More Bird Issues

I thought that after the baby mockingbirds flew away at Melrose the other day, that my bird issues had ended for the summer, but that was just wishful thinking. Now I have an angry momma bird perched outside the door to my apartment! I hadn't seen her until today when I came home for lunch, and she was flying around making all kinds of racket. It's a good think I had a folder with me because I put it over my head as I went in the front door, and it blocked what I believe was the bird's attempt to poop on me! There was an unidentified substance on the folder when I got inside. It wasn't a direct hit, but I got the idea. Right now the momma bird is sitting out in front of my door squawking, daring me to come back out and face her again. I can't see where her nest is, but it must be somewhere in the rafters between my place and the main house. Unfortunately, unlike dogs, birds don't seem to come to recognize who they can trust and who they can't. No matter how nice you are, or even if you're dressed like a park ranger--with the mission to protect the cultural and natural resources of the country--birds still think you're out to steal their eggs, so they try to poop on you.

Tonight Mary, Ben (the other intern), and I are going to go see "Pirates of the Caribbean" #3 which should be very fun. Then tomorrow and Monday are my days off! I'm going to go into work for a little while on Monday again to help out with the scavenger hunt for week 3 of Jr. Ranger camp.

Today I am working down at the William Johnson House. It's been a pretty quiet morning, but maybe it will pick up a little this afternoon. Well, I'm going to don my protective head gear again and go out to face the bird and head back to work.

Snakes and Kids

What do you think of my self-given haircut? Pretty cool, eh?

My warning to visitors today was: "Watch out for snakes and kids." We had a big, fat chicken snake on the front porch of Melrose this morning. I don't know what a chicken snake is, but that's what it was. Curtis, one of the maintenance guys, just threw the snake off the porch, so it could have easily come back if it had wanted to, but it didn't. Today was the last day of Jr. Ranger camp week #2. The kids this week had more behavioral problems than the kids last week. I think everyone was relieved to have this week finished with, although there were some really cool kids too. We had a fistfight break out between two boys over hot dogs at lunch, but no serious injuries were sustained. While Nathan and Angie dealt with the kids, Tim and I ran Melrose. We were scheduled for four tours each, but thankfully only 4/8 tours went out, so we ended up just giving two tours each. Four tour days wear us out!

The antique show last night was really fun--I even won a door prize! I was kind of hoping for the "Old South Winery" t-shirt door prize, so that it could go with the Jack Daniel's t-shirt that Mom won at the chili cook-off in Clarksville, Missouri a few years ago, but I won a Rosalie mug instead. Rosalie is one of the other mansions in town, and in the mug were two tickets to go see the house for free, so that was pretty cool. There were tons of antiques at the show, and Kate, Jessica, and I had a good time checking everything out. I even found a couple of cool 1950s rings to buy. Tim drove to the show with Kate and me, but he told us that he was only going for the food. They did serve some pretty good eats, but after the food, Tim was ready to leave. We told him that we wanted to look around some more, so he decided to walk home. A lot of the antique dealers were older people, so they liked all of us "young'uns." The antique dealers reminded me of this t-shirt I saw one time that said: "I'm not old--I'm antique."

To Kill a Mockingbird

Just kidding--no mockingbirds are dead, but it turns out that the angry momma bird that tried to attack me the other day is a mockingbird. I decided that today was the day that I was going to make it up the stairs, so I donned my protective head gear (my ranger hat--it's pretty impenetrable) and my protective eye wear (sunglasses), acquired a shield (a three ring binder full of papers I needed), and took off up the scary stairwell to work on my historic clothes project on the second floor of the dairy building. Thankfully, today was the day that the baby birds decided to take their wings for a test flight, so the momma bird was watching their progress from a nearby tree and wasn't in the nest at the top of the stairs. I encountered one of the baby birds on the stairs, who tried to fly down the stairs to avoid me, but ended up running into my binder which I had placed in front of my face to shield myself from any flying things. He then kind of tumbled to the bottom of the stairs, and I was afraid that my binder had killed him, but then he got up and hopped back up the stairs, later flying off into the tree to join his mother. So, I think that the bird story has a happy ending.

