Ugly Baby Birds

Awhile ago we noticed a couple of birds going in and out of our ugly tree-bush in our front yard. We peeked inside and noticed a nest in progress. Pretty soon our peeks told us there were little eggs. What also told us about the eggs were the parent birds flipping out anytime we went near the tree.
It wasn't long before the eggs turned into fetherless, ugly, baby birds.
A couple weeks later, (maybe just one) and they are STILL ugly.

Now the parent birds are extra protective. If we open the front door they immediately fly out of their nest tree and chirp and flutter around in great agitation. If we step outside they dive-bomb us. They especially hate Aaron because Aaron is always peeking at the baby birds.

It's hard to see, but in the next two photos there is a bird careening toward Aaron. It's pretty close to him too. See it?

No wonder we humans frighten them so much.

Also, don't forget about The Battle of the Bulge! If you commented on my blog, but not on the contest blog, you will still need to go their and make a comment with your email address so you can be added. Oh, and all of you participating, you should spread the word to your friends.

Battle of the Bulge

Okay everyone, here are the rules for the contest to lose weight. We are creating a blog specifically for the contest, so all who participate get to be contributors to the blog. So, Candice, Megan, Tiffany and anyone else who wants more motivation to shed some pounds, visit the site and leave a comment and you will be added as an official member! I'm really excited about this.


Battle of the Bulge 2009 – Official Rules
http://the-bulge.blogspot.com

1. The winner of the Battle of the Bulge is the contestant who wins the most points by August 29th, 2009.

2. An initial post by every contestant is required on the official blog by Saturday, the 27th of June. Your initial post should include:
a) your name.
b) the amount you would like to lose.
c) your motivations and reasons for losing weight.
d) A photograph of yourself taken at the start of the competition. This will be used to show people how skinny you’ve become!

3. A contestant will earn a point if he/she is the contestant with the most weight lost on a weigh-in day. This means that a point is awarded every Saturday to one contestant.

4. Every Saturday, a new round will begin, and every contestant will have an equal chance to earn a point.

5. Official weight measurements are only recorded on Saturdays. This means if you manage to lose 5 pounds by Thursday, but gain another 2 by Saturday, you are considered to have lost 3 pounds.

6. Every contestant is required to post at least once a week, on Saturdays, on the official BotB blog. This post should include the contestant’s current weight and a photo of their feet on the scale for verification.

7. Additional posts on either the BotB official blog, or your personal blog, throughout the week are encouraged. These posts may be used to document challenges you are facing, or to engage in some light hearted banter with other contestants.

8. If you decide to cheat, you can probably get away with it. But why would you want to? You’re only hurting yourself; this is supposed to be fun for everyone!

whoever would like to join in the fun should post a comment on this entry. I will make sure that every one of you is made a contributor to the blog, so everyone has posting capabilities.

Thanks!

Exploring the Mines

The other week, after we roasted hotdogs over a campfire, we stopped at an old mine on the way home. This was a hole in the side of the mountain that Aaron had seen many times during his commute and something he'd been wanting to check out. So we did.

My boys at the mouth of the mine.

Inside. We didn't get much further than this though, since we had no flashlights and the mine went in pretty deep. Morgan was afraid of the dark tunnels too. So we said we would come back later with flashlights.

And we did. The next day in fact. We also brought friends. First we checked out the mine pictured above. It had a few different tunnels to explore and was fun. The other mine was real near by but you had to hike up the steep mountain side to get to it. On the way up we encountered tons of old pull-top beer bottles, and a spot where there must have once been a small cabin/building. Also on the way up we found an amazingly mellow lizard. The five in our group all took turns holding it. And we continued our trek up the mountain. The lizard hitched a ride.
So did Morgan. This is Chris, Aaron's work buddy. His wife Analee was the 5th member of the party.Note the flashlight that Morgan is carrying. Since he got to hold a flashlight he was okay going into the caves. In fact, he had a lot of fun. Occassionally he would suddenly stop and get scared and request that we turn around, but it wasn't difficult to help him change his mind.

Here is Morgan in front of the second mine. This one didn't go very far at all, but it was weird in that it seemed new. There were tools from Home Depot laying around, a wheelbarrow was there for hauling out rocks, and there was even a working LED light. Clearly this one wasn't as old as the first. It makes us wonder what they are looking for.
After hiking back down the mountain, and releasing our lizard friend, we drove a little ways down the road to the third mine. This one wasn't visible from the road like the first two. Aaron found it online. So we hiked about a quarter mile till we got to the mine. This final one was by far the coolest. It was really long, had old rails for the mining carts and stuff. Very interesting stuff. There was a lot of quartz in this mine, which might signify that it was a gold mine. Here's the entrance to the final mine.


Aww, so cute. And apparently Gary was there at one point...

In other news...stay tuned for Battle of the Bulge! In order to lose weight, a friend and I are starting this little competition. It will be officially kicked off on Saturday, so if there are any of you who want to participate, please do! The more the merrier. You don't have to live anywhere near us, (we live a state apart) you just need to have motivation to lose weight!