Today my father officially was allowed to buy a senior’s fishing license. What a day to celebrate!
For the long weekend, we made the trek out to Creston, to see my parents and celebrate my father’s birthday. Grandma and Grandpa were delighted to see the girls, as usual.
This morning while my father went and live trapped wolves with another scientist, my mom made doll clothes for the girls. My grandmother visited us last week and told the girls that she played with a doll when she was little, so the girls hauled out their dolls for the first time since they were three years old. They have been playing with them constantly, and today they made skirts and shirts for the previously untouched Cabbage Patch kids.
We spent the rest of the the morning outside, enjoying the beautiful weather and the constant flow of hummingbirds across the yard. My bird-crazy dad set out three hummingbird feeders, and literally makes up a couple of liters of sugar water for the little helicopters every day or two. So at any point, you can see between two to ten hummingbirds buzzing around his deck. It’s pretty amazing to listen to them drone, squawking each other, and fight over dad’s nectar. He’s a bit of a hummingbird drug dealer, if you ask me.
After a simple lunch and some birthday cake to celebrate the big 65, we all went out together to the wildlife reserve to watch birds. Actually, my father wanted to show the girls some turtles, but since it was a little overcast, we went birdwatching instead. The girls actually really love this… And Spice has an especially good Eagle eye. My husband is somewhat of a birder in training and my father enjoyed pointing out things to him as much as he did to the girls.
A highlight for me was catching rufous hummingbird in the bushes and actually taking pictures of him drinking from a flowering bush. Pretty cool!
It was a pretty good birthday for my “senior” father: Wolf trapping, tree planting, cake eating, birdwatching, fire building, and marshmallow roasting. Happy birthday dad!! From all of us.
