Catching Up!

 I don't post like I used to. I mainly post on Facebook and You Tube.

We've had a cold winter and a crazy spring. 

This year we've been visited by chipmunks, many birds, beavers, ducks and whippoorwills!

I will post a few pics and links below.

We love our little chipmunk we call Freddy. My son even made him a little picnic table to eat on.

Our robins have been nesting in the strangest places!

And we have been listening to whippoorwills every night. Click here to check them out on my you tube channel. Make sure your sound is turned up. If you want, you can click here and subscribe to my YouTube Channel. It's called Janet Smart-Country Living.

 I've been writing a new book, which will soon be available on Amazon. It is the 2nd in a series. If you like Appalachian fiction, I think you will enjoy these two books. The first one being, Where the Stars Grant Wishes. You can click here and check out by books on my Amazon page. 

We've just finished getting our garden out. We have peas, green beans, corn, squash and tomatoes. Can't wait for fresh veggies from the garden.

We constructed two teepees to plant our green beans around.

I am also helping plan for our high school reunion that will be held in August. My how time flies!

I will try and remember to post more often.

What's been happening in your world?

I've Seen Everything Now

My son and husband called to me and told me to bring my camera.

I had no idea what they were going to have me take a picture of.

Picture One - My son's 1989 Ford F-150. He doesn't drive it often, but it comes in handy when he has to haul stuff. It had been sitting down next to our building for a week or so. We were loading stuff on it to take back to Lowes. Before leaving, he put up the hood to check the oil. It is a good thing he did.

Picture Two - Seems the inside of his engine is a little messy. I wonder what Charley is looking at.

Picture Three - He is pointing to a bird nest. Can you believe a robin has built a nest under the hood of my son's truck!!!

Picture Four - There are five eggs! I have never seen five eggs in a robin's nest before.
WHY and HOW a robin built a nest in his engine for, I would love to know.
She sure didn't want anyone to find this nest.

Robins never cease  to amaze me as to where they will build their nest.

But, I have to admit, this is the first time I have seen them build one inside a truck engine.

As I said in the title of my post - I've Seen Everything Now!

How about you?

Where is the weirdest place you have seen a bird build their nest?

Posted by Janet Smart  on Writing in the Blackberry Patch.

Funky Bird Nest Pictures

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology wants your funky bird nest pictures.

You know by visiting my blog that I love birds and birdnests.
I think a lot of my followers do too, so I thought I would post this challenge from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Their bird of the week happens to be the mourning dove! I found one of our baby mourning doves in my flower garden yesterday.

She blends right into the surroundings! Can you see her? I almost stepped on her. Click on the picture to see her close up.


Here is the camera's close up view of her. Isn't she pretty? They are almost grown when they leave the nest.


Now, back to the contest. Go here and click on funky nests in funky places for the information about the challenge, but wait till you've finished reading my post and answered my question.

Send in your entry by July 31st. There are some great prizes! I think my readers could have a good chance at winning. So take your picture or write your story and enter!

Have you seen any strange places where birds have built their nests?

I have! In our neighborhood I've seen them inside mail boxes, paper boxes, on top of ladders leaning up against buildings, over outside lights, inside buildings on shelves, etc.

Please comment. Tell me where you've seen some funky nests in funky places.

Housing Market Up in Area . . .

Bird Houses, that is!

I went to a few yard sales over the weekend and gathered up a few birdhouses for our little acre of ground. They were only 50 cents and $1 each, so I think I got them at a good price.

Aren't they pretty?
I guess you could say one of them is a bird church!

I've decided I'll use the one on the left for a real, lived in birdhouse. I think I'll plug up the openings in the other two and use for decorations around our yard.

While in the garage Saturday, I found another birdhouse. I'm not sure where it came from, whether I picked it up last fall at a yard sale or my son made it. I nagged (talked) my husband into putting it up for me down in my flower garden. There must be a bird house shortage in the neighborhood, because the birds have already set up housekeeping in it!


As you can see there is an old one on the back side of the pole. It's top is missing, tho, and is no longer used by the birds. I liked the rustic look of it and left it on the pole.

I counted while out walking in the sprinkles this morning, and we now have six birdhouses in our yard and all are occupied!

We also have numerous bird nests in our yard. Here is the latest one I just spotted on Sunday.
It is a robin's nest, of course.

They build them so quickly. Overnight, it seems like!

How many bird nests and bird houses do you have in your yard?

Nest Building 101

I guess I didn't have anything better to do this morning than to watch a robin teach me how to build a bird nest.

I watched through my kitchen window.

She sits on the branches surveying the land.
Her house has to be in a good neighborhood, you know.

She hunts for building materials. As you can see, there are plenty of free building supplies in
our yard. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you will see a twig in her mouth.

In the building process.

Looking right at me.

Again, click on these to see a larger picture.
Here is the back of her with her tail feathers up,
trying to make an indent in the nest as she goes along.

Pulling up some of the falling structure, getting it just right.
It looks like some of my old Iris leaves.

She'd get on the nest and wiggle her butt and tail feathers around, trying to make it comfy.

Giving the almost completed nest a try.

Looking over the area from her side porch.

The almost finished nest.
A little messy, but it will be her home sweet home.

I wish I had a video of this. It was amazing. She'd go get material, come back and tuck it in her nest, then she'd sit and wiggle around making an indent in the middle. I watched for the longest time. It's hard to get good pictures through the kitchen window, tho.

Again, it will just take a second, if you click on the pictures to enlarge them, you will be able to see the robin much better.

And I have a sad note to add to this post.

I don't know for sure what happened, but I noticed yesterday that the mourning dove wasn't sitting on her nest. We checked it out and found two baby birds on the ground below. They were lifeless, but didn't look like they had been harmed in any way. We had a hard frost that morning, do you think the birds could have frozen and the mother then put them out of her nest? We never bothered the nest, the doves were very diligent and sat on it both night and day. I was so sad, but unfortunately, in nature, things like this happen.