Woodpeckers

Today was a woodpecker day at the feeders.  The pair of Downy Woodpeckers came to the suet cake feeder.  The male stayed a longer time so I had an opportunity to take its picture.  The female stayed on the opposite side so all I saw was her tail with a quick glimpse of her head to see no red so I knew it was a girl.  The male Red-bellied Woodpecker came to the feeder for a split-second and flew right away.  I was happy just to see it.  And the pair of House Finches and a Chickadee came to the platform feeder too.  So it was quite a bird day, especially since there have been so many days of no birds at all.

We still have freezing fog which painted the bare branches of the trees in back a pearly gray against the gray of the cloudy sky but it was a degree or three above freezing so there was a bit of melting going on.  Crazy.

In the afternoon I knitted the thumb and therefore finished the second mitten.  Now I'm all set for the next time some snow needs blowing or shoveling.

07 January--Barbara Malcolm, The Seaview. 

             First Iggy cast a net with weights around the edge into the shallows and pulled up a few small fish that he put in the bucket he wedged in the rocks.

            "Bait," he said.

            "Wait, what?" I said.  "You mean these fish eat other fish?"

            He looked at me as if to say 'you can't be serious' and scooped up one of the hapless little fish and neatly speared it on the barbed hook at the end of his reel of line.  Then he had me hold the reel in my left hand and toss the baited hook out into the water at the same time letting loops of line come off the reel.  It took a few tries to get the hook to fly farther than a foot in front of me but once I unclenched my left hand to let the line go things went better.  He stood behind me guiding my right hand and arm showing me how to jiggle the line to entice a fish to bite.  I liked having his strong chest to lean on and the soft way he coached me but my heart wasn't really in it.

            "I don't think I can do this, Iggy," I said after half an hour without a bite, "I'm just not patient enough."

            He leaned down and kissed the side of my neck.  "That is why it is called 'fishing' and not 'catching.'  You have to be patient, enjoy being outside, and accept that you might not catch anything."

            As I turned to hand him back his line I felt something tug on the end of the line.  "Wait, I think I feel something."

            He cupped my right hand in his and jerked it up.  "Setting the hook," he said.

            That made the fish mad.  I could feel it try to wriggle off the hook and started to panic.  "Here," I said handing him the line and reel, "you do it."

            He chuckled and held up his left arm for me to duck under.  He played the fish, winding line in when he could, until I saw a silver flash in the shallows below the rock he stood on.  "Grab the net, Rose."

            I picked up the net on a pole and scooped it under the struggling fish.  "It's a barracuda," I said.  "Can you eat those?"

            He got the fish out of the net being careful not to get his fingers anywhere near the barracuda's sharp teeth.  "Yes, you can eat those," he said with a smile.  "In fact, we can make ceviche to take along to the beach party tonight.  We will tell everyone that it is your first fish."

            I shook my head.  "I didn't really catch it, I only held the line until it bit.  You caught it."

            "All right then," he said, "we will say that we caught it."

            I went for a quick swim while Iggy gathered up the fishing gear and dumped the rest of the bait back into the water.  That made me feel better.

Today's toss was another small bag of Tupperware bowls.  And lids.  Writing wasn't my friend today.  I struggled to write half a page.

My wedding rings have become too big.  Or rather, my finger has shrunk.  Either way the rings are slipping and sliding around my finger and the wedding bands come unhitched from the engagement ring and get in the way.  So yesterday I took off the wedding bands that surround the center ring with a sapphire in it and I'm just wearing that.  It feels weird and somehow disloyal.  I know I'm not married anymore but I've worn these rings every day for forty-three years.  It feels odd to take them off.  Maybe I can find a different ring to wear for a while...

--Barbara