Journal: Eagles & Hummingbirds, Cats & Cubbyholes

Last Monday, I shined up Dorcas’ violin case with leather cleaner before sending it to her; I think it had myriad strata of dust on it, starting from the Industrial Revolution Era.

I asked her, “Remember how Grandpa Swiney used to call and ask you little kids to come over and play your violins for him?  Five-year-old Teddy with his little bitty one... you with your slightly bigger one...”

Teddy always looked intense until he finished the song, looked up, and grinned; Dorcas generally grinned the entire time she played.

I also found this porcelain doll with the stuffed body that Janice made her, dressed in the sailor outfit I’d made to match American Girl doll Samantha’s sailor dress that Dorcas was particularly fond of.  I ordered Samantha’s matching boots for it, too, as they would fit this doll’s feet okay.

I forgot to take pictures of the doll before sending it, and this is only taken with Dorcas’ cell phone, so it’s not the best.

Here’s another photo of the Sandhill cranes.  My pictures weren’t as clear as I’d have liked, because it was a misty, overcast day, the cranes were a long ways away, and I was in a vehicle grabbing shots without benefit of a tripod.  I was really jealous of a guy I saw all sprawled out atop a big ol’ round haybale, camera resting in front of him – and he had a lens on that thing that looked like the little brother to the Hubble.

Last week, I was again looking for lyrics to a song.  Couldn’t find it online, so I wrote to my friends Linda and Penny:  What’s the rest of the lyrics for the song with this chorus?

“Nearer home, nearer home!  Every day I come a little nearer home!”

A few minutes later, I remembered more, and wrote again:  “Okay, the first line is ‘Since I started on my journey’, and the title is A Little Nearer Home.  Author is Charles Frederick Weigle. 1871-1966.  I can tell you where he was born and where he died and where he is buried, but I can’t find the lyrics to this song!”

It wasn’t long before both of them sent me the lyrics.  They have the lyrics to just about all the songs we know – many thousands of them – on their Braille Lite machines, and can pull them up at the drop of a hat.

A Little Nearer Home

Verse 1

Since I started on my journey toward the heavenly land,

Where I’ll join the happy throng around God’s throne,

I have met with many trials hard to understand,

But each day I’ve come a little nearer home.

Refrain: 

Nearer home, nearer home!  

Every day I’ve come a little nearer home! 

Nearer home, nearer home!

Every day I’ve come a little nearer home.

Verse 2

I may pass through days of sorrow like a river deep,

I may see the angry billows dash and foam;

I may need to climb a pathway over mountains steep,

But each day I’ve come a little nearer home.

Verse 3

There are times as I press onward when the road seems long,

But I think of when no longer I shall roam;

Then my soul is filled with gladness and I sing my song:

Every day I've come a little nearer home!

So many of the best hymn-writers, those who wrote the most touching words, had tragedies in their lives – and Pastor Charles Weigle was no exception.  Some people are made bitter... others only become sweeter, isn’t it the truth? 

Tuesday, I sent this to Hannah, writing, “I think you should make this for Misty.”  hee hee

What a way to remove a dog’s dignity!  ((snerk))

Teensy is on my lap all sprawled out... and every time I reach for the keyboard (on the table), he shoves his cute little head into the crook of my elbow and tries to force it back down where it was serving as his pillow.  He’s butting his head against me... shoving his feet into my stomach... trying his bestest to coax me into stopping with the typing and getting back to the petting, pôr fąvör.

That afternoon, I packed up a huge box for Dorcas, and took it to the UPS after picking up kids at school.  Ethan helped me carry it in.  The violin was in the middle, wrapped with layers of bubble wrap, with porcelain dolls (the big one Janice made and a set of boy and girl sailor dolls we’d given her), stuffed toys, a piano music box, a rubber stamp (for inside book covers), a baby quilt Norma made her, a crocheted blanket Dorcas herself had made a long time ago, two resin teddy-bear sailor boys, the Amplified Bible Bobby and Hannah had given her, and one of the school yearbooks my mother gave her.

Emma held the door for us.  Lyle came in, too.  As we were leaving, I read the sign on the door:  “Push.”  So I did – on Lyle’s back.  “The sign says ‘Push’!” I told him, and pushed him a few more times for good measure.  (Not hard, of course – just enough to make him laugh.)

