You Can Call Me Mrs. Fix-It

I've been on a Home Improvement kick lately. Our laundry room featured yuck-o flat builder paint. It had to go.

I had a little mishap with some paint. I got a gallon mixed at Lowe's thinking it was the color of the baseboards but it wasn't. In hopes of not throwing close to $20 down the drain, I used it to paint the laundry room. Although it doesn't look that different in pictures, it is SO much better looking in person. This paint is a semi-gloss as compared to a flat paint so it is wipe-able and doesn't soak up the water that splashes from our laundry tub.

The Mr. says I have found my calling in case Real Estate doesn't work out.

Vultures, Buzzards the Demise of the Gator

New Year's 2010 we discovered a new friend living in the pond in our backyard ... Gary (or Gail) the Gator.

We grew accustom to looking out our window to see if he/she would pop it's head out of the water and often talked about the daily events of our little friend and wondered where it went when we didn't see it. We began to like our Gator buddy but just like that it was gone.

I discovered it belly up in the water 3 houses down from ours on Friday. There were about 20 vultures having a dinner party that featured our little Gary (or Gail). I ran inside to get the Hubby.

Me: You have to come see this.
Him: What are all those buzzards doing?
Me: Having a vulture dinner party.
Him: Buzzards
Me: Vultures
Him: Buzzards
Me: I'll google it.

And so I did. For the most part, the words are interchangeable. I was surprised to find that there are so many types of scavenging birds. I did locate the ones we had that were feasting on our friend ... the Black Vulture. What I found most interesting about them was how the fed.

"Vulture stomach acid is exceptionally corrosive, allowing them to safely digest putrid carcasses infected with Botulinum toxin, hog cholera, and anthrax bacteria that would be lethal to other scavengers. This also enables them to use their reeking, corrosive vomit as a defensive projectile when threatened. Vultures urinate straight down their legs; the uric acid kills bacteria accumulated from walking through carcasses, and also acts as evaporative cooling."

Projectile acid vomit?! That is freaking awesome!