A backyard full of racoons

 Last night the backyard was full of racoons. I tried to scare them off from inside but they didn't care too much about me. 

The robins are still working away at feeding their babies. I heard them peep today, so cute!

I walked down to take a look at the Brock street work. The sign seems to have the arrow turned incorrectly

While I was hanging laundry, a bunny came around the bend and wasn't too bothered about me and was just grazing beside me. The grass is not all that healthy as there hasn't been much rain but the bunny didn't seem too concerned.

missed the crossing

 I got up early and tried to make the crossing over Brock St. before it closed at 7am BUT the 7am today was the time that they closed the last street. As I was biking down college I saw the workmen running down Brock St and it was closed. So I travelled a parallel street until I could cross over at division. It was not a bad run because it was before 7am. Biking home I had to go all the way over to Sir John A. As I left after 6pm, it was also ok traffic wise.

I did not see any ants today helping themselves to the non-borax poison. I didn't see any ants at all.

The birds are now bringing large cut up worms to the babies so they must be growing exponentially.

The battle continues

 I actually had a good sleep last night and woke up at 8am so I felt better during the day. I am trying to figure out what to do tomorrow as Brock St. closes at 7am so I may get up very early to beat that.

Today there were some ants and they seemed to been visiting my non-Borax poison. I thought maybe the non-Borax poison was put out a while ago and maybe had started to dry out so I put out a new container of the non-Borax poison. But they seemed to still like the old poison pot. As long as they are eating the poison, it is all good!

The robins are very dedicated to their babies. They are not pleased about my laundry activities but are willing to accept it and will still feed the babies even when I am in the backyard.

I was on AV at Rustle today - it wasn't a smooth ride as there were some technical difficulties!

Another poor night

 I woke up at 2am, maybe woken by people outside, then woken at 6am by squirrels!

The robin nest seems to have a lot of activity so something may be happening today. They did not care about my laundry activities.

Our stove is in a time out as it was making weird beeping noises.

So far the war on the ants seems to be successful I haven't seen an ant in a day or two.

I was looking at a bush like thing in the backyard to try to determine if it was a weed or not, so I downloaded Google lens and it told me that it was a Eunomous also known as spindle tree or burning bush which sounded interesting so I left it to continue growing.

James is at a soccer tournament today

Yowling at 5am

 There was a cat that woke me at 5am yowling. I went out to chase it off. The robins are still actively sitting on the nest. We'll see if tomorrow brings any new developments.

Brock St. is a major artery in the city and it is closed daily from 7am - 7pm until July 31 for resurfacing. As I am north of Brock St and Queen's is south of Brock St. it makes it more of a challenge to get to work! I either need to head in before 7am or I have to take a route around it. A new challenge.

Temu quickly resent the package that I had an issue with. I was impressed at how quickly it arrived. There was no packaging- I guess packaging just slows them down. They just popped the label on the box and off it went. It was pretty battered. It was also the identical box to what I had. Still no spring.

We have summer orientation tonight. I'll need to log on soon to get things set up.

change in the weather

 I woke up at 5am so I went into work early so I could have a break before our10pm orientation. The session went well and we have another one tomorrow!

I biked home while it was spitting rain but made it home before the downpour. The atmosphere is cooler now!

I have seen no ants in the new bait but I also have not seen any more ants so that is good.

Robins

 I was incorrect about the hatching of the robins on Saturday. Something happened in the next on Saturday but it was not a hatch as there have been no feedings. But they are still sitting on the nest. Maybe they lost an egg or something on Saturday. They still on not keen on my laundry activities. They'll leave the nest and if I take too long they will stand on the fence and give me unhappy looks.

Today I was working on enrolling transfer students and putting together some contracts for TAs for September. Lots more hiring still to do!

Today I made Carmelized park and mixed veggie chow mein. It was very good!

Tomorrow it is supposed to rain around 8am so I am hoping to go in early. We also have orientation at 10pm so I'll head home early from work to balance my day out.

Racoons

 Kim's chickens were attacked by racoons last night. She is trying to shore up the coops. She already had to scare them off tonight as they came back.

We had a good interactive session for summer orientation. Lots of questions asked and answered.

The air and my eyes were better today.

Open enrollment begins on Monday so I need to complete as much enrollment as possible this week. We have 2 more orientation sessions on Thursday and Friday.

Monday as the longest day

 Today I was up at 6am and into work early as we had summer orientation and I had a lot of meetings as well. After the meetings I still had 3 hours of email. At the end of the day I was pretty spent. I biked home and then really needed a lemonade. That revived me a bit.