We have brown thrashers here.  They’re so secretive, I hardly ever get a photo of them, and when I do, it’s not very good, and not very close.  They sing so beautifully, with such varied songs, that I one day thought, I wonder if the thrasher is related to the mockingbird?  Looked it up... and they are!

We have wood thrushes, too.  Much smaller, a different family of bird... but they sing so prettily, too. 

We had a neighbor lady, years ago, who got the names all mixed up.  Either bird could be a ‘brown thrush’, ‘wood thrasher’, ‘brown thrusher’, ‘wood thrash’, etc.  And she always called the house finches ‘redpolls’, even though those little birds had never been seen around here until the last couple of years.  Redpolls do winter here occasionally now.  But they nest and breed in the far northern reaches of Alaska and the Northwest Territories.

Here are Teddy (with Grant), Larry, and Caleb having a laugh about something at the last wedding reception.  (No, I don’t know what the joke is.)

Did I ever say what that last (belated) gift was that we gave Hannah for her birthday?  It was a yarn bowl.  Originally, I could only find them for around $65 each, so I purchased wooden bowls and Larry was going to use a dremel to make them similar to this one.  But... as I have mentioned, Larry is in High Demand around these parts, and those bowls sat and languished.  I finally found one at an affordable price, so now Hannah has her yarn bowl – and I have three wooden bowls, complete with wooden spoons and even three sets of chopsticks.

Therefore, I shall give them to the young people who will be getting married in a month, and tuck in some rice dinners to go with them.  (Yes, I know three is an odd number to give someone – both figuratively and literally.  But they cost enough, and I refused to fret over it.  If they wish to fret over it, they are free to do so.  ha)  (If anybody asks me pointblank what my Big Idea was, I shall act all amazed and affronted, and say I never dreamed the couple would ever invite more than one visitor at a time to eat Chinese with them.  “It just isn’t proper!” [with wide eyes]  It’ll take them long enough to investigate that, I’ll have plenty of time to make a Quick Get-Away.)

So I won’t need to sew anything, and my cleaning spree can continue unhindered.  Hopefully, I’ll be in my new sewing room when next I need to make something – which will be for a great-nephew’s upcoming wedding.  He’s the one (Matthew) who will be marrying the girl named Josie – and therefore I must give them some bags of Josie coffee (mustn’t I?), along with a beautiful coffeepot (yet to be found) – and a quilted coffeepot cozy. 

That night, I let WeatherCat in, discovered it was raining (i.e., the cat was wet), pulled up AccuWeather – and found an article telling of three storm chasers getting killed in Texas when their two vehicles crashed at high rates of speed on rural roads while chasing tornadoes.  Awful.

I spent most of the day Wednesday in my little office, cleaning, sorting, organizing.  I made sure to haul enough stuff out to the Jeep that I had a full load to deliver to the Goodwill when I went to pick up the grandchildren after school. 

Tree pollen is very high around here right now.  It starts even before you can see the new leaves.  Nevertheless, I love the misty greens of spring leaves just emerging, and the blooming trees, whose leaves don’t start opening until the flower petals are strewn all over the ground.  Here are blossoms on our apricot tree.

I got quite a few comments on that photo of Larry in last week’s letter, where he was pretending to climb over the fence into the pioneers’ garden. 

He’s such a goofus.  If there aren’t any kids left to entertain, and the grandkids aren’t around, why, then, he happily entertains me!  😃

Late one evening, years ago, he hopped up and walked on a railing up to the post office door, looking back at us (in the car, watching him) all the while, waving both arms like a lunatic, when a lady unexpectedly exited.  She nearly jumped out of her hide when she saw him, and she stared at him in alarm as he jumped down, until she happened to notice the carload of children laughing.  Then she smiled fondly at Larry, who, for once, had the grace to look a bit abashed, and continued on her way.

As we sat outside in the darkening day, we could see him clearly in the lighted post office lobby.  He would put money into the stamp machine, then bend over and poke his nose against the dispenser slot, trying to peer in, as if it was taking much too long for his stamps to come out.  When the machine suddenly spit them forth, he’d gasp and leap backwards, clutching at his chest as though in great terror.  The children would laugh until they had no more air in their lungs.

Then there was the time we backed out of our garage... Larry pushed the button to make the automatic garage door come down ------ but nothing happened.

He got out, went and peered up at the mechanism... pressed the button on the remote...  The door remained calmly up near the ceiling. 

He frowned ferociously up at the inanimate motor, then shook his fist at it threateningly.  That started the kids to giggling.

