One Big Bird

This morning I was having my yogurt and granola breakfast and happened to look outside and couldn't get to the camera fast enough. There was a hen Turkey casually grazing on the fallen birdseed. A Turkey! Someone told me on Monday that there was a flock of them in the neighborhood but I hadn't seen any. Now I've seen one. I left the birdbath in the picture so you had some idea of how big she is. She's like a couple hundred times bigger than the usual visitors to the birdfeeders. She very casually paced across the backyard and up into the neighbor's yard where I lost sight of her. Pretty cool.

On the other end of bird size scale was this Goldfinch that spent some time on the round feeder. The little female waited up on top of the crook while the male ate his fill. I didn't see what they did after that. It was so nice this afternoon that I had the patio door open and the window in my bedroom open so that real, un-furnace air could come in the house. Bliss.

Since it was so nice out I moved the car out of the garage and swept up all of the winter crud and salt and leaves that had collected in there over the year since the last time I swept. I couldn't believe the size of the pile of dirt and leaves that I brushed into a dustpan and dumped into a plastic bag that I then deposited very carefully into the trash bin. I didn't want to drop it for fear that the bag would break and all of the dirt would be all over the bin.

While I was out there I got very brave (and potentially foolhardy) and climbed up the ladder hauling the dolly up with me so that I could very carefully wriggle it into place on the shelf. It took some finagling but I managed not to fall and to get the dolly back where it was. It's only taken me about 4 years to get up the guts to do that.

I really like today's watercolor. It's out of Free-Spirited Watercolor and it's carrots. Two bunches of them. I think I like the left one which was the first bunch described in the book. The right bunch is one that she guided us to embellish with extra marks. Eh, I'm not convinced that was a good idea.

Today's drawing was from 20 Ways to Draw a Butterfly or as I like to call it Things With Wings. I especially like the bee but am happy with all of today's figures--the pterosaur, the bat, the flying fish, the dove, the bee, and the moth.

And the Gratitude Journal of the day was short and sweet. It was sunny with a few clouds today and that's always something I'm grateful for, then there was the big bird, and cleaning up the garage floor. Done!

I spent a little time adding some physical descriptions to the manuscript today and in the process realized a big booboo. I went back into the final manuscript of the first novel to see if I'd put in any physical description of Janet, the first guest and discovered that in The Seaview I made Janet about the same age as Rose, the owner, who is sixty-five-ish. In the sequel I had made her in her thirties. Oops. So I went back in and made her in her fifties and her soon-to-be ex-husband the same age. I'm so very glad that I caught that today when I have the time and ability to make the change. That's the second time I've had to save the sequel from a big screw up. Whew. I hope there aren't any more lurking around.

 --Barbara