POST MENOPAUSE When Do Hot Flashes End? Will my final days include hot flashes? Oh, no. Not again. I quietly sit sipping water and reading the morning paper when it strikes. When will this end? It has been thirty years, and I am tired of dealing with it. My forehead beads with moisture, and if…

BIRD POPULATION CONTROL Birth Control For Pet Birds? Yes, I practice it with my mixed flock My cockatiels want to reproduce. It’s an urge most of us can understand and relate to. Egg laying is the next step after multiple bouts of sexual contact. Years ago, I permitted births. I loved hearing the tiny peeps…

Cell phones can be detrimental to any relationship, human or creature. — At first, our iPhones were strange objects, fearful things, things to flee from. Birds react to any change to their routine or environment, even adding a new toy or food item, with suspicion or fear. Gradually, they learned not to fear our iPhones because of our newly found passion for…

This year it is a battle of a woman against a dozen creatures. — As I sit on the couch with a cup of coffee in one hand and a newspaper next to me, my cat Miss Pretty snuggles up against my leg. I watch for a large woodchuck, whom I call “Big Momma,” come out of her den in my neighbor’s yard. …

My husband strikes again — Yesterday, the coffee pot was where I expected to find it, in our kitchen, ready for my 6 am cup of strong, black coffee. Not today. My husband loves to rearrange our furniture. Sigh. The raccoons benefited from his last arrangement. Some aesthetic sense within my husband abhors sameness. He…

It is all clear to me now. — The raccoon first appeared on a sunny day mid-afternoon to lick the small jelly-filled cups we provide for the Baltimore oriole songbirds. The cups are on a platform my husband constructed and attached to the large oak in our backyard. I thought it was strange that the raccoon was visiting…

The pandemic created the daily togetherness — I rush through my lunch. I don’t want to disappoint him. Or shorten our time together. We meet at 1 pm most days, and I feel guilty if I am unable to keep our date. It’s that important to both of us, a thirty or forty-minute time together, just the…

My husband earned one at the grocery store the other day — “Look,” he exclaimed, extending his arm. Just above his wrist was a round orange sticker with a smile drawn on it. “The cashier told me said to wear this on my arm until I got home and tell you I was good today,” he bragged. The orange circle (the ones…

The battle is on us versus the critters — Grape jelly and orange halves set out to delight the gorgeous Baltimore Orioles seem also to attract our four-footed critters. The Orioles arrive in early May solely for reproducing; they are gone by mid-August. These birds enjoy the juice from oranges, the sweetness of grape jelly, and mealworms, and we…