Here, Birdies, Birdies, Birdies!

While eating my breakfast I saw a bigger bird flash by and looked up to see the Red-bellied Woodpecker perched on the suet pellets feeder. I didn't get the camera ready in time to take his picture with his head poking up above the feeder but I did get him in his usual horizontal position. I do love seeing him at the feeder.

 

First thing, well, the first thing once I got moving this morning, I went to the polling place and cast my single vote in the alderperson primary. There was only one race on the ballot so I only got to fill in one little oval. I got there after 11am and I was #65. Not a big turnout but not many districts were voting and I suspect that many people didn't realize that today was a voting day.

On my way home from the polls I stopped at Family Pet Center for birdseed and I happened to look at the finch feeders. Last year I bought a couple of those finch seed socks and some rodent, a squirrel or a rat, gnawed through them quickly spilling all of the seed and ruining the feeder. Today I found one with metal screening instead of fabric and for not too much money. Which meant that I had to buy a bag of wild finch mix in addition to the two bags of regular birdseed that I went for. I filled the feeder with the rest of the nyger seed that I had left from last year and then topped it off with the new finch mix. Now I have to wait until some smart bird finds it and tells the other finches about it.

While I was filling feeders I scooped some peanuts-in-the-shell into the peanut wreath and put some cob corn into those feeders. Now I wonder how long it'll take this generation of squirrels to figure out that those are for them. I suspect it'll take a while.

Today's Mark Making was to draw trees. Not normal trees but they look enough like trees to be a little satisfying to draw. The left one was drawn with a regular pencil and a jillion little dots. It's okay. The right one I like better. It was more fun to draw and I like the way it looks. I suspect that filling things in with dots or lines will be a theme of the rest of the lessons in this class.

 

The gratitude journal page for today has my I Voted! sticker, the afternoon emergence of the sun, the new finch feeder, and working on the manuscript for a couple hours to finish this read-through. NOW I'll give myself a rest from it for a few days and then go back to the beginning and start again trying to add conflict. I added some over the weekend but spent this afternoon fine-tuning and not adding anything of note.

I started knitting the heel flap of the Sockeye Salmon Hermione Sock after supper and got halfway before I put it down. You can't see the texture of the heel flap in this picture but it's kind of like the texture on the leg but more concentrated. I put it down when I knitted, unknitted, reknitted, and unknitted one row before realizing that I was mixed up as to what I was supposed to be doing. Time to quit.

Tomorrow morning I have Novel Writing group from 10-Noon and then my cleaner is coming to dust, vacuum, and flush. I had to cancel her last month because I was in the hospital so my house really needs her ministrations. I know, I know, I could clean my house myself but I like her and like the way she gets through the place in a couple hours. It would take me all day and I wouldn't do as good a job as she does.

--Barbara