School is for the Birds

With only 2.5 days left in the school year, the kids have had enough already. I know that they are tired of school and things seem to be somewhat more tense around the house as Jason and Erin are studying for their EOC exams. I found out last year what EOC stands for: End of Course. That kind of lead me to reflect on why is it that we need to have so many acronyms these days? I mean why must it be called EOC, when "final" is so much simpler? Is there anything wrong with simple? I had final exams when I was kid, but I digress...

Saturday when Jason was mowing the lawn, he told me that he got the crap scared out of him by a bird flying out of our maple tree. He looked a little closer at the tree and noticed a nest built in the crook of a few branches. It must have been the mother bird vacating the nest that had startled him, he said. When he took me out to see the nest, I saw the mother bird in it - she is a robin. Kristin and I had noticed this year that there always seemed to be one or two robins in the backyard - way more than normal, now this explained it. They were making their nest and hunting for food.

Later when the mother was gone doing something, I grabbed the ladder from the garage and got up high enough to snap this picture. The kids did not believe me when I told them that robin eggs are light blue. But now we have the evidence; you can clearly see the 4 little eggs in the nest. I don't know how long they take to incubate, but I imagine that in a few weeks we will be hearing the little chirpings of the babies when they are hungry and begging for food.