{"id":2696,"date":"2009-04-23T05:31:30","date_gmt":"2009-04-23T10:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/?p=2696"},"modified":"2009-04-23T05:31:30","modified_gmt":"2009-04-23T10:31:30","slug":"yesterday-afternoon-in-the-yard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/yesterday-afternoon-in-the-yard\/","title":{"rendered":"Yesterday afternoon in the yard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday April 23, 2009.\u00a0 I wrote this yesterday as I sat out on the yard.\u00a0 it was such a serene scene that I wanted to share it with you. \u00a0 I&#8217;m sitting herein the shade of the mulberry, next to the loquat tree in the back yard.\u00a0 The loquats are gone now, the last ones taken by the squirrels and birds last week.\u00a0 There&#8221;s a new batch of ripe mulberries on the tree, and I imagine the little wrens that come along about 5pm will descend upon them and pick the tree clean.\u00a0 I am armed closeby and with my Peterson Eastern Birds Field Guide at hand.\u00a0 I want to see exactly what kind of birds this crew is.\u00a0 The squirrels are already used to me and YinYang, who sits close by in the shade of the mulberry tree.\u00a0 She&#8217;s too fat and lazy to chase , but she likes being where the action is.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I am loving that it is almost May and the weather is still mild.\u00a0 There&#8217;s a plane overhead, heading south and leaving long white trails in the air.\u00a0 I can hear the neighbors somewhere behind me playing in the pool, and the child welcoming Daddy home with &#8220;I&#8217;ve been waiting all day to tell you something.&#8221;\u00a0 And &#8220;here boy, come here, boy&#8221; to the dog.\u00a0 I can hear the bamboo swishing even though I&#8217;m in the backyard and it&#8217;s in the front.\u00a0 The bamboo is very tall and the wind makes great sounds as it moves through it.\u00a0 It&#8217;s pretty windy today, so the oaks and palms in the east woods are doing their dance, a tall, dark moving canopy.\u00a0 Yin Yang is facing towards the trail where the brown bunny was seen hopping on the other morning early.\u00a0 She doesn&#8217;t forget easily.\u00a0 she is now in the optimum spot to watch the bunny trail, the mulberry tree, and the bush where the cardinals&#8217; nest is.\u00a0 Izzy is asleep in the firepit area, watching only the backs of his eyelids.\u00a0 My protector.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbase.com\/tmurray74\/florida_butterflies\" target=\"_blank\">Butterflies<\/a>, I&#8217;ve got the big yellow ones, the cloudless sulphers, and the orange and black monarches.\u00a0 I see the container herb garden drank about a gallon of water today.\u00a0 Dragonflies, several dragonflies.\u00a0 Squirrels running west to east along the utility wire, which runs conveniently through the mulberry and loquat trees. Fast food for those squirrels on the run.\u00a0 Spanish Needle in bloom, those little white and yellow daisy looking weeds?\u00a0 The bumbly bees love them and it makes a good honey.\u00a0 I hear the papa cardinal talking.\u00a0 I think he&#8217;s telling his mate he&#8217;s got some seeds for her.\u00a0 She&#8217;s saying &#8220;do it, then talk about it&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>I spent a good part of the day working in the yard.\u00a0 By Facebook, I kept everyone up to date on the Spring 2009 HatchWatch.\u00a0 I wrote: Mama cardinal is on the nest &#8211; maybe today is the day &#8211; Ah! 2 female cardinals at the birdbath@!! Lemme sneak to the back and, if mama is one of them, I get to see inside the nest. Be right back.<\/p>\n<p>False alarm. Mama is still on the nest. I just put out their black oil sunflower seeds and put down some chicken for the kitties inside. Make them too lazy to wanna birdwatch&#8230; Eating carcass makes me feel lazy, too.<\/p>\n<p>Mama cardinal has not left the nest all day. The eggs are ready to hatch surely by now.\u00a0 It is Day 17 since I saw the first egg on April 5.<\/p>\n<p>Mama cardinal has been sitting in the nest in an odd position the last half hour. I think there is a baby hatched. She is taller in the nest and looking into it now, whereas before she was on the nest looking around at the yard.<\/p>\n<p>Mama cardinal is off the nest. Two of the eggs have hatched. We&#8217;re all parents! Remember, it takes a village&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Mama and papa cardinal calling back and forth to each other and feeding the new hatchlings. Kitties are inside. Sunflower seeds are down in the far side of yard, to keep the night critters away from the nest. I&#8217;m so excited!<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll keep you posted.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Arial; color: #8000ff;\">,\u00b8\u00b8,\u00f8\u00a4\u00ba\u00b0`\u00b0\u00ba\u00a4 :\u00a6:-<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.horizonsmagazine.com\/CD_Page\/Downloads.html\" target=\"_blank\">OOBE &#8211; Out of Body Experience $10 mp3<\/a><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Arial; color: #8000ff;\">\u00f8\u00a4\u00ba\u00b0`\u00b0\u00ba\u00a4 :\u00a6:- <\/span><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>Free mp3 file<\/em><\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.horizonsmagazine.com\/CD_Page\/Universal_Manager.html\" target=\"_blank\">Universal Manager<\/a> <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>with $10 purchase<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"s-share-buttons\" class=\"horizontal-w-c-circular s-share-w-c\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/yesterday-afternoon-in-the-yard\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Share to Facebook\" class=\"s3-facebook hint--top\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=Yesterday afternoon in the yard&url=https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/yesterday-afternoon-in-the-yard\/\" target=\"_blank\"  title=\"Share to Twitter\" class=\"s3-twitter hint--top\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/share?url=https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/yesterday-afternoon-in-the-yard\/\" target=\"_blank\"  title=\"Share to Google Plus\" class=\"s3-google-plus hint--top\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/yesterday-afternoon-in-the-yard\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Share to LinkedIn\" class=\"s3-linkedin hint--top\"><\/a><div class=\"pinit-btn-div\"><a href=\"\/\/www.pinterest.com\/pin\/create\/button\/\" data-pin-do=\"buttonBookmark\"  data-pin-color=\"red\" title=\"Share to Pinterest\" class=\"s3-pinterest hint--top\"><\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\" async defer src=\"\/\/assets.pinterest.com\/js\/pinit.js\"><\/script><a href=\"mailto:?Subject=Yesterday%20afternoon%20in%20the%20yard&Body=Here%20is%20the%20link%20to%20the%20article:%20https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/yesterday-afternoon-in-the-yard\/\" title=\"Email this article\" class=\"s3-email hint--top\"><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday April 23, 2009.\u00a0 I wrote this yesterday as I sat out on the yard.\u00a0 it was such a serene scene that I wanted to share it with you. \u00a0 I&#8217;m sitting herein the shade of the mulberry, next to the loquat tree in the back yard.\u00a0 The loquats are gone now, the last ones [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}