I Heard Singing

And looked out and there was the male Oriole perched on top of the crook just singing away. You can't really tell that he's singing in this picture but he was. He turned this way and that like he was broadcasting his song to all listeners. I kept waiting for another Oriole to answer or for a female to show up but he just hopped down to the jelly dish and started eating when he finished his song.

Shortly afterward I noticed that the female House Finch was on the orange half enjoying some fruit in the afternoon. The male House Finch was on the crook behind her but he flew away without having any orange.

The Daily Practice today was squash. It's another odd thing to paint and I wish we were painting scenes instead of separate items but they were kind of fun to paint and I didn't mind inking in the leaves.

When I was looking at the Oriole I saw a small thing flutter by and it landed on the edge of the patio table. It was a little tiny butterfly. I don't know what kind it is but I like the colors of it. Maybe I'll try to paint it one day.

I spent time this afternoon starting another read through of the manuscript. I had decided that I'd leave it alone for the next few days but I couldn't resist. I split up Chapter 1 into two chapters which meant I had to go all the way through and renumber the chapters. No biggie. I used "Find" to help find them rather than having to scroll through the whole manuscript. Then I started reading further, changing a word here and there, but I'm up to page 65 (about Chapter 10) and I haven't noticed any glaring errors. Maybe my feeling last night that it's done wasn't just fooling myself.

The gratitude journal page for today was another easy one to fill in. The sunshine always makes it and the singing Oriole, but I also liked my two Zooms today--one writing and one knitting.

It's raining. We had a partly sunny day and it got up to 70 degrees and now it's pouring rain. I heard that we're supposed to be able to see the Northern Lights but if it's raining that means it's cloudy so no Northern Lights for me. Besides I've got two streetlights polluting the night, one in front and one in back, so I probably wouldn't be able to see them anyway. I've seen them twice in my life--once in the country and once on Liberty St. They're pretty darned amazing.

--Barbara