Bird bathers

Yesterday afternoon, I was in one of the bedrooms upstairs next to my office and petting the dog laying on the bed and kept hearing this little noise from outside. I looked out and there were 2 cute Western Bluebirds on the gutter and apparently there was a little rainwater left in the gutter, so they were jumping down in the gutter and taking a bath, LOL. I'd love to get the birdbath out, but it's still freezing at night and I don't want freezing water to break the birdbath. 

Mr. Neighbor isn't usually home very often during the weekdays (and his wife doesn't get home from work until 6pm and half the time they are gone on weekends, too) as he's gone doing his various p/t jobs he has. Well, he was home yesterday morning because he had a guy coming to give him a quote on adding a sprinkler system to the lawn area (another story) he put in on the other side of our fence last summer. He had asked dh to come over, too, so they could explain to the guy what our sprinklers on our side of the fence would reach to (or something like that). 

Anyhow - while they were outside doing that the "reloader gun guy" on the hill across the little valley area starts up. I'm not sure Mr. Neighbor has ever been home when these shots start going off during the day, randomly. When he heard it he was like "holy $h&t!!". Dh said yep, just wait a minute or two, or maybe 15 minutes, you never know when, but there will be more. This went on for a couple hours yesterday. DH measured the distance from his place to ours using google maps and it's only 3200 feet, a little over half a mile. Basically we've got the river, a pasture field, the freeway, another wider pasture/field and then back up to hills/mountain terrain. On the other side of us is a steep cliff walled mountain that echos everything.

And this guy seems to be doing this almost daily now. (at least the other guy only does his shooting once or twice a week and not usually longer than half hour). What the hell is wrong with people that they think it's ok to just disrupt the lives and peace of those around them, so they can just do whatever they feel like doing? Go get on one of the numerous forest service/logging roads all over here and drive a couple miles up into the mountains, where there is nothing and no one living up there and have your fun. Like one of our friends said, who can afford to go through that much ammo on a daily basis? And friend said he does reloading too, but the supplies now are hard to come by and expensive. But, I'm glad Mr. Neighbor was finally home to hear it. At least now dh doesn't feel like he was overreacting to it. Can you imagine if everyone around here just started doing what those 2 guys do?? I guess Mr. Neighbor was serious when he said, if he is home when the guy down river starts emptying his mags, he's going to start shooting too, because he said he put his gun by his bed and Mrs. asked him what the heck he was doing?!

A cousin messaged me, asking what info I had on the health history of our grandparents. Her mom (the ex-wife of my other (deceased) uncle) thought my grandma had colon cancer. My cousin said she was having genetic testing done because she just got diagnosed with breast cancer and they are asking her family history. I said grandma had breast cancer and a double mastectomy when she was around 80 years old, but no colon cancer that I know of. She said her mom thought that was why grandma had to have a colostomy bag. I said no, I'm almost positive that was due to a surgery she had had to fix a prolapsed bladder and something went wrong and when she was in recovery from that surgery she started crashing and they rushed her back into surgery and as a result of all that she needed the colostomy bag. Of course my mom would be the one who would know all the details, but no memory now to know, I'm sure. I'll ask her this weekend, but doubt she will remember anything about it. I emailed my uncle, thinking he might remember, but he said he doesn't. I also told her that grandpa had prostate cancer and had his removed and she wanted to know what year, but I have no idea what year that was. He was probably in his mid to late 60's is my guess, it was after he retired. That's the best I can help her out with. Cousin said right now it's sounding like she will have a lumpectomy, but I'm guessing the genetic testing would determine whether they end up recommending mastectomy. Hopefully she'll recover 100%, she is 51 years old. DH was wondering what purpose knowing what cancers your grandparents had and when, at this point? Regardless, she has it and it needs to be treated.

My garbage service is due quarterly and I can never remember which month's it's due. I do usually get an email reminding me, but I was working on my budget and logged in to see if it's due in April. Well, apparently I forgot I had set up auto pay, so the payment in February got paid twice and I have a credit balance now, so no payment will be due in May. I'm surprised I didn't catch that on my credit card, but there it is, 2 payments on the same day, LOL.  

Our neighbor is worried about one of their dogs who can't seem to shake an ear infection and they've had him into the vets at least a couple of times. Worried, because they had another dog just like him (this one is related to that dog somehow) who kept getting ear infections that the vet kept telling them wasn't anything to worry about, but turns out he had cancer in his sinus's and they had to have him put down. We remember this because when we were building dh used to always go over to their kennel fence and greet the dogs and one day that dog was bleeding out of his nose. So, they are hoping this isn't going to turn out the same situation and so are we.

We were supposed to have some snow last night, but all's we got is rain, but that's ok.