THE END OF THE BIRD STORY.

   I posted two bird stories recently.

   First I had black-capped chickadees cleaning out a hole in the big stump in my yard. They worked for three weeks and then suddenly the chickadees were gone and two red-breasted nuthatches worked on the hole.



    The nuthatches nested. First, I watched the male come and go with food. Then both adults carried food.





   I wanted to get photos of the little guys. I tried. I waited at the stump. They would not poke their heads out while I was near. I knew they were close to fledging.

   This morning when I looked out something seemed different. There were no parents going back and forth. I have to assume that the little guys fledged and are somewhere else in the neighborhood.

A BOUQUET FOR FAR SIDE

     Far Side from Far side of Fifty https://farsideoffifty.blogspot.com/and her family are going through a stressful time right now. Far Guy is slated for a lung transplant.

     I know the yellow lady slipper is one of far Sides favorite flowers so here's a bouquet by photo. I also have one of Far side's carved yellow lady slippers which I won in a draw.

THOSE DARN HEARING AIDES

     Yes, I know I already did a post on my new hearing aides, but you're going to have to put up with another story.

    There have been some surprises with the hearing aides. Some things I haven't heard for a long time and now I hear them.

   Usually when we finish lunch I get up right away and do the dishes. Well, the other day the Micro Manager had something to do before I could do the dishes. 

   I decided to lie down for a few minutes until I could do the dishes. Well, often the Micro Manager takes more time so I drifted off to sleep. Now I don't nap very often but when I do nap it's 15 to 20 minutes and then I'm wide awake and good to go.

   The other day I kept waking up from my nap. It was very disturbing that I was being woken up. I would wake up because I could hear a noise. 

    Yes, you guessed it. When I started to snore , I heard the noise and woke up. I won't be able to say , "I don't snore." anymore.

    ...and I learned that I can't sleep with my hearing aides on!

REFLECTIONS ON FATHER'S DAY

     On Father's day I found that a number of bloggers wrote very elegant tributes to their Dad's.  Some tributes were written about Dads who've been gone a long time. Some posts were written about or, to Dads who where were still living. In other cases , wives took the opportunity to write some very good things about a husband and what a good Dad he is. I enjoyed all these posts.

    However, I look at my own experience with Father's day and there has not been a very significant celebration.

   As children , I cannot remember any experience with Father's day at home. I remember making some sort of card at school. Father's day was just not a big issue. My Dad's family were German pioneers and I don't think they had such a thing as Father's day. My mother came from an English family and I don't think they celebrated and any special days. 

    So when did Father's day begin. That's maybe why my folks did little for Father's day.

    It's thought that Father's Day may have come from Pagan customs. In modern times Father's day was started in the U.S. about 1910. So it was probably quite some time before Father's day caught on in Canada.

    In my own family I don't remember anything special on father's day. So both my kids sent me greetings for Father's day. My daughter in law sent me a greeting and a neighbor sent me greetings. I am happy.

    What are your Father's day celebrations like?

A DECISION IS FINALLY MADE

   A while ago I wrote about getting a pair of hearing aides. I didn't tell you that I took them back. Most hearing aid places have a policy that you try the hearing aid for a period of time...some up to 90 days. After about three weeks I decided not to buy the set of hearing aides. The customer service at the business was absolutely terrible. Then I decided that the hearing aides were junk and service would be hard to come by. 

    So because we were busy it took a while to get back on the hearing aide trail. We finally decided to try Connect Hearing. What a great business! They gave information that you could understand. They tried very hard to give you the best experience possible. I now have hearing aides to try for 12 days. I know already that I will buy them. The first time I went out in the yard I heard chipping sparrows. The sparrows have been there all the time. I just couldn't hear them.

    The hearing aides I'm getting will cost much more money. They are from a highly rated brand.

    Now the previous hearing aides were from Costco. They have a very good price for their brand. I believe Costco gets all the old brands that haven't sold and puts their name on them. The hearing aides you buy are not the latest models. You are getting an older technology.

    Things are changing very quickly with technology . It's important to get the latest.

    I have a second level hearing aide. It will cut out some of the back ground noise. But it doesn't have all the bells and whistles to let you adjust TV volume and phones. I don't watch TV and I don't have a phone so I don't need those features.

    So if you're buying hearing aides , do your home work. There's a tremendous difference out there. Each hearing aid business has a different gimmick. As usual , some professionals are much better than others so look around until you're satisfied.

A LITTLE UPDATE.

   In my last post, that was too long ago, I wrote about a serious snow storm that we had.

    Now six days later we had a high temp of 30 C (88 F)! That's what it's like here...extremes. I'm tearing down my fence and worked the whole afternoon which wasn't a good plan.

   Today about 3:30 Pm we had a very heavy thunderstorm. There were very high winds. The rain was blown like snow. Our intersection flooded like it always does. We probably had about one inch of rain. We needed the moisture as it's very dry here.

    So anybody want to guess what might happen in the next six days.

JUST TO LET YOU KNOW...

   Just to let you know that in Red Deer Alberta we had snow today!!! Yes, it snowed for about two hours this morning. At one time there was about 2 cm on the ground. It's rained all day...just what we need. It's very dry here.

    There was much more snow in the Rocky Mountains. At higher elevations there was lots of snow.