Personal posts

The life and times of Toby

Arborvitaes

This past weekend, I planted the last of four arborvitaes that I bought back in spring. I wanted something for a bit of privacy in my backyard, and read that arborvitaes are native-ish, easy to care for, and great for privacy. I saw them 50% off at Petiti’s one day while looking for other stuff, so I went ahead and picked up four that were maybe 4 some feet tall for $200.

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Last Thursday, I got about 4.5 inches of rain at my house (Akron). A good ground soaking. I got a bit of wet carpet in my basement, but no damage. I hear there was bad flooding in the valley.

Hasn’t rained since, so I’ve still had to water my garden, but not as much.


Another bird incident happened today. I was walking my brother’s dog, Duncan, when he came upon something. He lunged toward it. I saw a small bluebird flutter up, but it was having trouble fully flying, so it just got to the height of Duncan’s mouth and moved away from Duncan. As this was happening, I yelled something like “Duncan, leave it” and pulled on the leash. Duncan’s mouth was open, biting at the bird as I was pulling him, keeping him just inches away. The little bird flapped over to a spot on the road 10 feet away, and Duncan stared at it. It was chirping. As this was happening, two other birds up in a nearby tree started chirping at us, and then took turns diving at us. I pulled Duncan along and the two presumably parent birds eventually stopped diving us and went towards the little bird, chirping at it. When we came back, the little bird was no longer on the street and one or more bluebirds were up in the tree, chirping. So, presumably the little one was fine and managed to fly under the less stressful situation.


Had a weird bird incident the other day. I was going around a turn on a residential street (by Stan Hywet), following the car ahead of me. Suddenly, something came flying from the side of the road among the bushes, fast like somebody threw something hard, and it hit the car ahead of me and bounced off. As it bounced back, I saw wings: It was a bird, probably a robin. We weren’t going fast since we just came around a curve, so less than 25mph, but the bird just bounced far, to the ground. It all happened super fast, and with how hard it hit, I assume it was dead.