Weekly Chat, Sunday August 29, 2010

Annette    A special thanks to you for doing so much to keep the show on the road over the weeks and months. I know just how draining that can become!

George: Your SiL must be exhausted after all she's been through, so nice of you to take her somewhere where she can concentrate on the shopping and not have to react to well-meaning people.  We'll  be thinking of you on Tuesday and hope you can get back to a normal routine while still keeping in touch with SiL.

Lindybird:  How nice of you to stuff some dough in the glove compartment towards your friend's fine. Wonder what they'll come up to knit once cupcakes are "out."  I took grandkids to the original "Toy Story" - haven't seen the others or any recent 3D movies for that matter.

Auntie: Thanks for pond pix - had to laugh at man in waders!  Alan: Great catch of fishing osprey.

Margobird:  Glad your toilet behaved itself during all that rain.  My niece near Milton Keynes has just moved into a little rental house and got rained on inside - not a happy camper!   Have a wonderful time away - do hope weather is good for you.

Djoan: it's nice to use all the new appliances isn't it. I was so thrilled by the new cooktop and oven where the temperature actually remained constant and consistent no matter where you put things  I'm waiting for the after Labor Day (our "official" end of summer) to buy a halfway decent BBQ since we can cook outside most of the year and it saves the inside cleanup.

Lynette: Oh dear, so sad about your Mom and the cottage!  Too bad the original owner didn't make some legal provisions to protect her.  I'm sure you'll find all kinds of sites posted her from various folks to help you through the winter months!   Aha!  I see Diane has already posted some!  I haven't tried Pete's Pond for a long time - and from Diane says, it's not operating as previously, which is a real shame. 

Emma Peel. Did you wear your leathers and colors for the H-D rally!  :-)   Thanks for copying Debbie's post.

Diane: Gosh, rushing to do work on the house before winter?  We'll look forward to hearing more from you when you're done.  That noise from those critters was amazing - I thought "crickets" (but in the trees?) and both OH and granddaughter said "locusts." I just Googled the terms and read that "grasshopper" and "katydids" are used interchangeably in the U.S.  These things were way up in the trees!   Geez. You were a caregiver for your Mom and now your Dad - although he sounds pretty lively in terms of his mental state. Is he still yelling at the television?  The San Diego Zoo is amazing.  Great quality cams too - something for the UK folks to look in on during their winter months and catch a little sunshine!

Heather:   I can imagine the relief you feel about your daughter. Brilliant news and so nice to have a celebratory lunch.  And to think, those expensive kiddie's shoes are outgrown so quickly.....  :-(

OG: Oh very funny!  An autumn migration of bloggers!  :-))   Maybe you should go shopping with Alan so you can keep those screeching kiddies under control.

TerryM: A fluting weekend! Sounds so serene.

AQ: Don't laugh, but we keep old telephone books around because we've usually scribbled info or other phone numbers in the Yellow Pages section.

BrendaH: Leafblowers again!?  I remember we had such a laugh about those last year.

Phew! Well, must've missed some folks althogh I read and enjoyed every post!  Welcome to new folks and nice to see "old" ones.  Will write more about the trip in the next day or so - had yet another lazy day today though did manage to get to the rose garden at the Mission to sort out my bed.  Take care all!. 

Tiger:  I must say it'll be nice to roam around the house in the evenings without fear of missing a fish delivery or chick escapade! It'll be good to have both my eyes going in the same direction....Maybe I can recruit someone else on the U.S. West Coast for next season.  :-)

Thanks to Lynette for starting off most of the Daily Updates these last few months. 

Hi everyone.

Thanks for starting another Weekly Chat Annette.  Hope to get back into the full swing of contributing to the Weekly soon, as for the last few months I was sort of sidetracked by some wonderful action at Loch Garten.  I sometimes wonder how I managed before I was introduced to the Osprey webcams.  Well I suppose I've got a few months to be reminded :,-) LOL.

Truth is I've been feeling a bit of strange melancholy since it was made official that Odin and the youngest chicks had left and followed EJ and the oldest chick to Africa.  Then again I realise I shouldn't be feeling like that because Africa is just as much a part of those birds life as Europe. 

