Posts Tagged ‘birds’

When I was a child I used to love those pictures where you had to try to find as many things wrong as you could. Now in my adult years I love even more pictures where there's something wrong, but not necessarily on purpose. Today's post is a series of pictures, each of which has something wrong with it.

I'll start off with some pictures related to food.

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This Sunday is the day we honor our moms who have given of themselves so tirelessly and unselfishly to make us what we are today. (In case you had forgotten, run ... do not walk ... to get something for her!) When I saw the following story in my files, I knew it's the one I wanted to post today.

A man came home from work and found his three children outside still in their pajamas, playing in the mud with empty food boxes and 20 wrappers strewn all around the front yard.

The door of his wife's car was open, and so was the front door to the house, and there was no sign of the dog. Proceeding into the entry he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over and the throw rug was wadded against one wall.

In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel and the family room floor was almost totally covered with toys and various items of clothing.

In the kitchen dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.
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I believe there are quite a few home school families who read my blog. I have the utmost respect for home schoolers who do their job well. In recent years some fine students who were home schooled have been in my university French classes. I'm confident that any home schoolers will read today's post with an eye to the humor. It is in no way meant as a criticism, but rather it highlights the humor of their particular situation. The list has been in my files for years, recently resurfaced, and has been tweaked slightly from the way it originally came to me.

Top twenty reasons to home school

20. Your kids never tell you that their teacher knows more than you do.

19. If you can't find matching socks for your child first thing in the morning, who cares?

18. Cleaning out the refrigerator can double as science lab.

17. Your kids never have a reason to think they'll get beat up by a gang at school.

16. If the principal gives the teacher a bad evaluation, she can stick her icy feet against his legs at night.

15. You can post the Ten Commandments on your school room wall, and you won't get sued.

14. You never have to drive your child's forgotten lunch to school.

13. Your child will never go to their 20th high school reunion, meet an old flame, and rush into an unfortunate marriage.

That reminded me of a cartoon I love....

12. You get to change more than diapers — you get to change minds.

11. If you get caught talking to yourself, you can claim you're having a PTA meeting.
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We live at a time where we have too many possible choices. One of the reasons I like shopping at Aldi is that the choices are so simple — there's only one brand of most items! In life, no one person can have all the good things or do all the good activities available to him. And it's so hard to say "no" to the great opportunities that are presented to us. As a result, life is a series of points of re-prioritizing. I've just hit one of those points myself. I'll explain more about that at the end of this post.

In the past I have posted pictures of several different years when chickadees nested in our bird house. Here's a link to one of the posts about the first nesting. Last week our bird house was visited by chickadees again, and so we thought we would get to see the process again. Then later this week a pair of bluebirds visited our bird house and even began to put grass and leaves inside. The past several days when the bluebirds aren't there, nuthatches have begun to put nesting materials inside also. We never knew we had such prime real estate in our back yard! Here's a picture of the female bluebird on top of the bird house yesterday afternoon.

They can't all have a nest in there simultaneously. That would obviously be too much! I'll let you know who actually ends up nesting in our bird house, if anyone. They may all go away in disgust.

Here are several jokes I've received recently, both of which deal with some facet of too much.
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Did you ever feel as if you were in an Alfred Hitchcock thriller? If you've seen The Birds, you will remember some of the horror scenes where Tippi Hedren is being chased and attacked by birds. Well, I had a "Tippi Hedren moment" this past Saturday. We were meeting our son-in-law Jim in Cincinnati so that Meg and Drew could go back home after their two week visit with us. While waiting for Jim to arrive, we went to the Creation Museum. Before going into the museum, we strolled to the petting zoo by way of the nature trail. We were enjoying all kinds of flora and fauna when out of nowhere a red-winged black bird swooped down and pecked me on the head. Although we were doing nothing extraordinary as we meandered along the nature trail, we were apparently too close to its nest. I wonder how many others were attacked that day! Here's a scene from The Birds that came to mind.

Our daughter Megan was glad not to be the one attacked by the bird. Before she and Drew came to see us, she had been having to dodge being attacked when she checked her mail. A robin had built a nest in the light fixture on Meg and Jim's front porch. After the babies fledged, Jim fixed things so that that fixture will not be a nesting site any more, and Megan can now check her mailbox confidently.

In light of our experiences, I'm sharing some bird groaners. Hope you pun lovers enjoy them.

(For those not familiar with the term "budgies" used in the jokes below, that's the name in some parts of the world for what others call "parakeets.")

Two Minnesotans walk into a pet shop near Brainerd. They head to the bird section and Sven says to Ole, "Dat's dem." The owner comes over and asks if he can help them.

"Yah sure, ve'll take two of dem dere little budgies in dat cage up dere," says Sven.

The owner puts the budgies in a paper bag. Ole and Sven pay for the birds, leave the shop, get into Sven's pick-up and drive to the top of some big cliffs near Brainerd Lake. At the cliffs, Sven looks down at the 1000 foot drop and says, "Dis looks like a grand place."

He takes the two birds out of the bag, puts them on his shoulders and jumps off the cliff. Ole watches as Sven falls all the way to the bottom, killing himself dead.

Looking down at the remains of his best pal, Ole shakes his head and says, "By yumpin' yiminy, dis budgie-jumping is too dangerous for me!"

VAIT!!! Dere's MORE!
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