The Rookery

Penny and I have been visiting Veteran's Park on the island since the middle of 2014.  It is an easily accessible heron nesting area that we call "The Rookery".  The first time we visited the trees were full of nests and juvenile herons and their parents.  We've visited then site about a dozen times now and taken at least 300 pictures each visit.  So if you do the math we each have literally thousands of pictures of the place.

Take enough pictures and you are bound to get some good ones.

3 babies waiting for food.

nest building

 osprey highlighted by the sun

blue heron

dragonfly

heron with only 1 foot

dove

getting bigger

full wingspan

more nest building

 Since we've been going there there has been a lot of construction to build a fun park.  It has encroached right up to the rookery and we are afraid it will drive the birds out. Only time will tell.  The landscape has changed, particularly at ground level.  The tree count is about the same but all the lower level brush has been removed and the fun park is now pushing right up to the herons land..

Here are pictures taken 9-months apart:

june 2014

feb 2015

some construction damage right up to the rookery

landing

head shot

 Today it was cold and rainy.  Penny is stressed because her sister is sick and she's working on a particularly difficult large quilt.  So after breakfast at Mother Earths she wanted to visit the rookery.  It is a happy place for her.  This time we didn't have our cameras-we just went to enjoy.

The first thing we saw was a bald eagle perched on a light post.  We have never seen a bald eagle there before.  It was a nice start.  When we got to the pond there were over a dozen heron standing around it looking cold.  Once again the largest collection of heron we've seen standing in one place.  The rookery did a good job lifting Penny's mood.

Back Issues

Once again I have back pain.  This time it's different with respect to my earlier problems.  In the past my back issues were usually directly attributed to me lifting or bending and feeling something snap. 

  For many years now I have had lower back pain as a remnant of surgery I had for Piriformis Syndrome. The surface scar from that surgery has always been painful and itchy.  The internal back pain was assumed to be from internal scar tissue.

Over time this pain would flair and wane, sometimes needing a visit to the doctor to settle it down.  These incidents had pain over an area of my buttock.  This time the pain is coming from a specific point and unlike other times I'm getting the classic pain down the right leg with the sensation of heat and cool.

I went to the doc and H gave me a shot of pain killer and muscle relaxer followed by 15 days of taking Naprocen and muscle relaxer  pills.

That eased the pain some but not completely.

 Day 1 - the point of pain eased and spread out over my whole butt. I took it easy and also took a nap.

Day 2 - mild pain back to a specific point.  Standing hurts, sitting hurts..  I'm taking it easy.

Day 3 (today)  about the same as yesterday.  Hurts to stand in church.  Hot flashes down my leg as I sit here typing.
Day 4 no change - able to sleep w/out added meds.
Day 5 no change

Day 1 and 2 I couldn't get to sleep at night because of sensation in my legs.  I finally took an Oxy instead of my evening ultracet last night and I was able to sleep properly.

I go back to the doc in 2 weeks to assess the situation and discuss the x-rays they took.

SUPERBOWL WEEKEND

We are back from a weekend in Jax.  No special reason for the trip - just that it was time to see the kids and grandkids. 

It was a fun visit topped off with a Superbowl party at Karen's house.  Penny and I picked up a bunch of junk food at Trader Joe's and Penny did most of the preparation work and clean up. Thank-you Penny.

Sophie and Lucy had a "relentless" tickle fight with me.  Sophie really enjoys the tickling and has learned to play in an enjoyable manner.  Lucy, however, simply throws herself at me and if I don't catch her there is a real potential that she's going to get hurt.

We had a nice dinner at the seafood restaurant near C&C's on Fri night.  Breakfast at Denny's on Saturday morning when the first words out of Lucy's mouth when she saw us that morning were "We want to go to Denny's for breakfast." Karen was flabbergasted but we did go

.

Christy spent some time looking at old pictures and working on the family tree.

I just had my cars plugs replaced and a valve job done - that took care of the rough idle problem and check engine light.  The car had a strange mild cyclic vibration at idle when I left the dealership and I was concerned about what it might be.  It has since mostly disappeared and we had no issues with the car on the trip.