When I think about it; it makes me wish I could fly.  Well I've tried flapping my arms vigorously but nothing happens and all I get is a sore arms and begin to look a bit daft.

Appologies for the lack of individual replies but I do care very much about everyone and as far as I'm concerned you're all brilliant people and I see you all as friends.


Paul.

Unknown said:

Diane: That noise from those critters was amazing - I thought "crickets" (but in the trees?) and both OH and granddaughter said "locusts." I just Googled the terms and read that "grasshopper" and "katydids" are used interchangeably in the U.S.  These things were way up in the trees!  

Annette: We actually have two kinds of critters screaming in the tops of our trees here in Indiana.

One is the cicada. We have annual cicadas that appear every year, and then we have the huge infestations that come out of the ground every 13 and 17 years. Here's a recent short report from my local news about the annual cicadas this year. You can hear them screaming. http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/local/marion_county/cicadas-song-doesnt-signal-invasion Cicadas are really ugly!!!

We also have true katydids, which are related to both grasshoppers and crickets.  http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/true_katydid.htm  They are just as noisy but not quite so ugly.

Diane: Thanks for those links - I'm thinking we heard cicadas, not locusts/katydids....

Heron: What a nice post.  We'll look forward to seeing you around.

I'm off to bed early again tonight. Have some pix and will post them in the next day or so.

Have a nice Sunday all (oh yes, just checked the nest and no flying visitors).

Thanks, Annette, for starting this off. I don't often get to read the weekly chats or daily updates because they take me so long to load, but just now I felt I had to abandon the main community page for the moment because of all the heated or silly or personally abusive comments that are on there to-day. Some of them just don't even make sense. It' s a poor end to a fine osprey season. What a relief to read these  friendly weekly chat posts.

Here it is mid afternoon and I have this urge to watch the nest. No I don't have any addictions. LOL.
It is a lovely fine day 15 C, sunny. This morn we went to the church where Dau#1 will be married, thinking we would check parking, etc. Himself wanted to check lighting for photos. And at least see the priest. Hah, he wasn't there, it was a visitor from Maine USA who sadly had returned for his mother's funeral.

News today that the "City of Adelaide", one of 2 surviving composite clipper ships (the other is the "Cutty Sark") will be coming to Port Adelaide. She has been rotting at Irvine near Glasgow. It is going to cost millions to transport & restore. She made 23 voyages to SA 1864-1886 bringing emigrants. It has been estimated that 1 in 5 South Aussies are descended from her passengers. (Not me, or Himself.)

Welcome JenW. We are a friendly bunch. (Modest too. LOL)

Linda - Ah baby names. Yes, we had a book. One made a short list; the other crossed them all out !!!! (We did eventually agree.) It must be much harder these days with so many variations of spelling. One teacher had 7 children in her class called "amy" but all spelt differently!!!!!!!

OG - Lizarda is supposed to hibernate in winter.
For those who don't know what I am waffling about. Here is a pic taken Oct 2009 of the blue-tongued skink who taken over my compost heap. Well, I presume she is still there.

Diane    I had never heard of cicadia until about three years ago. I was fascinated by their strange 13 and 17 year cycles. I know they have worked out the reason for the cycle but I cannot properly remember what it is. It must be a bit of a nightmare the years in which the cicadas come out to fly around.

Tiger: They are fascinating, although ugly, little fellas! We have the annual cicadas every year, starting in June. They are noisy, but in the years when the 13- or 17-year cicadas come out, the noise is deafening. It drives some people crazy. It's very difficult to sleep in some areas, and nerves can get pretty frayed with the constant screaming in the trees for 3 months.

The bugs all come out of the ground during one night -- sometimes hundreds of thousands of them per acre. It's really creepy seeing them all emerge at once!!! Here's a short vid by Sir David Attenborough on the 17-year-cicadas. One of the bugs crawls on his ear and screams into it, and the expression on Mr. Attenborough's face is priceless! LOL  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjLiWy2nT7U&feature=fvw  (I think they have such long life cycles because no predator can specialize to feed on them as a main food source.)

Edit: Thanks for the work you did on the osprey countdown clock. Very impressive!!!