Curiosity...

 We all know what curiosity did to the cat.  My question is... what did curiosity do to the dog?  I ask this because we have one very, very curious puppy.  Forrest is always finding new things to explore.  Yesterday it was this...

To which I said, emphatically, "Leave it!"  He left it.  And the snake was rather glad he did.  While he was still coiled, ready to defend himself, I snuck in and took his photo.  He is another young black snake.  It seems we have plenty of them around this year!

Then, later in the morning, as we were opening up the upper runner ducks, Jenni and her beau, Forrest sat very still in the corner of their pen and just watched as they went flapping off to the upper end.  He then proceeded to wander upward to have a chat and was immediately chased off!

Whew!  That was scary!  We've come a long way from the days when Forrest would run off with a runner duck in his soft mouth.  Now, when he gets too close, they give chase and he gets away by the tuft of his tail!  Yes, that's the duck right behind Forrest in the photo below.

You might notice that Chester is in the lower lefthand corner of the photo.  I think he enjoyed watching a duck get the best of Forrest.

After that bit of excitement, we headed to the barn to receive our load of hay.  It ended up being cancelled, as there were rain showers in the area.  Although our entire day was very cloudy, we never received rain until a heavy shower that evening.  I celebrated this rain, knowing that our beautiful vegetable garden would benefit.

Our vet did come, and we were able to get all horses, donkeys, dogs and cats vaccinated for the year.

Everyone was well behaved and took their needle pokes in stride.

This week, while weeding the blueberry bushes, 

I noticed a couple of birds' nests in the bushes.

This nest had two spotted eggs.  Judging from the size and color of the eggs, we guessed them to be from one of our local, vocal mockingbirds.

The next day, there were three eggs.

Luckily there are many, many blueberries on the other bushes.  We can leave this particular bush alone.  Amazingly, some of our bushes are already beginning to ripen.

Lastly... we've had a game camera on our front porch for a month now, hoping to catch a photo of the bear that has visited this spring.  Last evening, I checked the camera card inside... only to find hundreds and hundreds of photos like this...  (daylight hours)

And several of these... (night time hours)

Not a single bear.

And lastly, a quick, funny story.  Last Saturday, while walking in the woods, we had Hubbs' phone out with the Merlin Bird ID app open and the record button pushed.  We were listening to and identifying all of the bird songs we were hearing.  While listening, one of us (not saying which of us) may have passed a little gas.  The funny thing is... the bird app picked up that particular sound as a "mute swan." 

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