He disconnected the motor and went to pull the door (large double door) down manually.  He reached for the handle – but it was some distance above his head.  He proceeded to leap and hop, pretending as though he simply could not reach that thing.  The giggles increased to chortling.

Then, with a tremendous jump, he managed to grab not the handle, but the garage door frame above the door!  He pulled his legs up and wrapped them around the frame, looking quite a lot like a monkey up there.  (Or maybe a koala, since I can’t find any good pictures of monkeys in similar circumstances.)

Finally, he shifted his hands from frame to door – and door, Larry, and all started coming down.

Fortunately, the door was tight and hard to pull down, so he didn’t just come crashing to the earth, but descended quite slowly.  He stayed in position, legs wrapped around the bottom slat of the door --- and wound up lying on the ground under the door lengthwise, kicking and flailing as if the door had him pinned and he couldn’t escape. 

By now the children were guffawing uproariously. 

It was at this precise moment that John H., my brother-in-law from next door, walked around the corner.  He came to a screeching halt and stared with amazement down into Larry’s face, directly in front of him on the ground.

Larry grinned sheepishly, pushed the door up a bit, scrambled up, then pulled the door the rest of the way down.

John H. shook his head, grinned at me, and remarked, “Well, he hasn’t grown up yet, has he?”  hee hee

And this is the guy about whom his cousin told me, when Jacksons were already on their way to Columbus, hoping to build a new and better life after tragedy (their second son died of a brain tumor, and their oldest son was killed in a car accident), “Kenny (Larry’s younger brother) is a clown, so much fun; but that Larry!  He’s hard to get along with.”

I thought, What a thing to say about someone from a family who wants to try making life better, and most of us have never even met them.  And further, I will get along with Larry!!! 

By Christmastime, I’d decided, I will marry Larry. 

I usually do what I set my mind to.

I washed bedding that day, remade the bed, washed more clothes – some, from upstairs closets.

And I found my lost ‘Extreme’ SD card – the only card that can cope with the high quality of videos my Canon camera takes.  I spent over an hour hunting for it last Saturday night, gave up, decided I’d have to buy another one.

But that afternoon, Teensy stood up big and tall by my rolltop desk in my little office where I was cleaning, and proceeded to bat a lip balm onto the floor. 

“Teensy, you cat you!” I remonstrated, laughing at him as I leaned down to pick up the tube ------- and there was my card, on a tapestry lighthouse rug on the floor, blending in neatly with the design.  That cat must’ve batted it off the slideout on my desk!  I thought that’s where I put it, but ... there it wasn’t.

Late afternoon, I had a little snack of half a banana and a couple of handfuls of Trail Mix.  Note to self:  when a big bag of Trail Mix is on sale for the unbelievably low price of $1.50, it’s because the stupid stuff is going stale. 

I learn this... and then I relearn this... but do you think the lesson ever sticks??

When I quit to get ready for church, one filing cabinet was all cleaned out, another bag was ready for the Goodwill, one bag went into the trash, and all the knickknacks and pictures were off the rolltop desk and packed into a tote.  I want the desk moved into my sewing room, and it will have to be disassembled in order to do so, as it’s quite large, and will not fit through doorways otherwise.

Lura Kay told me that night that the chemo is making Kelvin a bit sick and very tired.  I don’t go very many hours in a day without thinking of him, and stopping to pray for him and his family.

Thursday morning, I was surprised to look out the window and spot a baby finch at the feeder, flapping and cheeping and begging his papa to feed him.  I’m always so surprised to see them so early – and yet, it’s about the same time as usual.  How in the world do they build nests, lay eggs, incubate them, and feed their babies until they fledge, in weather such as we have in Nebraska in early-to-mid March?!  There was a downy woodpecker on the suet feeder, and a cardinal on the sunflower seed feeder.

That night – well, early Friday morning, really, since I didn’t quit until 2:45 a.m. – I finished emptying all the drawers in a tall dresser and clearing every crook and nanny out of my rolltop desk in the upstairs office.  The nannies went with only a few token grumbles, but the crooks had to be dealt with, with brooms and batons.

I was ready to delve into the office cubbyhole!

The Jeep was near full again, with most of the seats laid down.  If I found very many things in that cubbyhole Friday to give to the Goodwill, I’d have to make two trips.

