Building a Wall

Today was a mishmash of accomplishments around ye olde homestead... er, castle.

First, a(nother) bird flew into the window. This one bonked his head pretty good.

We always check to make sure they get up and fly again. If they don't, we seize the opportunity to manhandle... I mean, "rescue" them. We no longer have cats outside, so I don't really know if it's necessary to pick them up, but my theory is that they come back to life more quickly in order to get away from us.

In the meantime I took photos.

I can always tell they are still stunned when their beaks are open. I imagine them just say, "What the hell? No really - what the hell?"

I know, it looks like the King was squishing him, but no, that's just what stunned birds do. I think they have trouble breathing when they're stressed. All I know is that when their beaks close again, that's when they are about ready to fly away.

An interesting bird. I assume a grosbeak of some sort but I don't know. I haven't looked him up yet.

He took a while to recover, but his neck wasn't broken so we held out hope.

Now we're getting somewhere, we're perching.

The Queen even got to be a perch. And then the bird pooped on me. So gracious these birds.

After the great bird adventure we decided to tackle the pallet wall that we set out to do about this time last year. We had a few stained boards that we sifted through, but not nearly the quantity I remembered. And then we decided we needed something to fill the gaps because these boards are not even and don't make a tight fit. Stain didn't work, gel stain was all dried up and the sharpie was a pain. So this is as far as we got for the night.

Which means we turned our attention back to the mounds. I wanted to take the wood we already had and restack it so that at least we could start finishing the areas in front of the castle.

People get curious about royalty and we are tired of the staring. Even Mayor Tom remarked that someone slowed as they passed the house, so it's not all in our royal heads.

I don't want to brag, but the Queen is quite the wood stacker. The King isn't so bad himself.

At this point the mound is about three feet high. I still need to pile the smaller sticks around the mound, and add the yard debris. Then at some point we add dirt and can start planting. From the road the pile is at the bottom of our picture window... so we will have to plant some hedges on top to get the privacy we were hoping for, but for now it helps keep the dogs from seeing other dogs on the road and maybe it will block some of the sounds from the road.

But for now, it's time to settle in for dinner and watch Dr. Pol.