Monday Evening...

Hi, Everyone...

 

I started taking pictures for this post much earlier this evening,

 

then started watching the news of the devastating Oklahoma tornados...

 

Prayers for all those who lost loved ones...their homes...so sad.

 

Beyond words.

 

♥

 

Since I'm here, though, I will catch you up on the babies...

 

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This was last Friday evening, the thirteenth day...



One egg still had not hatched, but was cracked,



and a tiny bit of the little bird's "egg tooth" was visible...



It was impossible to tell if the tiny movements




were from the baby bird inside the egg, or if it was



just being jostled by the other babies...



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I took this picture a couple of hours later...still the same.



I didn't have a good feeling about the last egg's hatching ~



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(Just an aside...



When I was in Lowe's earlier Friday,



I picked up as many "Robin's Egg" color chips as I could find...



From greeny-blues to more aqua-y blues...



With just a little bit of shell that had dropped into the kettle Fairy Garden to go by,



the consensus was that Valspar's "Reflection Pool"...was the best match.



Jonathan I were sitting on the back steps with all these colors



 spread out before us...and this seemed to be the closest.



I think the eggshell had just a touch more "dustiness" to it...



a little tiny bit earthier...



but this would be gorgeous on a wall, wouldn't it?



I am just enamored with this color lately!)



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Well, Saturday morning came, and I had to go check



on the babies...



Three babies...no egg...no fourth baby bird...



No evidence there had ever been another one.



I looked all around to see if it had been pushed out of the nest...



Nothing on the ground...



So I went in and did a little more reading up on robins and their eggs and nestlings...



Evidently four is a large "clutch"...



It's almost as if the fourth egg was a "spare"...and possibly was not



warmed by the mother bird enough after she was so busy gathering



food for the three already hatched, hungry babies...



There were so many scenarios, so many things that could have happened...



I read that the parents also could have sensed that the last baby was weak...



(or possibly had died before it finished hatching) and took it away ~



far from the nest ~ to keep scavengers away from the rest of the nestlings.



Sad.



Someone once quoted me the line"Nature, red in tooth and claw"



~ from  Alfred, Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam A. H. H., 1850 ~



when I was lamenting something I thought was sad about an animal in the wild...





Things happen beyond anyone's control in Nature, just like the storms today...



I always want things to have happy endings.



:^(



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Yesterday afternoon...



Hungry, hungry, hungry!



And their eyes are beginning to open...



Can you imagine...darkness in the shell for 12 days...



then a few days of a bit of light, after hatching...



then, "Hello, big bright world!"



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This afternoon was hot and windy, and the babies



were hunkered down...Mama must have just fed them...



They are getting darker...the beginnings of pinfeathers...and have



doubled in size, I believe!



I don't see how this nest is going to accommodate three,(let alone four), babies!




Stay tuned.



The parents don't squawk at me so much, now. ;^)



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Besides tuberoses, I think my favorite flower is Honeysuckle!



This variety is from a garden center (a Mother's Day present from my oldest son Mark



 and his boys, Cody and Nick ~ about ten years ago! I keep digging it up and moving it...) ~



It looks basically the same as the wild version,



 except the buds start out bright rose before they open up to white or yellow...



♥

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My Bachelor's Buttons are blooming!



When I was small, Grandma Collier and I walked down the alleys...



(Safer than the safe, safe sidewalks of little Morehouse, Missouri!)



 I remember there being so many of these pretty blue flowers ~



and picking them, of course!



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Look at this little fellow!!



He was running around wildly between the flats of seedlings



Mr. B had started on the patio...




Jonathan carefully caught him...in a dishtowel...we watched him for a few minutes...



then he let him go in the herb garden...he was just the tiniest little (furry) mouse



I had ever seen! (Yes, I have seen the "pink" babies...this little guy was



much cuter...:^)

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And last but never least, Cyrus...



in Tallulah's new bed...



He doesn't think he's too big at all!



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I will probably not be blogging for a few days...



Jonathan's graduation is in just 3 days!



So much to do, I don't even know where to start.



♥



Everyone stay safe...heed the weather warnings...



(That's the only thing I don't like about Spring; the unsettled weather...)



Love,