I donated a Canon scanner and an HP printer/scanner, and even found all the manuals and the installation CDs to go with them.  I’d thrown out the boxes they came in years ago, however.  So I trotted downstairs (every time I go from upstairs, 2^nd floor, to downstairs, i.e., basement, that’s two flights of stairs – and we have nine-foot ceilings, so that makes for one or two extra steps) (and I count every one!)... uh, where was I?  Oh, yes – I trotted downstairs to hunt for a big box.  I found one in the storage area under the front porch --- but it had knits and taffetas in it.  So I took a few minutes to put all the fabric into two of the clear plastic bins I got several years ago for my fabric, bins that fit on the shelving units I have in my sewing room closet.

While looking in the storage area, I found a couple more things to haul out to the Jeep.  So that room is slightly emptier than it was, and two more bins of fabric are sorted.  I can’t sort fabric without thinking, shirt for Jeffrey, skirt for Emma, doll dress for Elsie, robe for Nathanael, attic window quilt, upholstery for kitchen chairs, .........  and that makes me think all the more, Gotta hurry, hurry, hurry, with this cleaning!  There are things that need to be done!

Larry helped me by vacuuming out the two cubbyholes I’d emptied.

Friday afternoon, I was talking to Victoria on the phone when Lydia sent me this text:  “Would you still have the harpsichord that you gave me for my birthday maybe when I was 12?  It was one that was yours and I can’t remember if I took it with me or if I left it there.”

“AAAaaaaaaaa!” I said to Victoria, “Listen to this!” and I read her the text.  “Do you know what I did with that autoharp?!  I gave it to Hannah last week, that’s what!”

Hannah had gotten new strings to fix it (some kid of mine had tried to tune it and broken three strings), Levi took it to show-and-tell, and Jacob, enthralled, went home and told Lydia all about it.

Soooo... I called Lydia to tell her what I’d done, and then I started looking for autoharps online – and discovered that new ones are $300-$450 (and lots higher, if you want some really high-quality ones).  Aaaccckkkk.

I found a used one on eBay that looked similar, seemed to be quite nice, and bid on it.  The auction would end on Sunday afternoon.

And then I hurried off with a Jeep load of stuff to the Goodwill.

Home again, it occurred to me that it had been a long time since I’d looked at the streaming video camera at the eagles’ nest in Decorah, Iowa.  I pulled up the site to see what was happening.

Papa Eagle was on the nest, which contained three eggs.  Egg #1 was laid February 20^th; Egg #2, February 23^rd; and Egg #3, February 27^th.  The incubation period is generally about 34-36 days.

And then, even while I watched, half an egg shell was spied!!!  That means... SOMEBODY PASS OUT THE CIGARS!!!!!  WE HAVE EAGLET!!!!! 

Why do people pass out cigars when a baby is born, anyway?  That’s disgusting.  Way to contaminate a new baby’s lungs, dumbbells!  (Yes, I know people don’t (usually) smoke the things right in the baby’s room.  But I also know that people reek of the nasty stuff for hours after smoking.  If you disagree, you need your olfactory nerves refurbished and rejuvenated.)

Papa Eagle was so very diligent about keeping eaglet and eggs warm, nobody was able to see the baby for several hours, though the three cameras were zoomed in close:

http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles

I decided to check on the hummingbirds whilst I was at it – and found two baby hummingbirds that looked totally humongous, because they just didn’t fit in their nest anymore!  They were allllmost ready to fledge, and in fact that’s exactly what they did, a very few hours later:  http://www.bellahummingbird.com/

Now...  as for size of nests, just to give you an idea of size of bird:

The eagles’ nest is roughly 6 feet across and 5 feet deep, and weighs about 1,300 pounds.

The hummingbirds’ nest is the size of half of a pingpong ball.

Bald eagle eggs are about 3 inches long by 2 inches wide. The average weight is 4 - 4.5 oz.  A hummingbird egg is about the size of a pea or a small jellybean, depending on species.

And that’s your ornithology lesson for the day.

By late Friday night, the office cubbyhole was all cleared out!  Everything was sorted, and all that was going to the Goodwill is in the Jeep (second load for the day), and the three big outdoor trash cans are full.  I had two large bins and one big bag full of yarn for Hannah.  There were crochet hooks and knitting needles in the bins, too.

Everything I wish to keep is sorted into plastic bins, so it’ll stay nicer than it does in boxes.

I traipsed up and down the stairs too many times that day! – by nighttime, walking had become a major chore.  I took a hot bath, which felt good on protesting arthritic joints, and got rid of cubbyhole dust.  😝

Then I sat down in my recliner for a little while, tucked the heating pad behind my back, edited a few pictures, and sipped Legends of China white tea.