Today I had some people on my morning tour who were pretty hard of hearing, so I'd be talking about something, and then they'd just start talking (really loudly) in the middle of my sentence. :-) Tonight Tim, Kate, and I are going to go to the opening reception at the annual Natchez Antique Show! We were invited to the preview party by the Natchez Visitors Bureau, so we get to be the first ones to see all of the antiques. Supposedly they're going to have free wine and cheese at this party, so I'm the designated driver for the evening. Tim and Kate may get a little wobbly. It should be pretty fun though. I'll try to get a picture of my self-given haircut up on the website tomorrow. I think it turned out pretty good--it's certainly much cooler temperature-wise than when I had all of my crazy curls.

Hair Adventures

It wouldn't be a true summer here without some sort of hair adventures! Last summer it was hair color adventures, but this time it was haircut adventures. With it being so hot and humid, my hair was driving me crazy. I had this curl on my forehead that made me look like the misfit dentist guy on the animated version of "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer." So, I decided to go get a haircut. The lady cutting my hair cut just a tiny bit off, and then said, "Okay, what do you think?" I said, "Um, a little more off please." So she did a little more, but only a little bit. I said, "Still a little more." She said, "I can cut it off, but I sho' can't put it back on." I said, "I know." So she cut a tiny bit more off, and I thought it looked okay, but when I got home, I realized that I kind of had a mullet. It seemed like she had hardly taken off anything except for in the middle, so the hair at the bottom of the back of my head was still kind of long. It was at this point that I decided to take matters into my own hands, and I took after my hair--something I have always been afraid to do. But this was an emergency. I'm sure I cut off more hair than she did, which is scary, but I think I fixed it! It looks soooooo much better now (I think). While it was fun to get all creative and try my hand at cutting hair, I don't think I'll ever do it again because it was too nerve-racking. At least this time the hair crisis was averted. This morning I was down at the Johnson house to help with the Jr. Rangers. They were certainly on one today! Kids were trying to jump off balconies, Herm got loose in the Presbyterian church's historic Natchez photograph exhibit, and this girl named Chaz about had all of the rangers ready to lock her in the attic of the house. I was only on camp for half of the day, then I changed clothes and went up to Melrose to give the 12:00 tour. I'll be giving tours all afternoon. I hope that Nathan and Angie survive the afternoon by themselves with the kids!

Today when I checked the mail, there was this gargantuous spider in the mailbox! It scared the daylights out of me!!

August in June

It feels like August Mississippi weather outside, and it's only June 12! It is exceptionally warm and humid. One good thing about the warm weather, however, is that it lead me to discover my new favorite frozen treats: Jello Pudding Popsicles! My favorite is the vanilla flavor.

Yesterday I started getting an emergency supply backpack together. In church on Sunday, our Relief Society lesson was about provident living and being prepared for unexpected events. I realized that even though at home my family is prepared for an emergency, our food storage supply in Orem wouldn't be accessible to me in the event of a tornado or hurricane here. So I've started gathering some supplies to keep in a backpack in my trunk because with the crazy weather here, you never know when you're going to get an unpleasant surprise. In 1844, Natchez had one of the biggest tornadoes in the country's history and the whole town was pretty much destroyed. I doubt something like that would happen again, but there are some freaky storms here. I'll be ready for it though!

Today at work I was going to go upstairs in the dairy building to work on the living history historic clothing collection, but a bird has constructed a nest in the lamp hanging in the stairwell. I looked up as I started to ascend the stairs, and all I saw was this angry bird heading diving towards my face. She definitely has anger management issues, and I think I'd better hold off on going up there either until I acquire a motorcycle helmet with a face guard, or until her babies hatch and fly away.