Making Friends

3 days ago I found this little guy in our garden, while it tried to get away from me it clearly could not fly. I could barely grab it before one of our dogs got hold of it, our spaniels have never hunted in their lives but they do unfortunately have a hunter instinct.

Not sure what to do with it I brought it between our two front doors, safe from our dogs but also a door between it and the street cats!
I brought some water and seeds but when I cam back for it an hour later 2 cats were looking at it right in front of our gate, and our dogs were looking at it from the other door, the poor thing didn't know what to do.

Fearing that the cats would make a meal out of it as it was already dark and they were lurking at it. I brought it to our laundry shed. Put a towel in one of the laundry baskets along with water and seeds and it slept in there the first night. The next day I had to go very early to the new house so I couldn't take it anywhere but I checked on it and it was now standing on a handle.

The next day I read that a broken wing could take anywhere from 2-4 weeks to heal and as our situation was not ideal I rang our vet who informed me that the directorate of national parks takes in birds and other wildlife and brings it to vets, so I brought it there, this is their lovely office, right in the park.

I had made a box with a wooden stick and air holes for better transportation, I hope it will recover fully. I still have no idea what kind of bird it is, if anyone knows, I'd love to know as well :) Thanks to someone on Instagram I now know that it is a female (or immature male) Eurasian Golden Oriole.

Spring Has Sprung

I love this time of the year, weather is warming up but during the night it is still blanket weather, perfect! As soon as the weather starts warming up, Nature awakes around us.

We have a huge amount of wildflowers in our mountains and they also pop up in our garden. All these pictures are either from our garden or from my dog walks right near our home.

Turtles also woke up from their winter sleep.

This one came right at our door, I kind of think that some come back every year as I give them lettuce and cucumbers they might remember our address as a good one :).

There used to live an ex-president close to our house, and he had guards and this little watch tower is a leftover of that time.

I love the colors and geometry of nature!

No wonder we have lots of bees and great honey around here, look at all those flowers :)

After a Winter Sleep

As soon as the weather gets warmer the mountains become greener, poppies and daisies appear and the turtles wake up from their Winter sleep and you see them everywhere.

Our house is at the end of a dead end street, no traffic and in front of our door is our garage which is open but only our car gets there so it is private and calm. We often get turtles in Summer there, I'm guessing that as it is at the end of the street they plan to go down the mountain in search for water but instead end up at our front door.
I always give them food and water. For the past week we had one right near our door, which is kind of unique as normally they eat and go, but she stayed for a week, most likely as it rained for 4 of those days so she was hiding in her little house.

Today a second one arrived, clearly younger as it is smaller but also the shield shinier and not roughed up yet :)

One plus one makes two :)

And a love story began... 3 makes a crowd so I left them in peace and gave them their privacy. A few hours later both were gone (without a goodbye *sniff*), I guess she was waiting for her prince charming :)

A Little Wild Trip

Today we went to the Animal hospital, a mountain drive of about half an hour, for our Zeyno. We discovered some large lumps and as we have had these kind of shocks a lot lately we did not waste any time and went straight away for her to be operated. It looks like she has the same cancer as Simon ( who is doing well) but we'll know more when the pathology test results are back. She is a big 12 year old dog, but we love all our doggies and like to keep them around healthy and happy :)

While waiting for the operation we discovered a fox pup in one of the recovery cages, oh so very adorable and pretty and very small. She will go to a wild life park once she has been vaccinated and has stayed there for quarantine for a while. I never have seen a fox so close, let alone a pup so I took some pictures for this beauty.

The operation went well, 4 lumps are removed and we'll know what is going on in a few days.
On our way back we stopped by an abandoned greenhouse, literally exploding with greenness, so magical.

I often love pictures of abandoned places, the way nature takes back the place and slowly makes it green and pretty has something satisfying, the ability of nature to heal is amazing (of course it can heal to a certain extent).

We must have passed it dozens of times, in a fast going car you do not see everything, but this time I realized that the greenhouse was a little too green and we made a mental note to stop on our way back for pictures.

Girmek Yasaktır - Forbidden to Enter, not that you can actually enter, I did break that rule by poking my head and camera inside :)

Funny enough just when I was about to write this blog post I came across this image on BoredPanda, it seemed to meant to be featured here considering the combo of the fox and the greenness that she could have been in that greenhouse :)

Here some 'forbidden' peeks inside.

Zeyno is doing well, lying on her favorite couch with a comfort blanket and her appetite already back to normal, and her tail waggling like nothing has happened, animals are so strong!