By Tony
Day 102
Belmont Recap & Funny Business in the Holly Tree
For my first time ever seeing a horse race, I’m pretty proud of my predictions for the Belmont Stakes yesterday. I gave Tiz the Law the benefit of the doubt, since he was the humans’ favorite, and they were right. He won.
But there I was, glued to the screen when MY favorite, Fore Left, shifted into high gear and stunned everybody on the track when he looked for a moment like he was going to pull off a big upset…
Here was the leader board…
Unfortunately, Lefty’s boldness motivated the other horses and some of them overtook him. I’m glad his jockey let him relax back to 9th place because it made no sense at that point to run him to death.
One of the horses that charged in the end was my other favorite, Max Player. He really showed his stuff in the stretch and finished third!
At home, we had some excitement, too. It started when Karen noticed some dead branches on the holly tree outside the kitchen window. When she went to investigate, she found this nest…
There’s this cardinal who’s been giving Roc and me the stink-eye from that tree for about a week now. Little did we know he was shacking up out there…
Turns out he’s married. When Karen was tugging on the dead branches before she saw the nest, he and his wife were having a fit, flapping and squawking. Here he is again (top) and his bride…
She doesn’t look anything like a cardinal, so we thought it was a mixed marriage (do birds do that?). But Karen looked it up and girl cardinals are gray. Also, cardinals are monogamous and keep the same mate for life, so rather than the carefree playboybird he made us think he was, he’s spoken for.
The wife plopped down in the nest as soon as Karen came back into the house. This is their mating season, so she’s probably hatching a litter out there. The nest is too high for Karen to peek into. Cardinals are born in about 12 days, so Roc and I are keeping an eye out for a sudden population explosion.
Cats Working 
Love it!
Sent from my I Pad
Tony, look at all the excitement you have to look forward to! A tree full of birdies tweeting all day. Make certain and post back when the blessed event happens since you are now on baby watch.
Cardinals are so cool! We had a pair that used to always nest in my dad’s hothouse when I was a kid. It never failed. They would return every year and use the same nest. Dad always just left it alone. The orchids used to suffer a little because he couldn’t water the way he wanted (just a little less so he didn’t drench the nest), but it was fun watching them go from eggs to naked babies to fledglings ready to take off into the big world. I miss those days!
Sandee, we haven’t seen the cardinals since Saturday, so are hoping Karen didn’t scare them away from their nest permanently. If there are eggs out there, they need a mom.