Chirpy Baby Blue Jay

The other day I went walking with my dog Buddy. Buddy is almost totally deaf and is going blind.  I have to keep him on a leash. The leash I use is retractable so he can get ahead of me if he wants too. 
    We had only gone a couple of houses when I saw a little baby blue jay in the grass of a neighbors yard but Buddy didn't notice it and kept on walking. I stopped to look at it, while he went ahead to check out a tree. It started to chirp at  me.  It seemed I was blocking its way and it wanted to go straight and how dare I be on the path blocking its way. Since it was such a brave and cheeky thing I thought I would try to get its picture. I went home and got my camera and came back to it still being there. I tried to get some images. I thought I better do it quick because of Buddy.  Fortunately for that bird, my dog didn't hear or see it.  But it saw us and had enough sense to get away. I missed getting that picture.
   I noticed it was trying to fly only it couldn't.  He still hadn't figured it out.  (I assume its a male because he seemed so determined to go in one direction and wouldn't change its mind.) I could see its path was going to take it right into the street, which was about 5 feet away, so I decided to try to turn it around.  Only it wanted to go one way. My street has just enough traffic on it where I knew it wouldn't last long if it got to it and stayed on it so I kept on blocking its attempt to get to the street. I finally got it to turn and going down the sidewalk. All that trying exhausted it and it stopped so I tried to get its picture again, and this time I was successful.
 

The birds momma saw me and tried to get me to go away.  She was in the tree watching us the whole time.

 It would go a couple of feet and then stop.  I kept on thinking - come on little birdie take off and fly.  You can do it. Only it didn't. He got to the point where he was just stopped trying to fly and settled on hoping down the sidewalk like any of the other walkers that traverse it every day.
  Each time it stopped to rest it let me get closer and closer.  I was amazed my dog was more interested in the tree than what I was doing, and totally not registering that there was a bird there.

and closer

  and closer

 

 Finally I was able to get it into my neighbors yard and had it go toward the house so it could hide in the garden. Things were going okay until it saw this gutter drainage pipe blocking its way. 

 

 He stopped and looked around for mom, trying to figure out what to do.

  Only mom wasn't going to come and help him.  He realized he was on his own and hopped up to it.

 

 He looked at me, and chirped.  I know he wanted help but I told him 'Kiddo you are on your own.'

 

 Eventually he figured it out and was able to hop over it and into the garden.

With him safely in the garden, Buddy and I continued the walk.  While I was walking I mused upon how old Buddy was getting and how he was totally unaware of that little baby blue jay. Buddy is living more and more in his own world and it wont be long before he's going to be gone from mine.

 As we were walking, I noticed some weird writings on the streets. Since I had my camera I decided to take a photo of this writings.  Believe it or not they really excited me because it meant that some road & sewer work was finally going to be done in our area.  We've needed it for years since our subdivision is about 60 years old, and nothing has really been done in the area since its been built. 
 

  The first thing they do to start the process is  they have to mark everything that maybe a trouble for them if they hit it. Since I had my camera, I decided to take some pictures of what they are concerned about.  Things like this petroleum pipe line,

 

 or this gas pipeline,

And here's the water lines marked.

 I continued walking and came to one of my favorite streets.  I like it so much because of its name. Decided to take its picture too.

Lovers Lane.
Its amazing when people live on a street named Lover Lanet they just seem to be naturally friendly and nice all the time and say hi to you if you see them out working in the yard.
I continued to walk on Lover's Lane and decided I just had to get a photo of the one sign I always enjoy seeing.

I got a real kick how they marked the sewer for Lovers Lane.  Someone obviously has a sense of humor.

Yes, you got to love your sewer system.  

 Here's a few more picture I decided to take just for the heck of it since I was already taking some anyway.

   As I continued my walk, I mused about how many people realize we have petroleum & gas pipelines traversing through our neighborhood?  I know when the subdivision was first built the home owners were aware of them because so many of the owners had jobs which were with related to the petroleum industry.
   When I came to the town it was to work in the oil/gas industry. So many people that I worked with in the office lived in this area.  I had a couple of coworkers living on Lovers Lane and how they would joke around about it.
  After visiting a couple of parties at these home it had always became a goal of mine to live in this area of town.  I was so happy when I was finally able to reach that goal.  The sad thing was it was because of the oil bust in the mid 80's.  Hundreds and hundreds of people lost their jobs back then in our area (just like now).  The housing market in our area became really, really suppressed and never pulled out of it like the rest of the nation.
  When we bought our home back in 1993, we got a 4 bedroom 2 bath house (about 2500 sq ft) for $130,000.  It did need work which we were willing to do.  I'll never forget a couple of years later I went out to visit my cousin in San Diego.  They were talking about their neighbor selling their house with the same floor plan of about 1200 sq ft for $695,000.  All my husband and I could do was marvel at how anyone could afford to live out in California if they had to pay those types of prices.
  Through the years  we would watch the TV shows about fixing up houses and things like that and always thought it was crazy how much money people were paying for houses in other areas.  Now it doesn't surprise me at all to hear about how bad the housing market is in certain places.  I'm just glad I live were I do where the housing always has been reasonable. 

 Was it because of the pipeline?  I muse what the environmentalist would have to say to us about having the pipelines in our front yards verses them not having it in their backyards.  Was it worth the price?  I still think its a wonderful place to live anyway and really don't want to live anywhere else. 

Whats going to come when there is no more oil because they've succeeded in blocking things being drilled in other areas?   Has my neighborhood been so damage all these years so they are not willing to live here?

Now I  Muse about:  I wonder if the baby blue jay ever ended up learning to fly away  to be with his mom?

Muse thought: I wonder when they are actually going to start some of the road and sewer work. And will I have to change my driving patterns?

I Muse about:  The wonders of nature.  I keep on thinking of the book 'Control of Nature' by John McPhee.
I always marvel at how these concrete roads can be perfectly normal one day and then after a couple days of intense heat, buckle and crack throwing huge piece of concrete up.  On time I actually saw it happen when it did occur, it was amazing to see.  No wonder we have so many cracks and pot holes in our streets and they need constant upkeep.  I'm  just glad our area is finally getting some of it.