The Red-Tailed Hawk

We walked out one evening to see this beautiful creature on the house roof.  Unfortunately he was watching the chicken coop.  We know this red tail hawk lives in the neighborhood and have seen if fly overhead multiple times but it has never before landed anywhere in the yard.  Not only did it land on the roof, it perched itself in several spots and stayed around for 36 hours. 
At one time we saw it in the grass eating a snake.  It then moved to the top of the chicken coop while I mowed the grass. It was totally unafraid of me. It watched as I mowed and even let me take some pictures.  After I finished mowing and had parked the tractor by the back deck it moved to the rollbar of the tractor and stayed there for an hour or so while we all sat on the deck and took pictures and it posed.  Sharee has amazing pictures of it.  At one point it even hopped up on the deck railing, coming within about 5 feet from us.  It was a sight to behold.  Needless to say we never let the chickens out.  I guess it figured out that they were going to be safe and finally departed.  We left the chickens in for another few days just to be sure. What an amazing 36 hours it was.  It was huge and an absolutely stunning creature.  What a blessed day we had examining it up close. 

Mom and Dad S Come to Help

Dad learns how to can spaghetti sauce

 

And he spent some time in Patrick's shop constructing some pinterest items for me.

There is no way to describe the help that my Mom and Dad were for 3 1/2  weeks post-op. No pictures are available of mom's projects but they were many and varied. Mom daily spent about 4 hours in the yard and garden.  She alone took care of tomatoes, bell peppers, weeding, trimming, watering, deadheading flowers, chicken feeding and the list goes on.  The yard would look like a jungle if her work had gone undone. And she was in her glory.  In addition to yard work she painted the handrail that goes to the attic.  I had sorta prepped it this winter but never got around to actually painting it.  Mom came to the rescue. She also stained/sealed the back outdoor sink surround as it was in dire need.  It now looks beautiful and repels water nicely.  She was the laundry queen and on top of all that she was able to find some time to quilt each day when it got too hot outside.

 

Dad took care of food mostly.  As you can see he was able to can the spaghetti sauce when I was sick,  hurting and out of commission.  He prepped dinner each night, went to the grocery store, kept Patrick company and then spent time doing some projects for me that I had seen on pinterest.  I had wanted this cool drying rack for the laundry room to go above the wall where we earlier had installed the tongue 'n groove boards.  Other than some of the hardware and the dowels, it is all scraps.  The green board is leftover from house construction as there is a section of our kitchen cabinets that have this board behind the shelves.  He used some scrap wood Pat had down in the shop to make the frame. It turned out just as I envisioned. So now the laundry room wall is decorated. Yeah.

 

He also made a quilting ruler holder for my sewing room.  He actually made two as Mom got one also.  I had seen this on pinterest also and it is a great way to organize my quilting rulers.  I have extra slots for future rulers.  Again this was scrap wood- only this time from "Uncle Tim's home depot".

 

Mom and Dad also got to spend some time with Carrie, Sean and the kids and Sharee had a bunch of produce to process from the farmer's market so she spent several days using the kitchen and teaching Mom all sorts of ways to preserve the harvest. 

 

Oh, and they helped Patrick out also.....the reason they came in the first place.