Lots of Orange

There were lots of orange birds around today. The Orioles were here and gone any number of times and I took lots of photos of them. I promise that I'm not going to pile all six pictures of them on here but I will say that the ones I took with my phone are decidedly substandard. I grabbed my phone because both the male and female were here at the same time and the female was even fluttering like she wanted to be fed. Oh, I wonder if that wasn't a nestling asking Dad for something to eat. Maybe. Anyway a Cowbird tried to horn in on the jelly and the female/nestling was very vehement about not letting the Cowbird have any. Bird fight!

Last Christmas LC gave me a little jar that says "World's Best Grandma" on it. She was so proud and excited because she found it at the museum kids Christmas store. When she was here a couple weeks ago she asked if I'd figured out what to put in it and I hadn't, but I did today. It's just the right size to hold my paintbrushes when I'm letting them dry and between uses. I'll have to remember to show her the picture the next time I see her.

And here's what I painted today. A Woodpecker. It's not any variety of Woodpecker I've seen around here but it was fun to draw and paint. The next project is another bird. I'm sensing a theme.

Just as I finished taking Oriole pictures with my phone a real Woodpecker flew over and landed on the edge of the birdbath to take a drink. It was a Woodpecker afternoon, I guess.

Oh, speaking of the birdbath, I gave it a good cleaning today. Man, that thing gets swampy pretty fast. Anyway I also filled all the birdfeeders and before I'd gotten all the way in the house there were birds on them, especially on the suet pellets. The Sparrows have discovered them and they are ravenous. I filled the feeder around 4pm and by 8pm it was half empty. I also put two suet cakes in the feeder on Monday and they were gone by Thursday so I filled that up too. I'm surprised that the feeders are emptying as quickly as they are because my tenants are feeding the birds too so you'd think that would lower the population at my feeders. It has pulled most of the Starlings away for which I am grateful, but there are still plenty of Sparrows, House Finches, and Chickadees dining here.

The new Finch feeder has proved to not be the attraction that the old one is so I dumped the seed from the new one into the old feeder today. I'd have left the seed in the new feeder but it's gotten rained on a few times and I didn't want it to get moldy or spoiled. Yuk.

Today's writing work was making character wheels for some of the main characters in my next manuscript. I realized that I've described them and have no idea what color their eyes and hair is, let alone the things that make them distinctive, like the way they dress and what they like to eat and drink. Having this information all written down will prevent characters' eyes from changing color in the middle of the novel. I also spent an hour or so making Amazon Ads for the new novel. According to the guy that teaches the free Amazon Ads course I've taken a couple times, you're only supposed to advertise the first book in the series but that doesn't make sense to me. Since I haven't advertised The Seaview as the first book in a series until now, it seems smart to advertise Open For Business as a new title in the series.

Just so you don't think I've forgotten all those pictures I took the other day of Dad's roses, here's another picture of one of them. They're so beautiful and I don't really do anything to make them happy. I don't water them, I don't fertilize them, I just let them sit there and be beautiful all on their own. Happily they seem to thrive on my neglect.

And that's it for my day. I went to the birdseed store so that when I fill feeders the next time I'll have plenty of seed on hand. And I didn't even have to drive around the house to carry it in this time. Hooray!

--Barbara