A Bad Year for Bluebirds

When I left for Myrtle Beach two weeks ago the bluebirds had four eggs in thier nest. It was the second try at a brood this summer. The first batch of eggs were simply abandoned for some reasons; she never really incubated them, and after waiting almost a month (they're suppose to take 17-19 days) I cleaned the box out and threw the nest and eggs away.

On June 21 momma bluebird had just begun sitting on the nest and we were looking forward to batch of babies sometime in around July 8 or 9. We've had baby bluebirds for five of the last six years, and one year we had two broods.

But the nest was empty when we got home on the 28th.

Since the bluebird box was latched, I figure a human took the eggs. One of my neighbors tells me a neighborhood boy (age 8 or 9) spent some time in our yard while we were gone. But I suppose there are other possible solutions to the mystery of the eggs that disappeared...

Myrtle Beach, etc.

It's been a busy life since getting back from Myrtle Beach on the 28th. We took Holly to Christiansburg on Tuesday and her dad met us there. On Wednesday we took the Avalamche to Coles Chevy for a recall fix that was supposed to take 45 minutes. It took five and a hlaf hours. Then today a contractor came to fix the hole in our livingroom ceiling that a leak in the roof had caused. He came to replace the sheet rock and discovered that the ceiling was plaster. What a mess!

Myrtle Beach was mostly pleasant. I'll probably write about specifics later - including a couple of restaurant reviews. We took two different trips to Brookegreen Garden, spent an afternoon (low tide) on Pawley's Island, took the boogie board out to the beach across from South Beach Resort a couple of times, and spent a couple of hours in the lazy river.

It was too hot. THe heat index Saturday (6/27) was 106F in Myrtle Beach. Then there was the thing about the governor in South Carolina and his mistress. And it became impossible to watch TV or listen to the radio without hearing about Gov. Sanford (or Michael Jackson). And my annual meeting with the owner reps at the resort left some unanswered questions about the recent sale of South Beach to Orange Lake Resort.

But overall, it was a good vacation...