Everyday's a Hilladay Around Here

While every day is not a holiday around here, it is in fact, a Hilladay. I should note that this word was not invented by me, but came from a typo in an email from a friend of mine. So I'm stealing it. I'm a big copier. I admit it. But it does after all come from my last name, so there.

If you're reading this, most likely you know who I am, what I do, etc, etc. But sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words...

I am:
a commercial photographer
a wife to John
a step-mom to Molly (that's them in the photo below)
a "mom" to two cats Henry & Clarence (handsome aren't they?)
a gardener (the pickings one day from last year's garden)
Is that it? But wait there's more! I know there is! All in due time, all in due time. I'll get to all of that.

Every day seems so busy and packed with things to do. I never run out of things to do around here. It's like living on a farm. (E-I-E-I-O) Right now, it's late spring. After a long winter of boredom, the veggie garden is getting going, the flowers are blooming, the grass is green on my side and the other side too, the birds are sitting on eggs, bees are buzzing... it's my favorite time of year. I wait all year for this time of year.

So I mentioned that there are birds sitting on eggs. It all started last March. While driving out of our street, I saw my first ever bluebird. Coincidentally, I had been reading about bluebirds over the winter. I had read about how they are in trouble because there aren't enough natural nesting sites for them with development of suburban areas. Add to that, there are other birds, such as house sparrows and house wrens, that take their nesting spots and/or kill their eggs by pecking holes in the shells and tossing them out of the nest. Friends of bluebirds (the human kind) will put up nesting boxes for them to use. And that is what I did. I built a birdhouse to bluebird specifications and put it up in our mostly unused side yard. Bluebirds recognize these boxes, as a good nesting spot as many of them have, in fact, been born in a similar box. Soon after erecting the box, we had a male bluebird visitor to our yard. We call him Mr. Blue. We made friends by feeding him and eventually he brought his girl around to inspect the house. Mrs. Blue.
After her approval, she built a nest, laid some eggs and that brings us to present day, where she is incubating the eggs.
We've grown attached to our little blue friends. They steal the show around here lately. We've been busy keeping the mean old Mr. Wren away, in between things. I've hardly had any time to obsess about my tomatoes.