Saturday morning, a second eaglet hatched.  They’re so white and fluffy – and they have such ponderous beaks!

Late that morning, Hannah called to ask if I wanted some strawberries; she’d gotten some from a produce truck, and according to Levi (he’s 6), “They’re the best I’ve ever tasted!”

I don’t turn down strawberries.

Soon they arrived with the strawberries.  Levi had new shoes – tie shoes.  He’d had tie shoes and learned to tie them over a year ago, but his last shoes were Velcro (and the soles had flashing lights).  He’s been worried he’d forget how to tie shoes, silly little kiddo.

“It sure is a pleasure tying shoes again,” he remarked as he put on his new shoes.

That afternoon, I washed dishes, brought clothes in off the line (though they weren’t dry – no clothes dried on the lines Friday and Saturday, as the humidity was over 90%), put a load in the dryer and a load in the washer, and there were more waiting to be washed.  One very large load consisted of lace sheers, most of them from the house in town.  I forgot how pretty they are!  I’ve been saving them for our large bedroom addition.  And this time, they get saved in a plastic bin, as opposed to a box.

While the washing machine chugged and the dryer tumbled, I started putting the bins full of Victoria’s things into the cubbyhole in her old room.  It’s a good feeling to have everything thoroughly sorted, donated, given away, put into its proper place.  There are a few spots in the basement that could use some attention... but that’ll be a job for another time.  I really, really dislike unnecessary stuff in the house. 

I took a break to eat a few strawberries – and sent a note to Hannah:  “Tell Levi he was right, and the strawberries are absolutely scrumpity-umpity-lumptious!”

A friend, upon hearing of my progress upstairs, wrote, “So now that you have everything sorted, donated, and delivered to wherever, you are ready to go forward with planning that sewing space.  Let the fun begin!”

Yes... let the fun begin!  BUT.  There will be holdups.  Drawbacks.  Bottlenecks. 

A)Larry needs to finish off the closet area.  It started off as a little door that opened under the slope of the roof, and was sort of a long, narrow hallway, with a short rod at one end and three shelves at the other.

This would work just fine for the sturdy (and short) pioneer folk who evidently inhabited the house in its very early days, before we moved it from the country east of Scribner to the country west of Columbus, normally a journey of about 65 miles (which elongated considerably with the wandering backroads route the house-movers had to take).  Those pioneer women had one good dress and one work dress (plus petticoats and bonnets), while their pioneer husbands had a suit and a pair of overalls, with a shirt to go with each (plus their winter long johns). Two nails each, and they had all they needed.

This, however, would not work for Victoria, who had all four sisters’ gazillions, bazillions, and quadrillions of hand-me-downs, plus her own garb and attire.

Therefore, Larry took out the entire wall and little door, and put in a very long rod from one end to the other – and voilá, Victoria had a nice, big closet.

That is not to say it was a finished closet. 

Larry neatly sloped the top edge up and merged it into the slope of the room, using Sheetrock, compound, and textured paint.  Like Lydia said at age 2, “My Daddy can do anything.”  The trouble is, you see, he tries to do everything.  Therefore, nothing ever gets finished.

While the top edge was done, the sides and that area of the floor where the wall had been ripped out never got the wood trim he was going to make and apply. 

Fact:  I don’t like things unfinished.

Fact #2:  I am not a carpenter.

Fact #3:  I can sew.

Therefore, I sewed.  I went to Menards, got the longest, sturdiest curtain rod they had, plus extra hooks to keep it from sagging.  I continued on to Wal-Mart, and bought yards and yards and yards (and yards) of white broadcloth.  Somebody had years earlier given me yards and yards of wide white eyelet lace; now I would make good use of it.

So I made a white curtain (in sections) to cover that open closet area.  I made it nearly four times the width of the opening, so that it would be full and gathered at the top and hang in deep folds all the way to the floor.  The edges were all eyelet lace.  It very nicely matched the white curtains and valances with eyelet trim that hung at the windows, into the bargain.

The closet wasn’t finished, but it looked like it was!  And it looked quite pretty, if I do say so myself.

B)There is a small section of wall under one window that has water damage and needs to be repaired.

C)                    A quarter-round piece of trim needs to be applied to the baseboard all around the room, as it used to have carpet in it, and we took it out.  The floors are the original oak.

