House Bidding

My mom reports on birdly goings-ons in the remote nether regions of New Jersey (yes, that New Jersey):

Want to share a 'fun' thing that is going on in the yard. Outside of my office window in the Bald cypress tree is hanging a bird house that I painted and Dad climbed a big ladder to hang so we could observe it from the dining area and my office. It has two pairs of birds giving it the once over. One pair of Carolina Wrens and one pair of Chickadees. They come to the house together and sit on the perch and look inside of the house. The wren has been seen putting small twigs inside but only a couple of times. Now this is about the 8th day and mostly they sit and look in - go inside the house for a very short time, hop out and sit on a branch nearby just looking. Sometimes they hop onto the roof to observe from there. The birds seem to come at different times of the day - that is chickadees at one time and wrens at another etc. I have seen the chickadees there 6 times in one day and the same day I saw the wrens there 3 times. The 'appointments' are well timed but I haven’t seen the 'realtor' as yet. It really is comical to watch this. Now however, this morning a new phenomenon has occurred. The wren was in the house looking out for a full 7 + minutes then hopped out and has now been in a branch near by for 12 minutes (longest time period yet) Methinks he knows some other critter has been in the house and is guarding it from the invasion. We are waiting with bated breath to see which pair wins the beautiful home. The bids are getting higher each day and the owner of this home is going to get a wonderful yield on his/her investment. <big smile> I know some of you couldn’t care less Mark BUT, it sure makes mom smile. Love you all

My readers on the west coast will may be surprised to discover that New Jersey hosts any wildlife (as opposed to “wild life"). They may also be surprised to hear that I have relatives (or even talk to anyone) in that land of liberalism, iniquity, corruption, concrete, and noxious smells. I have but two defenses: (1) I was smart enough to leave, even if my parents weren’t, and (2) southern New Jersey isn’t as bad as northern New Jersey, in the same way that Lieberman isn’t quite as bad as Hillary…