Eastern Phoebe Update

I manged to take a picture of the Phoebe nest when the mom was out of the garage. To my surprise there were 4 white eggs and 1 larger speckled. I had never seen this before, but Google came to the rescue. I Googles "Eastern Pheobe eggs" and discovered that this was common. A brown cowbird ids a parasitic bird that lays its eggs in other birds nests and hopefully the othe bird will feed and care for the new chick.  The problem is that this new chick will be larger & more aggressive that the phorebe chicks and may get more of the food from the parents

Cowbird egg in the the 4 Phoebe eggs

We decided to wait and see what will happen. A few days later, I took another photo.

The hatched cowbird

The cowbird had hatched, but the phoebe eggs were still there.  We were worried that the mom would spend all her time feeding the cowbird and abandon setting on her phoebe eggs to hatch.  It turns out that our fears were unfounded as the mother continued to sit on the eggs with the cowbird under her.

After about 4 days. I snapped another photo. This time I was able to see 3 hatched phoebes and the cowbird.  I was amazed at the size difference between the birds. I hope the little ones get fed enough.  The mom & dad are both busy feeding the chicks. I will check tomorrow to see if all is ok,

Large cowbird chick and 3 phoebe chicks ( two with their mouth up, one maybe just hatching)

Memorial Day Update: Sad news to report. I decided to do an up close inspection of the nest, to determine the state of the phoebe chicks.  I removed the large cowbird, now with feathers from the nest. remaining there were 1 unhatched egg and 1 dead phoebe chick.  The other phoebe chick mysteriously disappeared.  Our only hope now is that they return for their second brood later this year.  So sad, but I guess that is the state of wildlife, it doesn't always turn out as you wish.

Planting the Gardens

 The Irises in our perennial garden have just started to bloom this week. here is a sample of what has bloomed so far.

 The vegetable garden is also progressing. Last year we skipped having a garden due to the poor spring weather. But this year we finally ran out of home made tomato suace and frozen green peppers, so we needed to replenish our stock. We also moved the raspberry plants to a sunnier location ing the garden and we expanded the garden bu about 5 feet.

So far we have planted 35 Roma Tomato plants, 30 bell peppers, 12 red cabagge, 12 eggplant, 12 lettuce, 6 hot peppers, 6 Cherokee Purple Tomato, 8 cucumber plants, 2 rows Swiss Chard seeds, 2 rows bush bean seeds, 1 row cucumber seeds, 4 mounds zucchini seeds & 48 Marigold plants. I think that is about it for now.

Yesterday Elly went out the fill the bird feeders. Her friend Tom came to visit.  He is getting so funny, when he is hungry, he comes up o the sliding glass door and pecks on the window.  He does not eat out of her hand though. Still s little afraid.

Transitioning to a Whole Foods Plant-Based Diet

Elly and I have always ate well, we had thought! All of our meals were prepared from scratch and cooked at home. No processed food, little sugar & salt, hardly any red meat, always organic vegetables & spices, olive oil & homemade bread.  Boy were we wrong! We probably own all the DVDs about how food is grown, and processed, the cruel way animals are raised and processed and  know all about the chemicals & junk that goes into our food.

We have already read the book "How Not to Die" by Dr. Michael Greger, but it all just came together and a light went on in our heads after seeing the movie 'What The Health" and the new movie "H.O.P.E   What You Eat Matters."  We finally came to the realization the everyone in America on the Standard American Diet has heart disease.  And I mean EVERYONE, diagnosed or not, including US!

Together with the an older You Tube Video by  Dr Michael Greger  "40 Year Old Vegan Dies of Heart Attack." and thgese two movies, Elly and I had an epiphany.  Watch the  You Tube video below:

So we threw out all of our oils, and started transitioning to a Whole Foods, Plant-Based Diet. It was very difficult not having the correct ingredients, spices, recipes etc. But we are slowly learning to change over our total diet.

This week we found a Vegan/Vegetarian take-out restaurant in Worcester called the Belmont Vegetarian Restaurant.. It received good reviews on Yelp, etc so we decided to try it.  For $12.56 each we got a tin of everything on their menu.

Belmont Street Vegetarian Restaurant

The Menu

Elly waiting for our order

Our order after we arrived home

The food was delicious, especially the BBQ. We will definitely be going back

Birds, Wildlife and the Return of the Phoebes

Spring is always a busy season in our backyard as the birds and other animals return. The turkeys are one of the first to be seen, especially since spring is the mating season. The toms "puff-out" trying to attract and impress the hens. The hens seems to care less most of the time. It's actually amazin that a regular looking tom can puff up and become a big "picture perfect" for Thanksgiving turkey.

We always wait and wonder to see whether our Eastern Phoebe friends that have taken up residence on my fishing poles in the garage for the last for years will return again. After four year, they had built the nest so high that it almost touched the ceiling and would leave little room for the baby phoebes. So earlier  this Spring I cut the next and took down half of it hoping they wouldn't mind since they always add on anyway. Well last week they returned for the 5th straight year! I managed to get a photo of the mom in the nest, hopefully babies will follow soon.

Mom Phoebe at night in her nest

Today we saw the coyote walking trough the yard. He seemed particularly interested in the tom turkey.  But as he ran after the turkey, the turkey just flew away.  We must be sure that we keep our cat inside as we have already lost may of our pets to wild animals in the past.

Going after the Turkey, but he has wings!

We are very excited that a pair of Baltimore Orioles visited our feeder this year. Last year they showed up for a day and left. This year we put orange slices on the feeder after we saw them and they have been staying around for a few days.  Hope they decide to stay all summer, but I will have to keep them stocked up with oranges.