Bye- bye baby, bye-bye...

Our eaglet has flown the nest. Unfortunately, I missed it but greencashew did not and was kind enough to post the Big Event on YouTube, along with a video of her return to the nest 48 minutes later.


Sooner Bald Eagle fledges 06/16/09 6am


She also made a nifty time lapse history of our lovely bird-child beginning back when she was a wobbly little tuck and ends with her doing a a little poop squirt while wiggling to get under her mama. Parents of newborns, you know about that. In this particular slice-of-eagle-life you may wonder why greencashew included so many less than stellar images of the surrounding area. My guess is to establish emotionally the patience involved in tending the nest. With that in mind, and helped along by a a rather emotive sound track, I am moved to near tears every time I watch it. I'm easy.



And if that's not enough eaglie goodness for you, greencashew also posted a ton more of our Sutton Girl, including one of a parent swallowing a rat whole.

And if you still want more, greencashew has more. She also documented other fledglings this spring. Just a warning. If you do go to her personal YouTube page, be prepared for an eye-blasting background loop of lightening in an evening sky, a snazzy little clip greencashew recorded from her front porch. It hurts.

And, by the way, you can still see our little fledgling live on the Sutton Center eaglecam as she continues to hang around the lake. According to their latest entry, she's a little fatty, baby fat that is, so not eating every day. Typically, the parents feed the hell out the babies to get them off to a good start and it seems hers did. So there you have it. Off to a good start. Yay!

your way begins on the other side

become the sky

take an axe to the prison wall,

escape

walk out like someone

suddenly born into color

do it now.


~Rumi~

Local news at 7:31

I've been rummaging around over at the wayback machine this morning. Great place. Anyway, they cached this page from my website years ago, before I nuked it and then lost the backup files. Always, always backup anything you want to keep! I still do not, so there you have it. However, thanks to them, Sweet Lorraine's wonderful silver polishing tip lives on. May she rest in peace. Handy, as my silver is in need of polishing and lately I've been lamenting the loss of her recipe.



If you have trouble getting the polish out of the cracks of your silver jewelry here's a handy trick I learned from my friend Lorraine, who always wore gobs of silver and turquoise jewelry. She was a very cool lady who knew how to do things the easy way. It works. It really does.


Ingredients:
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 sheet of aluminum foil
1 quart water

Add dry ingredients to 1 quart boiling water.
Submerge foil in water.
Drop silver onto foil.
Tarnish will immediately disappear.
Remove silver from water.
Place on drying cloth.
Allow to dry.
To enhance affect, gently rub silver but it's not necessary.
It will come out of the water shiny as new.

Baby updates

Baby Thea is now 16 days old. YIKES! I wish I were there, at her house, holding her. The best I get these days is video cam phone calls which are delightful but I WANT TO HOLD HER! Oh well. I'll have to get used to it. Besides, half the time all you can see of her are her little feet curling up towards her mama's chin. That little girl has the appetite of a lumberjack but her mama keeps up so everybody is happy.

The eaglet I've been following is also growing up fast. She's totally changed. It's interesting watching her explore her wings. She practices flying by lifting herself from one side of the nest to the other. Her wings are gigantic. She also spends a lot of time contemplating the world from the edge of nest. It won't be long.

Flections

I have been in deep Baby Thea withdrawal since leaving Portland. It's awful. She is growing up too fast and too far away. In four minutes she will be a full 10 days old! I want to reach right though this miserable computer screen, lift her out of the photo, into my arms and cuddle up a cascade of smiles.



We are working our way back home but at the moment are in Southern Oregon celebrating my other granddaughter's graduation from high school. Things were different when she was born. It's very painful to recall but I didn't participate much in her birth or early years so spending time with her is especially sweet.

Funny how life turns. I hate to admit what an idiot I was but I once considered almost everything "maya". What else have I totally scrambled? At least I finally turned the corner and see life as an exquisite, fragile gift rather than a "sentence" to be "endured".

Baby Girl Nelson

I know you guys have been waiting for photos of The Babeh and I'm sorry to be so slow posting any. I can be painfully private sometimes, but I wanted to make sure it was okay with her Mama first. Of course, it's fine. In fact, Baby Thea now has her own personal Flickr account, so if you'd like to see more photos of her you can find them at Baby Girl Nelson. Isn't she beautiful? I am totally smitten.

There is a baby!

YAY!!! Whew!

Local news at 10:11

No baby yet. Twenty-three hours and counting. It's been a long day.

Eagle cam update

That baby eagle I posted about a month ago (to the day) is now hopping around the nest, trying out her wings. If you want to see her again before she flies off, better go now. She's pretty cool.

Local news at 8:44

I've been busy lately. Lots going on and it hasn't slowed down yet. I just wanted to check and refresh the page but, at the moment, don't have time for more than this quick note. Number one, we are now in the single digit countdown waiting for the baby. Mr. Lee and I have reserved a room in Portland starting next Sunday. I hope she waits till then but babies are on their own time. My friend here, whose due date was the 21st, had her baby yesterday so there you have it. It could be any moment. I just hope, if she comes "early", that we arrive before she does.

Other than that, my complimentary issue of Skidrow Penthouse #10 arrived the other day. I'd completely forgotten I submitted poems to them so it was a pleasant surprise. Now that they are published, I will post them at my other blog when I get the time. And I spent the weekend at a Parelli workshop in Reno this weekend. I don't have a horse and I doubt I ever will have a horse but I got a super saver ticket through the HSUS and couldn't pass it up. I've always wanted to sit in on one of these sessions. Parelli is the real deal. Like their tshit says, "Change horses can believe in." Okay. More later. Gotta go.

Oh. And I testified at a sub-committee hearing on the Senate Bill 132, the Anti-Tethering Bill. In the final vote, it passed 32 to 8. Now it goes on to our infamous Governor Jim Gibbons for signing. He'll probably sign it. As one of the Legislators pointed out, Gibbons dog gets better treatment than his wife. Nevada. Gotta love it. We are the last state in the Union to make dog and cock fighting illegal, that is, if the bill before the Legislature passed this session. Anyway, I'll post my testimony later as well. It was really fun.

Happy Bad Mother's Day

So the day's almost over. Sue me. It's Bad Mother's Day. Watdayawant? Anyway, for those of us who were not always, ummmmm ... shall we say ... the best of mothers, Happy Bad Mother's day. I have a lot to be grateful for today because, in spite of everything, my children not only survived me, but grew up to be wonderful human beings. I am very proud of them. Kids are like that, you know. Resilient. And love is like that. Resourceful. It finds a way.

So, to celebrate what's left of the day, here are a few photos of bad parents. If you're down in the dumps, perhaps you'll find someone here you can feel superior to. Good luck.
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