Donna, a sparrow spooker is used from the time the first egg is laid until the last baby fledges, not before that and not after that. If you have a nestbox and don't put the spooker up during the egg laying or incubation it can still be put up while their are hatchlings in the nest. You shouldn't put it up before egg laying as you don't want HOSP to get used to it but you can put it up anytime during an active nest. As soon as the babies fledge you should take it down again until the next nesting. I have no clue what you want to do seeing you think they may fledge tomorrow, it won't affect that at all however it would keep them safer from the HOSP. Even if you don't "think" you have HOSP, you just never know, it is better to be safe than sorry. Good luck, hope your Blues fledge safely! Donna

I just opened this thread today and read through everything. This was like a "Judith" lesson on building a vignette! Shee, your centerpiece is lovely. It has reallly transformed over the course of this thread from OK to great. I love the fabric that you first added. It really changed the whole look. Then adding height...The basket brings it together. I, too, like Betty's idea to spray paint it darker - I think it will "ground" it. I especially like the link you found with the white pumpkin on the pedestal with the fall arrangement. I'm going to shamelessly copy that one! You are definietly going to WOW your Thanksgiving guests.

Gosh, I don't know WHAT happened, but I lost my cool-calm-and-collected mindset overnight somehow, and missed my son so much today that I was on the verge of tears many times. Didn't say a word to anyone, so DH, DD and her friend who is with us for a few weeks were not really privvy to my feelings, also because we were all kind of in and out all day anyway. And then lo and behold, after dinner, my daughter excused herself to go get something 'she had made' to show me. Ten minutes later, I hear my son's voice calling me! Forgetting all logic, I responded, "Ohmygosh! Where are you? Where are you?" She had SKYPED him on the laptop, and then positioned the laptop to just outside the kitchen door. We had the most wonderful chat with him. It was so much more than great to SEE him! Poor guy got to see the remnants of our dinner, which included a particularly lovely looking pasta dish with fresh spinach, goat cheese, etc., and a mixed berry pie. Almost wistfully he said, "Aww, that looks so good..." DH and I both agreed he seems to have suddenly matured overnight... going to bed with a happy heart tonight.... both because I got to see my son and because DD and her friend surprised me in this wonderful way...

Alisande, the minors are the "farm teams" for the major league teams. The lowest level is Rookie, and progressing on up it goes as follows: Short Season A, Low A, High A, AA, then AAA. After that, it's "the show" (the major leagues). Depending on how good the player is, he might start in Rookie, or he could start in AA, and some have even gone right to AAA. When a major league team has to put a player on the Disabled List (DL), the team will generally call up a player from either AA or AAA (depending on the location of the team at the time -- home or away -- and how close to that location the farm team is. There have been times when a player has been called up from the A team to fill in on a major league team. And, of course, every minor league player's dream is to be called up to the show on a permanent basis. Also, when players are about to come off the DL, they are often sent to the team's AAA team for some rehabilitation games before returning to major league play, so you sometimes get to see some really big-name famous players in a minor league game. We live in a suburb of Sacramento, and there is a AAA team -- the Sacramento RiverCats -- which is part of the Oakland A's organization. The inaugural season was 2000, so this is their 15th season. Hubs and I had season tickets for the first 13 seasons, but we didn't renew for the 2013 season and didn't buy tickets for this season, either. I was one of the first 30 people who got to choose seat location for season tickets, so we had seats right behind home plate. Awesome seats. But Art Savage, the majority owner and CEO, died (age 58!) in November 2009. In our opinion, the organization changed for the worse after his death. Art's goal was for everyone to have a good time when they came to a game, and he wanted the ballpark to be a place where a family could afford to come more than just once or twice a season. After his death, it seemed that monetary profit was the name of the game, and fan loyalty was disregarded. Major league players who made rehab appearances at Raley Field (the name of the ballpark where the RiverCats play) include Curt Schilling, Mike Piazza, and Manny Ramirez. RiverCats who went on to make a name for themselves in the major leagues include Dallas Braden, Eric Byrnes, Andre Ethier, Aaron Harang, Houston Street, Kurt Suzuki, and Barry Zito. There are more, of course, but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. We've all heard about the huge salaries that some of the major league players earn. But minor league players are very poorly paid. The major league team pays the salaries of the minor leaguers (they "own" them). So most minor leaguers have another job during the off season (e.g., teacher, fireman, insurance salesman, etc.). Several minor league players have filed a lawsuit against some of the major league teams, because they are paid less than the federal poverty level. The salary of a minor league player goes up depending on how much time he has spent at that level. For example, a player in his first year in Rookie or Short Season A will earn $1,150 per month, and it goes up $50 a month for each additional season at the same level. Low A and High A start at $1,300 and $1,500 per month, respectively, and increase by $50 per month for each additional season at the same level. Players at the AA level start at $1,700 per month and it goes up by $100 per month for additional seasons, while players in AAA start at $2,150 per month for their first year, going up to $2,400 per month their second year and $2,700 per month their third year. But, bear in mind that they only earn that monthly salary during the baseball season, which for minor leaguers is about 5 months per year. They also get $25 per day for meals when they are on the road, and they have to pay for meals in the clubhouse after every game. And the low minor league salary is what makes it so important for a minor leaguer to be called up, even if all he does is warm the bench. Once a player has been "up to the show," his salary will be much higher for the remainder of the season. This is where the 25-man roster and 40-man roster come into play, but I won't explain all of that here... And once a player makes it onto a major league team, his minimum salary will be $500,000 per year. Not bad for playing a game they love, eh? During the time we had our season tickets, we got to know a lot of the RiverCats. It means so much to the players when there are a lot of fans at the games. They definitely hear the crowd and the cheers. We even went on a lot of road trips with the team. No, we didn't officially travel with the team, but, yes, there were times when we'd be on the same flight. We would stay at the same hotels as the team (and pretty much every hotel would give us a big discount when they found out we were there to support the team). And the players always put us on the "comp list" so we'd get into the games for free. And there were several other folks who would go on the road trips, too. Some would only go to the games that were within driving distance (like from Sacramento to Reno, or to Fresno), but others would fly to where the team would be playing (Tacoma, Portland, Las Vegas, Tucson, Salt Lake City, Colorado Springs, Memphis, Nashville, etc.). We would always whoop and holler and cheer like crazy so our players would hear us. It was a ton of fun. Here's a photo I took from my seat during a game back in September 2004. The rows in front of us were owned and controlled by Art Savage, and he would have some of the starting pitchers sit there and chart the game. One would score the game just like any fan would do, one would chart the pitches (speed, type of pitch, where it ended up [98 mph fastball, ball, high outside to the right; 82 mph curveball, strike]) and one would sometimes chart the other team's pitches. One of the guys would always be the next game's starter. Anyway, the guys you see in the rows in front of me are three of our pitchers. The guy in the blue short-sleeved shirt is one of the aisle ushers who had just kicked some folks out of that row because they didn't belong there, and he sat for a while to make sure they didn't sneak back. Whenever Billy Beane (GM of the Oakland A's) or Branch Rickey (grandson of THE Branch Rickey, and President of the Pacific Coast League) would attend games, they'd sit in front of us. So, those rows had to be kept clear because there was no telling when a VIP would show up.