More Babies

We have two nests of newly hatched Bluebirds.  This will likely be the last batches of the season.  We are over 30 babies hatched in the nest boxes this year.

These bald little things probably started hatching yesterday.  Al thinks there are 3 so far.  This is the nest with 9 eggs.  Mama Bluebird laid 5 eggs which never hatched for some reason.  She then proceeded to lay 4 more.  I’m afraid the old eggs will get crushed and cause disease or bugs, so I’d like to get the old eggs out.  I didn’t want to remove them until the babies hatched because I didn’t know which were the old eggs and which were the new ones.  Once all 4 hatch, we’re going to try to take the eggs out….if we can, without hurting the babies.  The nest box opens up for cleaning, so we’ll give it a try.  Here they are…bald and fragile looking.  They are pretty active though, I saw one of them moving around quite a bit yesterday.

We also have at least one baby fox.  Al went down to the pasture to the feeding area and saw a baby peeking out from behind a tree and looking at him.  He said it was about 10-12 inches high, and very cute!  Unfortunately, he didn’t have his camera.  He’s walking down there now so see if he can see it again.

It’s been so unbearably hot here that we’ve had to stay inside most of the time.  It’s been running 98 degrees and the humidity is stifling.  It gets to 95 or so by noon! 

We decided we should put some water out for our little bunny.  He’s in a pretty safe area, but has no access to any water, so we put water out for him.  Also the foxes are now getting water by their feeding station.  We have a pond and there are some streams in the woods, (if they’re not dried up) but since there is a baby, we wanted to make it easier for mama fox. 

This evening, Al was outside and I went out to go for a golf cart ride with him to feed the foxes.  He was out front with both the truck and the golf cart and I knew immediately there was a problem.  The golf cart was leaning at an odd angle right by a little culvert.  I’ve almost run over that darn culvert myself and I immediately knew what happened.  He didn’t want to tell me though and tried to get it out himself.  He was really stuck!

It was sitting at an angle and I was afraid it would tip over.  He finally got behind it and pushed and I pulled with the truck and we got it out.  It appears to be okay, thank goodness!  Part of the problem was that he had the tank in the back full of Round up to spray some weeds.  It was heavier in the back than normal. 

Today, I made some of  Cindy's wonderful southern sweet pickles.  They are very easy and very, very good.  This is my second batch.

Tomorrow, I think I am going to try my hand at making bar soap.  A friend in Tampa made some and sent us a few bars.  I really like the soap so I want to have more for us, so I think I’ll try it.  It seems pretty easy, as long as you don’t blow yourself up. :)

Not really, but you mix water, lye and an oil, stir, let it dry, then cut it and let it sit for 6 weeks.  I plan to make my first batch with coconut and olive oil.  We’ll see how it turns out.

We have a tropical storm heading towards the gulf, so hopefully it will bring us some clouds and maybe some cooler weather. This heat is getting to me!