Day 83

Well.  I finally broke down and put on the air conditioning.  Oh how I hate to do that in the spring just when we are enjoying open windows and the sound of birds and community.  :-(  But the pollen...as well as the unseasonable warmth...forced my hand.  Sigh.  I feel sort of gritty all over when I come in from outside.  Maybe it's in my head?  Certainly you can see the drifts of pollen blowing by as you are driving around.  This is oak pollen which they say most people aren't allergic to because the grains are so large.  The next round with finer pollen will be worse.  Really?

Most every car on the road looks like this.

Can I see through those windows??  Not much sense in washing the car though.

I took a few fuzzy cell phone pictures of the garden before I realized that the recent rains had caused a huge army of ants to relocate into the bluebird house.  The bluebirds had just added the soft nest lining.  Yikes!  I took out the nest and sprayed and washed until most of the ants were gone.  I did my best to rebuild the nest as it was and am watching to see if the birds come back to it. The same thing happened last year to the mailbox.  After some heavy rains, I reached in and brought out mail coated with ants!  Yuck!

It seems that all of the daffodil bulbs I planted in December have come up.  I also planted crocus but they aren't behaving at all as expected.  Up north crocus would be the first sign of spring.  These are only just beginning to bloom.

I've been trying to catch up with my houses.

In between wiping pollen off the sewing table of course.

#55  A funny picture of Poyla wearing Stardust's sunglasses.  Poyla and Middle Daughter have a lovely house in New Jersey.  Along with a frog grotto, they have a fish pond with waterfall, deer wander through the yard regularly, and one day Poyla looked out his office window to see a bear lumbering through the yard!  Poyla is quite attached to the fish in his pond and they are currently trying to figure out how to keep the herons away.

#54  Eldest Daughter.  The roof is as blue as her eyes.  :-)

#53  A house for my houses!

#52  Jack and Jill getting ready to go up the hill for water.

#51  Grand #3 with an iconic Kiwi Busy Bee toy on his roof.

#50  The Grinch!!  That is actually part of a photo of The Tramp wearing his Grinch t-shirt.  :-)

#49  Dad.  Just because.  :-)  Actually, Dad will be turning 90 in a few weeks!  Yeesh.  I can hardly wrap my head around that.  I can't even wrap my head around my own 50-something age that will be 50-something-more in April too.  My mom always says her birthday doesn't distress her nearly as much as mine bothers her.  I get it now!  All my kids will be in their 30s soon.  Really???  And I will have six grandchildren.  OH! MY!  I wonder how she feels about great-grandchildren's birthdays?

#48  I love this pic of Grand #1 in his hat at the beach.  

#47  The Sailor Son.  The pic was taken the day of boot camp graduation.  Wow.  That was nearly six years ago.  The only boat picture I had for the window was of the Ark.  I guess that's appropriate.  A fully equipped aircraft carrier is the sailor's ark.  May it always come home safely.

#46  The Sailor Son and Grand #2.   I miss all my boys.

#45  We have the Evil Step-daughter and her hubby in their New Zealand "love shack".  LOL
 

#44  And last (or first if you count the other way) but not least, is the Led Zeppelin Fan.  Love him.  Hope he can find a job down here soon so I can have them, and Grand #6 close by.  :-)

Yesssss!  55 houses done.  But since this is day 83 I still have a bit of catching up to do!!!