Wet, Heavy & Melting

It kept snowing most of the night and kept snowing this morning but most of it was melting as it landed and the snow that remained was the soaking wet, very heavy kind. When I opened the drapes this morning I saw that the platform feeder came to rest about 3" above the ground. The birds didn't seem to mind the shift in position. They hopped in and out just like they usually do, only they usually fly. By the end of the day much of the snow on the south-facing slope in the backyard had melted but even though the snow on the feeders melted off, the platform feeder did not stand back up. I suspect that the ground around the base isn't anymore or never was frozen so the pole carved a path in the ground. I think I'll have to reposition the crook to get it to stand back up.

The Goldfinches came back to the round feeder. I was surprised to see the feathers at the back of his neck and across his shoulders are unchanged while the rest of his feathers are the bright yellow of summer.

This afternoon I made a batch of Jamaican Cream of Pumpkin Soup. It's really made with squash but the Jamaican's call all kinds of squash pumpkin. I'd forgotten how much soup the recipe makes. It says it serves 6 but I'm thinking it's more like 8. I spooned a little out into a Pyrex bowl to make sure it had enough salt and hot sauce and it's pretty good. It'll be even better after a night in the fridge. One odd thing was that after I peeled the squashes and washed my hands it looked like I had burned my hand but there was a very thin layer of squash juice on it that was very hard to get off. I had to use a brush and still didn't get it off. What worked best was licking it because we all know that saliva is a universal solvent. Just ask a kid whose mom spit on the corner of a hankie to wipe the dirt off their face.

I was determined to find a flower to paint today. I opened Watercolor Flowers the Easy Way and found the daffodil. It's okay. I was too  impatient to let the flower center dry before I took the picture so there aren't any stamens in there but I don't mind.

Then I remembered to do a Gratitude Journal page today. I forgot yesterday or maybe I didn't have much to be grateful for with all of the wind and snow flying around.

I proved to myself that I'm back to normal this afternoon when I went out and shoveled the end of the driveway. It took me a while because the snow was wet and very heavy. I tried to shove it to the side of the driveway before lifting it and managed most of the time but, oh man, it was heavy. My wrists and back and knees are reminding me that I'm 72 and not 22 or even 52. I planned to use the snowblower but the snow was just too wet and it was full of twigs and sticks that blew off the trees so it would have clogged up the snowblower. Those things are too expensive to break trying to grind up sticks and spit them out.

We had the first session of the Spring Novel Writing critique group this morning. There was another group using the Zoom link when we were supposed to get on so the facilitator had to do some fancy finger work to get us linked up and going. The new stories are interesting and fun to read. I look forward to reading more of them as the sessions progress.

Oh, I got the audio corrections of Better Than Mom's back from the narrator today and listened to them and they're all correct now. I'm going to listen to them one more time and then approve them so that then Audible/ACX will do whatever they do to decide that the book is ready and worth putting on their site. And then it'll be out in the world. Then all I need is for someone to decide to buy it. No one has bought an audiobook copy of Horizon yet but I have hope.

--Barbara