Birds, birds and more birds

It all started with my brother, the Instigator. He sent a rather innocuous looking link and said something about "baby eagles". That was all it took. Soon thereafter, my kids became eagles. On top of watching the live webcam and tracking the babies, they themselves flew about the house, googled habits of eagles and spent birthday money on new eagle toys. My 8yr old Rose even declared one night, "I'm only eating the meat at dinner because eagles don't eat anything else".

When they are not being eagles, they've been Daddy's helpers in the garden. He's replacing the old wooden rotting-out raised garden boxes with concrete block raised beds. And he's expanding the garden area. It's a very slow long job (and our rainy weather hasn't helped) because he's building it on the hill. So in order to level the beds, he's doing a LOT of digging. And leveling with gravel and leveling with blocks and top stones. It's a big process, I'm telling ya. But the kids love being out there with him. They're apparently naturalists...but Rose is the one who enjoys it the most. She has the drive and focus to stay and help when the rest have gone off to play. I walked out the other day to see how things were coming along and heard Rose say, "Dad, what's that pile of decomposing material over there from?" So she's getting some great science lessons out there.

And then Daddy had to feed the bird obsession. He installed a hummingbird feeder and a finch suet feeder and we have had a blast watching and observing and pretending and yahoo-ing and researching.

As for me? Well, I think it's for the birds.