Lions and Tigers and...

BEARS!!! We've been feeding the birds at our house year-round for three years, and now just as we are about to depart for NH, a black bear (or two) has decided to notice. Last night I heard some noises outside, but being that Andy is in New London and Aiden and I are home by ourselves, I didn't feel like investigating too thoroughly. I chalked it up to a family of racoons and fell back to sleep. In the morning, it was evident that something larger than a family of racoons had visited the feeders. Several of the steel shepherd's hooks that hold the feeders were bent over at 90 degree angles! And of course some of the feeders are toast. I emptied everything and put it all away for good but will still be on the lookout tonight in case the bear comes back for seconds!

We spent most of memorial day weekend doing moving chores, but we decided to spend Sunday, the warmest and sunniest day of the weekend, at the Lake Champlain camp. Aiden woke us up early so we went to Dead Creek first, where we saw some of the old standby birds at this time of year (Savannah Sparrow, Eastern Kingbird, Willow Flycatcher, Yellow Warbler...) No Virginia Rail, of course. It was a lovely morning even though Aiden only wanted to lie in the dirt and make dust angels.

Song Sparrow with bugs for nestlings

Savannah Sparrow

Then we headed to camp, and spent a lazy day watching Aiden play in the kiddie pool, reading good books, and visiting with the Turners & Nocitos. Joe won the "Crazy Memorial Day Bather" award this year, as he was the only one besides Timber to jump in. I don't think there has ever been a Memorial Day camp opening where someone or other hasn't been convinced to abandon all reason and take the frigid plunge. It's been at least a decade since I have been in before June myself. Not that there's anything wrong with it...

Aunt Chris carding wool

When we haven't been packing...

Here are some shots from the past few weeks. We have been busy packing and getting things ready to move, but we do try to get to some special activities for Aiden when we can fit them in. Our house is under contract (phew!) and the closing is supposed to be late June, so we have a lot of work to do! No luck on a permanent house for us in NH yet, but we're still looking...





We hiked up Mt. Philo on Mother's Day- the state park is not open yet so you can hike up the empty roadway instead of the trail (easier for toddlers). Aiden hiked a lot of the way up himself.

Timber & Grandma on top of Mt. Philo

Then we went to a "Big Trucks" day in Hinesburg, where businesses park their big trucks in the school parking lot so kids can climb up in them and see them up close. Aiden is obsessed with trucks, but it turns out he is also afraid of them when they are 500x his size. He had a death grip on me everytime we got near a big truck, and refused to sit in the drivers seat of any of them. As soon as we would walk 15' away, he would point and say "Truck!" and want to go back. I don't get it.

The next weekend was International Migratory Bird Day (now how could we pass that up?). So we went and watched scientists from the Audubon Society trap and band songbirds. I don't think Aiden enjoyed it as much as we did, but he was sort of interested.... Until he got bit by an Indigo Bunting.

Female Rose-Breasted Grosbeak

Male Ruby-Throated Hummingbird (they didn't have a band that tiny so we had to let it go unbanded)

On the Green Mtn Audubon Society porch

Singing Chestnut Sided Warbler

Looking at a Gray Catbird

We also went to Shelburne Farms a few days ago, to let Aiden run around and pet the animals. He was less interested in the animals than in the kid-size-tractors (not afraid of trucks THIS size!) and the farm truck toys.

We Miss You DaDoo!

Andy started his new job at Ausbon Sargent Land Trust this week, so he is living down in NH during the week now and driving back up here on weekends. So far, Aiden has been an excellent little boy for me, no trouble at all... He does miss his Da-doo though and asks for him several times a day. I'm sure he will be excited to see Andy tomorrow afternoon! We're still trying to sell our house (getting close to an acceptable offer, I think), buy another house in NH (no luck there yet), find daycare, find a job for me, and pretty much any other major life change you can think of. I'll try to post when I have news but it may get a little spotty on the blog posts over the next couple of months!

I'm not a morning baby, can you tell?

Oh, go away, Ma-moo!

AHHHH!!

Now I'm awake! GOOD MORNING IN NH DA-DOO!!!

Spring Cleaning & Other News

Life is marching on as usual here, except that everything we do lately is with the purpose and objective of accomplishing our big move. We have given up trying to buy a house before Andy starts work in NH in early May, or before Aiden and I move down there in early June. After having one contract on a home fall through due to toxic mold in the attic and radon in the water, we have decided to rent a house until September so that we are not under pressure to buy something immediately and can get to know the area a little better.

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Our house in VT is on the market too, for-sale-by-owner, so we are trying our best to make it look as attractive as possible. Grandma Chris and Uncle Kenny came up recently for a visit and helped out tremendously by raking, pruning, and mulching the winter schmuck out of our yard. Aiden had a great time with the mulch pile, as did the white throated sparrows.

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We also enhanced our pond by adding a waterfall feature, which will hopefully help aerate the water and keep it from becoming an algae lagoon before someone puts an offer on the house! We've got loads of toads and wood frogs making whoopie in our pond. It's noisy! And today we noticed that the first little tadpoles have hatched from the masses of eggs clumped on every bit of vegetation. I guess if you build it, they really do come. We have to watch Aiden like a hawk in the yard because one of his favorite things is to whack the pond water with a stick or throw small pieces of gravel in.

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This is definitely a bittersweet time for us (and more bitter than sweet right now, I'd say), having to uproot from what is, for the most part, a great life that we've worked to build here the past 4 years or so. Andy and I are both spending a lot of time giving each other pep-talks to convince ourselves that we've made the right decision. I hope that we do look back on it and say that it was a good decision, but the thing is that at this point we don't know, there are so many uncertainties... will we like the area, find a good daycare, will I find a job, will Andy love his new job, will we find a place as nice as this one to live? It's overwhelming. And incredibly stressful. But I guess people do it all the time, so I imagine we'll live through it, hopefully a little wiser and stronger for the experience.

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We'll see...

Some scenes from Mom & Dad's pond on Turkey Lane. Andy caught some "monster" panfish while Aiden played with Chris and Kenny before dinner.

We took Aiden for a walk at Shelburne Bay awhile ago. He was running along at a good pace until he saw the excavator off to the side of the trail, and then he refused to budge. We had to stay and watch it dig forever. And guess what happened when we had to leave..... WAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!

Made a quick pit-stop at Bristol Pond (Lake Winona) to look for the resident Sandhill Crane pair there but we didn't see them. Still a beautiful early morning though.

Summer is officially here I guess... go sawx