HumBee Fight

Its well known that Hummingbirds are loners. At our house we have at least three. Of the three, one is always chasing the other two away. Those moments are VERY hard to capture with a camera! But I managed to get some while at Bettys.

Tally Ho! The fight is on!!!!




Its not the one you see that you need to worry about! Its the one that you do not see that will get you everytime!

Betty's House

is coming along nicely.
Here you can see the patio being built off the back of the house.


Here Tom is working on the edging for the patio.




Here is the completed patio.


Here are some of the finished plantings in the front of the house.


Some nice rocking chairs to relax in the morning.


They do have some monster sized gophers out here though.....


Here is the pie Betty baked when we came over to help.

Mile High Lemon Meringue Pie. Too bad its not chocolate!

Here is Betty and Tom's HumBee hanging out guarding his food


Here is Gideon wondering why Tom is not brining him any food??


Here you can see Gideon gnawing on Karen's fingers. He says they are good...They taste like Chicken!!!

Another correction

After much protest, Britain will now treat Macular Degeneration before you go blind in one eye.



This is a pretty interesting video. At the end it describes how in Canada it can take a month or more to get an MRI.....unless your a cat or a dog. Pets can usually get them same day or next day!

I'd also like to point out again that the Democrats plan on cutting 400-500 billion from Medicare/Medicaid to come up with some of the savings to pay for this reform.
Also when the Democrats say that you can keep your insurance and your doctor they are not telling the truth. I have an Health Saving Account with Catastrophic Insurance Coverage. This type of plan will no longer be available under the reform plan!!! People with Flexible Savings Accounts(FSA) or Health Reimbursement Arrangement(HRA) will no longer be able to participate in those plans.

Also if you currently have employer provided insurance and lose it, you will be FORCED into the public plan or the public exchange by this new reform.

Health Care Blues

Because I think "health care refom" is so important I want to blog about it again.
I DO realize that health care is an issue in this country.

One often touted fact is that roughly 47 million people in this country lack health insurance. This fact is true. But lets add some context to this. This does NOT mean there are 47 million people in this country who are denied health care. They DO get health care typically provided at emergency rooms and free health clinics and the such. We , as taxpayers, already pay for this in the form of higher costs for proceedures and higher taxes in the form of government payments to hospitals for the treatments of indigents.

So really, we could solve this problem by insuring the 47 million. I'd say insure the 47 million, minus the 10-20 million illegals in this country.

Those of you that support this plan realize it includes illegals! Every dollar spent treating them is a dollar that will not be spent treating you and your family!

The bill also includes reductions in payments to medicare providers and a "government board" to determine what will and will not be paid for!

Britan has N.I.C.E.which is often described as not being very nice! It is the government agency that decides what treatments are available to whom based on things such as sex and age. A board simmilar to NICE will be comming to the U.S.

For example, if you have advanced breast cancer, you get no treatment. Macular Degeneration? No treatment until you go blind in one eye. Then they will treat your remaining eye.

Recently Paul Krugmen was at a "health care" conference. He asked if there were any Canadians in the audiance. 7 people raised thier hands. He asked if any were "un happy with thier health care?" All 7 raised their hands!!!!

Somethings are worth fighting over

Betty, Tom, and Karen all argue who gets the most loving from Gideon. Who gets the most licks, who gets to rub his ears, who gets to pet his nose! Gideon will not just let ANYONE pet his nose ya know!

Happy Birthday Betty

On Saturday we had a birthday cookout with Tom and Betty. It was Betty's birthday. Tom had asked why there were no candles on the cake. Betty was not happy when I replied that there wasn't enough room for all of the candles we would need, so we just gave up!









Some people are having a hard time picturing where the pool is so hopefully this will help:



We conviniently placed it next to the pine trees so the pine needles could land softly in the pool instead of falling all of the way to the ground!

Here are a few more Hummingbird photos from Saturday:





I still can't tell what kind it is..They all look so simmilar.

Today, Sunday, our biggest decision is should we cook out, and then go swimming? or go swimming and then cook out?

Amazing as it may sound, the other day when it was 105F we went swimming and were freezing when we got out!

Our little

buddy is back! We finally found some food that he likes.
These are from last night. He, or they, usually come to eat late in the evening as seen here:




or early in the morning as seen here:








I'm not sure if he is really eating this or just checking it out.




Here is a little finch.




This one is my favorite.