bath time in the yard

It's bath time at the Utenzi Ranch. Not me--you don't want to see me naked. Especially right now. I've got a touch of poison ivy and parts of my hide really should be hidden (hide --> hidden) as a result. Gross, y'know?

This is the drying rack, so to speak.

I keep this pile of brush around for birds to alight on while they dry their feathers from their bathing session. Birds don't fly too well when their wings are wet so this is important for their safety from predators. Like that mean cat in my header. (sorry, Oreo)

As you can see, there's quite a few birds in the dry cycle right now.






The bath in question--seen over there on the left-- is for my bird population. I keep this turtle that I inherited from the previous owners of the house y'know around so that it can be used as a large and somewhat unclean birdbath.

They seem to like it and turtles and birds get along great. Cats? Not so much!

By the way, I suspect it was a cat that gave me the poison ivy when I picked it up so no more picking up nasty cats for a while. The suspect is Pippin, the blonde cat that used to be in my blog header. Bad ole Pippin!


Here's a closer view of birds having fun. I bet that carniverous cat would love to catch them like this!

Usually when there's a few birds frolicking like this, there's at least one or two up on the lip of the bath able to give warning should anyone nasty approach. Including me, unfortunately.








As a result, I take these pictures mostly from inside the house.

Here's a picture taken from my dining room window of the drying rack and the bath turtle so you can see how close they are to one another.

The turtle is on the flagstones just outside my dining room and kitchen windows.