Wow! Good call on that rotted pole! There is a wooden pole in the next door neighbor's yard right at our fenceline that was kind of leaning in his yard's direction. I came home one day to find one of those thick cables with a heavy yellow guy guard cover attached from 3/4 up the pole to a long eyebolt drilled into my yard about 10' in from the fence. I had three dogs in the yard at the time and though they are friendly dogs, the idea that these folks were over the fence to do the work that probably took a little while was a bit disconcerting. (It was probably like having three toddlers trying to help. If they had treats, the gig was up as far as my dogs being the "security" patrol!)

Anyway, next time you can threaten to call the supervisor on a utility worker on behalf of yourself and your neighbors. Chances are the opportunity will come along.

Charmion, I had to look up Canada Day, close enough to the US Independence Day I should be able to remember that. If your yard was down here that grass seed might have been washed away this week. Hopefully it is sprouting for you up there.

Today's rainstorm was over early so we were able to make our rescheduled shopping expedition then go for lunch with our daughter. Dropped her off at her museum parking lot so she could tuck my old Coleman cooler into her car (to take home to craft a cooling station for her chickens.)

She told an amusing story at lunch, about being at an SCA event with friends, and one of them put his hard plastic helmet on the ground next to his chair. A small enterprising bird spotted it right away and started bringing over sticks and grass and after a couple of hours had made good progress toward a nest. They figured the idea of an armor-plated nest was irresistible and were sorry to dislodge the hopeful tenant. I've had them build nests in hanging baskets and one time in a plastic bag that was full of dried flower seeds that I'd left hanging on the decorative grate over my back door. I've been seeing some interesting birds in the neighborhood, and the oddest thing - a yellow-crowned night heron standing on my front yard, tipping its head. It suddenly darted that long hard beak into the turf and came up with something - large insect, toad, lizard, not sure what. But it looked more like a robin move than a heron move. That's it for the Naturalist's Corner report.