Critters in the Planet Burdett Backyard

We have a number of bird feeders in our backyard and one attached to a living room window. We do get a good variety of birds that visit (and probably live in) our backyard, but for this post I'm concentrating on some of the other critters who regularly visit our yard, and also on the cats who watch them.

Most of our bird feeders are "squirrel proof," though the squirrels aren't yet convinced of that:

The squirrels love eating the peaches in our backyard peach tree:

Our resident chipmunk felt sufficiently hidden from predators on our deck rail, with its cover of wisteria and whatever that bush is, to sun itself and groom for several minutes:

(I realize most of these picture are actually focused on the leaves, not the chipmunk. It was the best I could do.)

The rabbit in back kept a close watch on us--I don't even know for sure if he could see us through the window, but he sure acted like he could--while the rabbit in front ate. I don't know enough about rabbits to say if he was more likely a parent or a boyfriend to the other rabbit--or even if he is a he--but this rabbit was a good vigilant companion.

We haven't yet gotten many birds to visit our window-mounted feeder, but the squirrels love it, and the cats, especially Halle-Bopp, love watching them:

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today, Anna and I have been married for eighteen years!

This is Anna and me at our reception, married for only a couple of hours, talking to some of our guests:

Jessica and Her Typewriter

Jessica has wanted a typewriter for a long time. Today we went to a flea market in Loganville (the one more or less beside Community of Grace church, where her Girl Scout troop meets) to look for one, and, incredibly enough, they had one that is perfect! It's a portable Royal Mercury, and it's in really good working condition. She was very excited to get it:

Kevin and Me

This picture was taken at the ExecuTrain office on Abernathy Road in, I think, 1992; it shows a twenty-five-year-old me and Kevin Eames, who was one of the finest people I've ever been privileged to call my friend. I'm grateful that I knew him for twenty-nine years--a long time by many measures, but not nearly as long as I'd hoped.

Kevin passed away two weeks ago after complications from open heart surgery. I was devastated to learn that he's gone. I miss him.

* * *

I'm quoting this from Kevin's obituary in The Chattanoogan:

"Survivors include his loving wife of more than 29 years, Lisa Hamlett Eames; daughters, Hillary Eames and Hannah Eames; mother, Jill Eames Hanson and sister, Jenny Kinsler along with numerous extended family & friends."

The full obituary is here:

https://www.chattanoogan.com/2019/6/8/391667/Eames-Kevin-James.aspx

Helen Tubing 2019

Going tubing on the Chattahoochee has become a summer tradition for Anna and Elyse, and today was the day we went for this summer:

While Anna and Elyse went down the river, Jessica and I walked around Helen:

On the way home we stopped for pizza in Cleveland and ice cream at Mountain Fresh Dairy in Clermont:

Mom and Elyse Go Camping at Stone Mountain

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week Elyse and Anna went camping at Stone Mountain. Here are some of the pictures Anna (and in some cases Elyse, using Anna's phone) texted me of their adventures:

STAR WARS and "Star Trek" and Jessica and Me

For the last couple of days, Anna and Elyse have been camping at Stone Mountain. While they were gone, Jessica and I watched Star Wars (the real Star Wars, the one that came out in 1977 and blew me away when I saw it at the age of ten, which needs no colon and subtitle or episode number) and four episodes of "Star Trek" (the real "Star Trek," the show that came on the air before I was even born and which I really loved when I was in fifth grade, not long after I first saw Star Wars).

It was quite a triumph to get Jessica to watch them with me. She's been resisting Star Wars for years, though I knew, and assured her, that she would be captivated by it. She liked "Star Trek, " too, though the first episode, "The Man Trap," has that scary salt vampire creature that kind of freaked her out. I warned her, but she wanted to start at the beginning, so we did, scary salt vampire monster or not. That was last night; we watched three more episodes this morning. None of them had scary monsters, but the creepy kid in "Charlie X" has a pretty scary look sometimes.

I had forgotten just how much I was into "Star Trek" back when I was Jessica's age (or actually about a year younger). I had a worn copy of The Star Fleet Technical Manual, which I think I got--possibly stole--from someone at school, and which I used to pore over for hours at a time. I had a copy of David Gerrold's great The World of Star Trek, which I read in pieces (that is, not all at once, from front to back) over the course of a year or so, mostly concentrating on the episode guide which (if I remember correctly) was at the end, and the color pictures, which I believe were in the middle. I'd love to have that specific copy again; I do have the book, a trade-size paperback that came out in the mid-eighties, but the actual copy that I had in fifth grade, which was printed back when the original three-season series was all there was of "Star Trek," is lost to me; I think I loaned it to my friend Skipper and never got it back. I also had several copies of Alan Dean Foster's novelizations of the "Star Trek" cartoon series, but I don't think I actually ever read any of them.

I also started my own science fiction novel, which was a blatant rip-off of "Star Trek" except that I envisioned my ship's captain as looking like Lou Ferrigno, the body-builder actor who played the Incredible Hulk in the popular TV show of the time. Thankfully I never got past the first chapter of that novel.

I loved, and still love, not just the premise and story lines of "Star Trek," but the look of it: the Enterprise, the uniforms, all the reds and blues; the whistles and beeps of the ship's computer, the swish of the doors as they slid open; the style of the captain's chair, which I really wanted in our living room in Lilburn; the phasers and communicators and tricorders; every inside set that looked convincingly like a real starship bridge or sick bay or transporter room, but also like a TV studio set; every outdoor set that looked a little bit like a planet a landing party might be beamed down to, a lot like the planet the landing party was beamed down to last week, and even more like a studio set with props painted to look like boulders and sky and alien ruins.

I hope Jessica wants to watch some more "Star Trek." I do love it.

Elyse at Lilburn Day Camp

This week was the Girl Scouts' Lilburn Day Camp. I don't have any pictures of Jessica there, but here are some pictures of Elyse:

Elyse's End of the School Year Class Party

Today I went to Elyse's school for her class's year-end party. There were about a million kids, half a million parents, games, and ice cream. Here are some of the pictures I took:

This was, obviously, a cup-stacking game:

Here you were supposed to use suction to pick up M&Ms with a straw. It looked hard:

She dropped her Oreo from the Balance-an-Oreo-on-your-face game: 

Limbo:

Ice-cream toppings, of which I took none:

(I could have had some if I'd wanted, but I tried to behave like a responsible adult.)

Elyse's Girl Scout Bridging Ceremony

Tonight I took Elyse to Grayson High School to participate in her Girl Scout troop's bridging ceremony (and to see the bridging of all the other troops in the Grayson service unit). I didn't get any picture of her actually walking over the bridge, but here are a few pictures I took after she made the change from Brownie to Junior (and received a rose in honor of the progression):