So I'm now raising a pigeon.

Did you know:

Pigeons mate for life and once nested, lay two eggs at a time thus raising only two chicks at a time?

Well, the cat got one and I'm raising the other.



This started because our house is starting to fall apart more quickly than I can renovate it. (On the outside, at least, from the winter. The previous owners had aluminum siding put on so that the house is enclosed in a safe and tidy sheath of thin metal plates, but the eaves--that bit right under the edge of the roof--are starting to fall off, so there were plates missing. Holes in the armor, as it were, and it reached the tipping point where I had to get on the ladder and remove the rest rather than waiting for them to fall over the next year.)

Um. So I removed most of them, revealing a few water-damaged boards, but more importantly, that the house was more solid than I had expected. Solid enough for pigeons to be roosting in the eaves, I found out, as the nest and a pair of young squabs tumbled down.

Climbing down from the ladder, I saw that they were fine. I put them in a small handy container then went inside to look for something more suitable.

I found a larger box with a lid. On my way back out I ran into Poppy--Jessica's feral rescue cat--coming in the house with one of the pigeons in her mouth.

You'd think that there is some amount of furious cursing and vitriol that would make a cat blanch and drop dead, because I haven't cursed creatively at anything like that since the service, half my life ago. She froze, startled, but she wasn't going to give up her prize. She disappeared quickly.

So now there's one, living in a neighbor's borrowed coop. He's almost an adult but can't fly quite yet. He's mostly feathered and quite handsome actually, very dark with gray highlights. He likes to be held, coos, and will roost on your arm happily while his shredded-paper nest is changed.

Jessica has named him Dingdong. He'll fit right in with our special-ed menagerie.

You know what's killing America?

Shrink wrap.

Everything's shrinkwrapped. I'm opening a box of blank DVDs right now. The entire box was shrinkwrapped, two times. It's a five disk box, but they threw in one free, so had to shrinkwrap the thing twice.

Then, inside the box? More shrink wrap. Each DVD of the jewelcased DVDs is shrinkwrapped, with one of those little plastic tab pulls that you see on cigarettes.

That's a lot of plastic that comes from a lot of petroleum.

And all completely unnecessary. It's the cheap stuff that's going to be the death of us. It's so cheap and we're so lazy and accustomed to it that it's going to be too expensive in the end to clean it all up.

Happy Earth Day.

Spring. It’s time to plant.

Late March is the perfect time to plant in Alabama. The weather has warmed to the 60s and 70s during the day and the nights are typically in the 40s and 50s. We’ll still get a cold spell before April 15, as we always do, but it's nothing to worry about.

The Alabama Cooperative Extension System provides a good deal of informative material. My favorite is their yearly Alabama Gardener’s Calendar, which tells me exactly what tasks I need to do for my yard and garden each month. My other favorite resource is the Gardening in Alabama forum on GardenWeb.

After a trip to my favorite garden shop in Birmingham—Libby’s Plant Odyssey—I planted two blueberry bushes and two blackberry vines (two of each because they need to pollinate each other, I was told). Libby is a fount of knowledge all things flora.

Over the past week I’ve planted vegetables, mostly in pots: tomatoes, cucumber, squash, zucchini, eggplant. I have two pots of each, and more in the ground next to a trellis. I'll be planting more--I'm germinating sweet corn right now, and plan to add polebeans and peas.

Tool Review: The Makita 5090D Cordless Mini Circular Saw

I've lusted for this fine piece of machinery for years, longingly looking at it in the hardware aisle of Home Depot or Lowe's. My reasoning for not spending the ~$120 on it was that there was always a bigger, more general use tool that cost about the same or less, that I needed.

I finally bought one. And just like many of my other fine powertools—the DeWalt reciprocating saw, portable drill/driver, Porter-Cable 16 & 18 gauge brad nailers with air compressor, etc. etc. etc.—when I finally had it in my hand working on a project, I could not believe that I’d lived without it for so long.

The 5090D’s main talent is cutting trim, quickly, precisely, and in a small space. When you first rev the trigger and the small blade whirrs, you’re thinking “Yeah, this isn’t going to cut a pencil.” But it goes through pine trim like butter. It cuts composite, 1x boards, and even 2x boards without trouble, though cutting a 2x will use the battery pretty quickly.

It’s a versatile tool, too. It’s handy for cutting PVC pipe for plumbing.

Pros: Small, lightweight. Great for small and precise work.
Cons: Not unlimited battery power. As with all portable tools, get yourself an extra battery.

Renovation is good for you.

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