salad. This little creature was the frequent visitor in our garden. Did I get mad? Not really! I enjoy watching these lively animals, sometimes make an eye to eye contact with them. The enjoyment outweighs any nuisance they cause in our garden. Since they depend primarily on plants for food, I let them share some of the produce in our garden. The only thing I don't like them to do is when they burrow in our flower garden and our retaining walls.

Robin's Chronicle... (The growing baby birds)

Mommy Robin's growing babies.

Those cuties are now 4-5 days old...

Feed me pls. momma...

another day had passed, babies are now 1 day older.

Their feathers are becoming visible now.

On Parenting...

Your children are not your children,
They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are not with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwells in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit,not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might,
that His arrows might go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness,
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Kahlil Gibran
(Chicken Soup for the Soul)

Robin's chronicle...Eggs hatched

A continuation of Robin's chronicle.

After seven days one egg hatched, then one hatched each day for the next two days.

Off to school, she goes...

I can't believe it! We already have a kindergartener. It is pretty quiet here right now, DH & I sent our DD to school. She was so excited that when she woke up this morning she was singing, "I'm going to kindergarten, I'm going to kindergarten!" I'm a little worried though, it seems that she is still too young to a full day school. She thought that she can do everything now since she goes to a big school. She was so happy when she saw some of her preschool classmates are in her class too. Anyways, I hope her first day would be as exciting as she hopes it would be.
Good luck littleone! Enjoy everything school has to offer.

The long weekend is over...

It was a very productive long weekend for us, we didn't go anywhere though. The whole family stayed home and did some chores that needs to be done while the weather is beautiful. DH split firewood and I helped stacking it. We usually use firewood in the winter during the weekend and at night when DH is around. It saves us a lot of heating oil and warm the whole house well. With the high cost of heating oil I think this is a good alternative for us to save a little. I also finished put an edging in our deck while our DD played in her sand box. I was so happy that DH was in the mood of painting the eaves of our house coz that really needs a makeover. Overall the weekend went well for us. What about you guys, maybe some of you are still on vacation.

The Robin's chronicle...(part1)

It was very common in our yard to hear the Robin sings and see them hunting for food to eat.(their diet consists of worms, bugs, fruits & berries) But making a nest just outside our window, that is very unusual. Early summer a robin had started building a nest on top of a stepladder leaning against the house under an overhang. Odd, in that I thought they typically built nests in dense trees/bushes not in the open, and not so close to people. DH just used the ladder a day before they started building a nest. I wasn't sure whether to knock it down or leave it be. How aggressive are mother robins? If I left it be, DH can't use the ladder until she's done,but it is a chance to show my DD an empty nest, then nest with eggs, then growing baby birds. It was also 15 feet away from her swingset. We decided not to move the ladder and after few days we found three eggs in it already.

Our Purr fect companion...

After our 17 yo cat Schmedley passed away a year ago. DH kept on bugging me to have a new one. I was hesitant to have another cat again since I saw how emotional he was when he lost our cat, also cat's smell bothers me a lot. Then one morning I heard DH talking to my DD that there was a cat who wanted a new home. DD asked me nonstop if she can have her. Guess what, after a lot of convincing DH and DD were ecstatic when they heard me say yes. Now we have a new addition in our family. This cute and gregarious little fella makes my DD and DH happy.

Friday moms lunch date...

I have a Friday moms' group that I go to just to eat and chat while kids are playing. Since our kids are now in a 5- 6 yo range we now have time to seat and relax a little. We mothers really need that little time. Once kids know the rules playdate goes smoothly. We do check them from time to time just to make sure that they are safe and the set rules are followed.

Patriotic Bristol...

Bristol, RI isn't satisfied with those boring yellow lines for the road centerline. They show their patriotism by using red-white-blue. They've been doing this for many years, and there is even an exception to the nationwide Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices specification for road markings that specifically allow them to do this. The oldest 4th of July parade in the US is in Bristol and follows the route of the road with the red-white-blue centerline (Rt 114 or Hope St, Bristol). It's about 2 1/2 miles in length.