Good Beltane - A Robin, A Scale and a Bush

Good Beltane to all. As we move toward Midsummer (it hardly seems as though Spring has arrived yet, and here I am looking towards June), my rose bush is a day or two from full bloom, a robin has been silly enough to build a nest on top of my exterior main door lamp - she'll be disturbed at least twice a day while I retrieve the newspaper for DH and when he goes out in late afternoon to collect the mail. I hate disturbing her, but I'm not going to open the garage door for silly things like the newspaper and the mail. 

The light sits to the right of the main entry door 
of the house. As you can tell, there's a robin's nest 
sitting on top. Although it gets protected from rain 
there, the winds in a storm can blow it right off 
(it's happened in the past), and the squirrels are 
able to get to the nest with some squirrel 
acrobatics movements that defy gravity. 
All in all, not a great place for the nest. 

I bought myself a new bathroom scale as an early birthday gift. It arrived at the shop on Thursday, so I got it set up Friday amidst many other errands and projects. My old scale has been with me since high school. It always weighs me about five pounds lower than reality, but a scale really is just a guide, not an absolute. It's measuring the amount of gravitational pull your body and the earth exert on each other. Plus, using the same scale all the time allows me to have a good feel for plus or minus in weight over time. 

The WYZE scale works with an app on your 
phone via Bluetooth. It checks for a lot of different 
items - weight, body fat %, muscle mass/lb, 
body water % and many more. I think I'll 
like this new "toy". 

But I felt it was time to upgrade to a "fancy-dancy all-seeing scale". I wasn't willing to spend a lot of money on this - I've had scales similar to this in the past and have been disappointed. (In fact, I tossed one of those disappointments into the garbage within the past month.) But I did some research and the WYZE scale fit my budget and the requirements of what I wanted from a la-di-dah scale. 

Almost two weeks ago, this is what my "rose" bush 
looked like. It had a LOT of buds, so had promise 
of a spectacular bloom later on. 

It automatically calibrated my weight up four pounds from my normal scale - not really a surprise, but disappointing because those numbers, although they really don't mean much - mean a lot psychologically. Still, it also gave me a lot more information - body fat, muscle mass, body water percentage, lean body mass, bone mass, protein, visceral fat, and BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). I'm pretty happy with most of what I'm reading on these indicators, although I'll need a lot more than two days of information to establish any guideline. 

A few days after the photo above, the buds were larger and 
much more prominent. 

Still, for $40 from Amazon, I felt it was well worth the try and I'm happy with the scale. Now I have to find a good place to keep it. Although it fits where I put it, I'm not thrilled with the placement. It's OK for the summer, but directly under the heater for the winter and that's probably not ideal for the electronics. I'll keep it where I have it for the time being, though. Maybe it will give DH an opportunity to get used to having it there ... or not - LOL. 

Late last week it was showing signs of 
a magnificent bloom this year. I've had some 
disappointing years in the past, but this year 
won't be one of those. 

So on this day of celebration, I'm sharing photos of my flowering bush with all of you. I've adored this bush from the very beginning when I moved here, and it never fails to lift my heart. I'm not really sure exactly what it is - I call it a rose bush because I think it's a type of primrose, but I really can't say for sure. What I do know is this year's blooms will be spectacular. Just look at all of the buds ready to burst into bloom within a few days. 

Although it would have been lovely to have it in full 
bloom for Beltane, it's actually a bit early for that. It 
usually flowers fully in mid-June. But we had a mild 
winter season, so I think it's running about a week 
ahead of schedule. I'll keep taking pictures and share 
one when it's fully in bloom. 

On that note, I'm out of here. Have a truly wonderful weekend and I'll be back on Monday. Please stay safe, be kind and wear your masks, for your sake as well as that of others. Enjoy your weekend!