D)                   Furniture needs to be moved out of the room – and into the room.  

So there are the things that will keep me out of the room for a while.  Now, what we all need to do is pray for rain, so that Larry will come home from work and spent time inside the house.

No, never mind.  The roof somewhere over the kitchen still leaks. 

Pray for drought.

When we moved our house and started fixing it up, we discovered from the beams underneath it that it had initially been quite smaller.  And then Larry found even older beams – huge, hand-hewn things – under another section of the house, and we saw that the very first house had been a cabin of only about 12’ x 10’!  The secondary beams adjoin the main beams by means of thick, heavy wooden pegs.  Some of the boards are dovetailed.

Isn’t that nifty, and wouldn’t you just love to know the history of a house like that?  That is, the history of the people who lived in it and raised their families.

Finally, all of Victoria’s bins were back in her cubbyhole – this time, neat as a pin.  Two loads of clothes were put away... the large load of lace sheers was folded and put into fabric bins, and the bins placed on the shelving in my sewing room.  When the kitchen was clean again, I went to put a few more bins away upstairs. 

I found a little cloth doll that was mine when I was a baby!  I loved that thing. 

Kurt and Victoria came visiting that night, and I actually got Victoria to take a couple more items:  her large art set in a metal briefcase, and her tall floor lamp with the varied pink-color lamps.  She spotted her big burnished-iron flower wall décor, and took it, too.  I showed her all of her bins in her cubbyhole, and she didn’t even act the slightest bit surprised at the quantity.  Maybe she was surprised there weren’t a whole lot more?  ha

Here’s a close-up of a baby lion cub Victoria drew.

By bedtime, everything upstairs was dusted and swept... all the bins put where I want them... all the fabric and stored clothes washed that needed to be washed... and just one more load of clothes to put away.

There were things in the Jeep for the Goodwill (again), and a few more things for two or three of the kids, which we gave them the next morning after church.  And with that, the first phase of the mammoth Spring Cleaning was done.

Now to put everything back together again!

Do you know, it was the last day of February since I did any quilting?!  I’ve done a bit of altering and repairing during the last month, but no ‘real’ sewing or quilting. 

Why, I’m so obsessed with cleaning, I’m actually considering cleaning out my closet instead of starting on the next quilt!

Somebody save me from myself.

Have you ever looked at pictures from some of those hoarding shows?  😲

One glimpse of some of those, and I rush off posthaste to just clean... something.  Anything!

Sunday evening, I won the auction for the autoharp.  It started out at $49.95... but people started bidding on it, and it went higher... and higher... and higher.  I waited until the last 15 seconds, put in a bid of $120.01, and got it for $102, plus $25 shipping.

After church last night, we stopped to get gas.  Larry had to go inside to pay.  Every time this happens, he comes back out with something yummy.  (I complain, but I eat it.  I’m valiant that way.)  We munched on coffee-flavored M&Ms all the way home, with blueberry and peach/ mango smoothies to wash them down.

By the time we got home, I felt the distinct need for some asparagus (or broccoli! Or green beans!) to counteract all that.

This morning, a friend sent me a link about birds striking windows, and telling what can be done to stop this from happening (hanging reflective items in front of the windows, having screens on the windows, placing bird feeders within three feet of the window [so that, presumably, the bird won’t pick up quite so much speed when he zooms away from the feeder and straight into the window, ka-THONK], and hiring a couple dozen children to link hands and skip all around your house singing The Birds Upon the Treetops.

I made that last one up myself.

I wrote back to my friend, “Pressing your face against the window works, too.”

A third baby eagle hatched before sunrise today.  Sometimes an eaglet is only a day old when he grabs his slightly younger sibling by the beak and seemingly tries to wrench his head off.  He’ll peck the smaller one on the head so hard, he’ll force him right down into the twigs of the nest, and there he stays for so long one begins to wonder if the little one is a goner.

And in case you wonder if that ever happens, here’s a paragraph on a page featuring a streaming webcam of an eagle nest in Maine:

“It is not uncommon for bald eagle chicks to peck their weakest sibling to death in a gruesome display of ‘survival of the fittest.’  U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials have not said conclusively what happened, but all signs point to murder. Based on their notes, the likely suspect is the biggest and most aggressive of the eaglets, although there are no plans at this time to press charges.”

Bedtime!  I hope you can sleep, after that last paragraph.

,,,>^..^<,,,         Sarah Lynn        ,,,>^..^<,,,