My eyes are sore now, I guess from the wildfire smoke.

Spring loaded

 

I bought this "corner shelf" for the bathroom and this was part of the advertisement. It seems to say that there would be a spring, but when the box arrived it didn't mention a spring and there was indeed no spring included. And so I couldn't figure out how to get it to fit. So I tried to contact the Temu bot to explain it but it didn't really understand and just decided to send me another one. I'm not sure that would fix the spring issue if it is just the same box. I did watch some videos about it and think I may have figured out to put it together with no spring. Stay tuned for later this week.

Robins are on day 2 of the hatching. They still sit on the nest but also peek into the nest quite a bit.

Due to the threat of storms I only hung out the laundry at 2pm but thanks to the wind and sun it was dry by 4pm.

I had a board dinner to attend. The result of my tracker was that I walked 13km today.

Excitement

 There may be some hatching going on at the nest. Both parents have been at the nest at the same time looking inside, which is rare- normally there is only one at the nest at a time. When I went out to do laundry one of them stayed on the nest for part of the time, which has never happened before. Eventually it flew off when it heard a squirrel alerting as I guess it needed to check it out.  Now a robin is happily nest sitting again. The photo was from the active time:

When I was heading out to do some shopping I saw that the rear passenger tire was flat. I encouraged James to use the other car but he didn't want to- he pumped up the tire and left with the pump. Hope he comes back!

The battle continues

 I saw some ants this morning so I am going to Canadian Tire to try a new bait as the ant b gone didn't seem to work to kill the colony and they were smart enough to figure that one out! I didn't think they had taken enough but I was hopeful. It may also take some time. Just depends if they are eating what they did take back or if they are rejecting that as well.

The robin is still happily sitting on the nest. Less happy when I do laundry. When I take too long, one of them comes and sits on the fence and gives me angry looks until I finish up.

Transfer

 Next week is summer orientation. Today I was working on the cleanup of the course enrollment. Next week I need to look at the transfer students and get contracts sent out. 

This weekend I need to work on the Rustle finances and lots of cleaning.

I hoped that enough of the ant b gone went into the colony and took away the bait and sealed the hole. We'll see how that progresses. Today was ok.

outwitted by an any colony

I worked long hours getting all the students enrolled into classes.

 I found a hole in the bathroom that seemed to be an ant colony hole. So I put some ant b gone outside it. In the past when I have used it, they just take the ant b gone and then are gone after a day or so. But this time they seem to be putting dirt and debris on it. It seems that they know it is poison and are trying to cover it up!

Discomfort

 The robin has now been actively sitting on the nest for 2 days and is not very happy with me when I am in the backyard.

Yesterday I chopped down a lot of overgrowth in the backyard and put all the branches in the general area of the compost pile. The bunnies when they hadn't been eaten by predators would walk a little pathway that went under the fence beside the compost. If there were bunnies they could still travel the pathway by travelling underneath the branches. However, after it was pitch black out I heard branches cracking and a lot of noise coming from by the compost pile and then the sound of like a dog panting except I don't think a dog could get under the fence. Maybe a fox? Anyway, it was dark so I couldn't see.

A young lad who used to go to our Sunday School (I think he's about 16 now) was stabbed by 2 other teenagers and is in the ICU. Very sad that this happens. Praying for a full recovery.

diversion

 We went on an excursion to a little park on the lake in Amherstview.

In the app called flightradar24 you can look up where planes are going and their tracks over time. Sometimes there are emergencies and they get diverted (the little red banner at the bottom shows there was a diversion for this plane. Normally diversions are to the nearest airport that they are flying by. The schedule it says is from Newcastle to Glasgow. The diversion is to Cancun, so quite a bit off track. Maybe the pilot needed a holiday!

I haven't seen any robin babies around this year but also not at many robins. Our backyard has been pretty cardinal heavy this year. But in the last day the robins have taken a liking to the nest on the back porch so there may be later babies still coming. This puts a crimp in my laundry as I try not to disturb them and so I hang my laundry from the lawn instead of the back porch.

Canada Day

 Seems like very specific diets. I wonder what vegan optician's menus are!

Today was overcast. The weather on my phone told me it was raining when it wasn't. One weather forecast said the UV was high and one said it was low so difficult to know what to believe.

Some stores are closed today and some have different hours. Food Basics opened at 10 and I was there around noon and it wasn't too busy.

I have laundry out even if there isn't too much sun, there seems to be a good breeze.