Doves again with a picture

Well this morning they were at it again and there were probably 15 - 20 birds in all that were trying to get on the feeder. Some decided to feed on the ground but even then they flew back up and tried to find a space on the feeder rail once in a while. It was almost comical to watch. Here is another picture.

Thanks for stopping by,

Doves

This morning I was watching the doves trying to eat at the bird feeder. The feeder is small and really intended for small birds such as sparrows or wrens or maybe a cardinal, but doves are generally too large to get footing on the rail. They can do it but they have to stand sideways and perform some acrobatics to get down there from the roof or the perch. This morning there were about 7 doves trying to get to the food, 4 of which had managed to get themselves on the rails and were able to reach the food. The others were on the roof or perch trying to figure out how to fit in the remaining space. They would even step on another dove's back trying to get to the food. Since they could not get a grip on another dove's back, they slid off and fell towards the ground. Their wings caught them before they hit the ground and they would fly back and try again. I think that is the first time I have noticed them stepping on one another to get to the food.This went on for about 20 minutes before I moved to get the camera and they were frightened off. It never fails when you want a picture, they stop doing whatever they were doing that you wanted a picture of.

Last week at the creek

This room was our main project for the week, getting new floor covering down in the dining room. You can see quite a few pictures at my Picassaweb site. The link is in the right hand column and down a ways. Before we could begin this though, we had to repair some broken pipes. For the second year in a row we have had a hard freeze that lasted a while and we experienced a few broken pipes. This took all of Sunday and part of Monday. Once that was out of the way we began in earnest on the floor. It took most of the week to get it finished. Another project was to complete the doors for the master bedroom. These are folding doors and have been  waiting for me to get around to installing for a couple of years now. This was the trip that got it done. The picture at the bottom shows the completed doors. There are still a few details in the dining room to complete but they should only take an hour or two and then the back half of the house will be complete. We have two more major projects to complete inside the house. One is to replace the kitchen countertop and sink and the other is to redo the floor in the main front section of the house. This will involve removing an existing wood burning stove and ripping out the old carpet, tile and underlayment. We will put down new underlayment and then lay the same sheet vinyl that we have used in the bedroom and dining room.

There are still plenty of outside projects to work on, so we are not even close to being completely done. If we ever do get to the point of being "finished" it will probably be time to start over. The coastal environment is harsh and requires constant work to keep up with the wear and tear that occurs.

One note of interest was a dove that had a nest right above where I needed to work on the pipes. They often build nests in the lower framework of the house. This one happened to have babies in the nest and was unhappy with us working so close to it. We did manage to get the work done without damaging the nest or touching the babies. Hopefully she is happy now that we are no longer disturbing the area.

Home again

We arrived at home about 3:30 PM after a very productive week at our Caney Creek house. We missed getting to see the Saturday game for the Lady Jackets and unfortunately they were on the losing end of that game with Coe College. They won their first game against Lewis and Clark to advance to the round of 32 which is no small accomplishment. We congratulate the team and staff for a job well done.

On the creek front we were nearly able to complete the entire remodeling of the back half of the house with only a few pieces of trim remaining to be put on. I will be posting more detail and some pictures as the week progresses. We had a few frozen pipes again this year so that occupied a couple of days. Most of our pipes are exposed and when we get a hard freeze that lasts for several days it doesn't bode well for the pipes.

So it is good to be home even if we do face a busy week. I have one free night and Martha has 2.

More to come.

March Madness

The Lady Jackets leave today at 6 PM for Cedar Rapids, IA for round 1 and hopefully round 2 of the NCAA Div 3 Womens Basketball tournament. We will go and see them off and wish them the best. I wish we could go with them but at this point we cannot. I think this is the 6th time for the HPU women to be there. We look forward to great games.

We will be at the creek next week for Spring Break. we have several jobs planned and if the weather is nice I hope to fish a little. Actually we have a lot to do to just be ready to go.