Woodpecker Rides

There's one juvenile or female Downy Woodpecker that regularly lands on a Slinky and rides the bounce before flying over to the suet pellets or suet cakes. It came today and I managed to get a picture of it on the Slinky. It investigated the empty suet pellets feeder then went over to the suet cakes for a snack. The Flicker came back too but I only saw it in the grass and it was too far away for a picture.

I watched a squirrel leap up to a crook with a black walnut in its mouth and couldn't figure out what it planned to do with it. Squirrels are scampering all over with the nuts burying them here and there. This one got placed in the grape jelly and abandoned. Will it come back later to retrieve it? I'm not leaving it in there for long but I'm curious if the squirrel will come back.

The UPS guy brought my Amazon order today, not an Amazon delivery person. Maybe it was too heavy for Amazon. It was one of those white 6' folding tables and it was way heavier than I thought it'd be. I took the advice of the woman in charge of the Military Business Assn. at the farmer's market last week and ordered the brand she recommended as being more durable. Good thing it has a handle or I'd never be able to haul it around. I didn't think where I'd keep the danged thing so I just slid it in front of the car in the garage. If I took it downstairs I'd never get it back up!

I didn't have a lot of motivation today so I just pulled out 20 Ways to Draw a Butterfly for things to draw. I like the chicken and the hummingbird I think because they're colored and because they look like cartoons. I like the dragonfly too but the hang glider, the heron, and the flying pig are just okay.

I went to an Amazon Ads webinar this afternoon and I swear I don't know if there's any way the guy who leads these things could talk faster. He skates over the information so fast that it's impossible to take notes. I stuck it out through the "commercial" where he tries to sell his Author Ad School which I am sometimes tempted to join but I'm a little afraid of what I'll learn that I'm doing all wrong. I'll probably sign up one of these days and knuckle down to learn if my blurb, covers, and keywords are helping or hurting my sales (what few of them I have). I only bailed on the Q & A at the end. He said they'd send out a replay; maybe I'll watch again to see what I can glean when I have the ability to pause it and make notes.

I walked today. Good girl, Barbara Sue! Thank heavens it cools off as soon as the sun gets close to the horizon. I'm waiting for fall weather to arrive and I hope it shows up before or when I go to The Clearing at the end of the month. I'd like it to be cool please, not hot and humid.

--Barbara

Flicker!

I saw a flash of movement on the patio and looked out to see a Flicker land. Woohoo! It's very rare for one to land there. Usually they're out in the grass and far enough away that they're just a brown lump in the grass. I got a picture as it was flying away so I went back in my archives and found a holding-still Flicker picture so you can see it instead of a brown and gray blur.

 

The Sparrows worked very hard to completely empty the suet pellets feeder. They've had the assistance of the juvenile Starlings on occasion but most of the work has been done by Sparrows, usually two at a time. When three of them get on the feeder they fight because the level of pellets is low so there isn't a lot of room.

 

This afternoon I sat down to knit a little since I had a Wisconsin Writers Assn. Marketing Zoom this evening. (Lots of good info. Many notes were taken.) I should have gone out for a walk too but it was another hot, windless day and I didn't want to sweat up my freshly showered self. I finished knitting the head of the Gray Bear; next comes the arms on the way back down to the second pair of legs.

I realized as I took a picture of today's drawing out of The 15-Minute Artist: Drawing Nature that it took me an hour to do what she says should take 15 minutes. Heck, I spend more than 15 minutes on the final shading.

And that was my day. I got up late, showered, and goofed around on Canva trying to design a banner to take to the winter farmers market. The website guy sent me the jpg of the Writers Guild logo but the file isn't big enough to scale up to banner size and stay sharp, dang it. So I had to just make it up using similar colors and a graphic I found on the Canva site. I sent him the proof to see what he thinks.

I had a chat with DS this morning and worked on the manuscript in the afternoon. I was at a kind of standstill in the story but then I checked some notes I made out of an eBook guidebook about the island and got an idea for the next "worry and trouble" scene. Whew.

--Barbara

An Expensive Fall

I went to Michaels and I fell down on my credit card and bought a bunch of stuff that I didn't intend to buy. I intended to buy a skein of yarn and that was all so I didn't get a cart or a basket. The skein of gray yarn (if I need it for the Gray Bear) is twice the size of the one I started with so I'll for sure have yarn left over. Too bad about my yarn buying diet. This is the first yarn I've bought in over a year. That should tell you how much yarn I have on hand.

They they had a price reduction on sketchbooks so I picked out one of those. But the big fall was at the art books rack. I found this watercolor/ink book for beginners so I picked it up, then I saw the 15-Minute Artist book and it was on sale so I picked that up too. 

When I got home I pulled out my current sketchbook and turned to the first page of the 15-Minute Artist book. It was an elephant. I had to pull out the tin of drawing pencils and a kneaded eraser and plunge in. It didn't turn out too badly. I think that the drawing is better than the shading.

I was going to turn to the first page of the new watercolor book but then I thought that I really should finish the last few paintings in the Ink & Wash Florals book, so I taped paper to a plexiglass panel, wet the paints, and gave it a go. It's peonies and lilacs. It's okay. Better than I thought it'd be. While the paint dried in between steps I came back here and worked on finishing the scene I started yesterday and finding a place to slot it into the manuscript. That's okay too.

I had to go to the grocery for bananas today and when I leaned down to grab a shopping bag saw a fuzzy white ball next to the basket the bags are in. It was an escaped skein of novelty yarn! I'm not going to chase down the lady I gave it all to, I'll just have one skein in my stash instead of a bin full.

The two skeins of Red Heart Soft yarn in the color toast that I ordered when I didn't think I'd have enough to knit the first bear came today. I had enough yarn for that bear so now I have two more full skeins in case I want to knit another Toast Bear or something else with that color yarn. It's a good yarn for chemo hats and preemie hats because it's so soft. It won't go to waste.

When I was almost done doing yoga this morning I saw this Goldfinch land on the crook. It stayed long enough for me to finish the pose, take the picture, and then do the last pose. I can't decide if it's a juvenile from this season's nests or a male that's already changing color. I hope it's the first reason and not the latter.

I took another walk tonight. That's two in a row. I'm on a roll!

--Barbara

Half of a Bear

Tonight after supper I sat down with an audiobook and the Gray Bear. I'm working on the head and got to the halfway point. The next row starts the back of the bear--or the front depending on where I embroider the face. I'm a little worried that I'll be playing yarn chicken when I get to the legs but since there's no info about how much yarn it takes and I'm using thicker yarn anyway, I'm just kinda winging it. (psst: I just checked the Michaels website and there are 5 skeins of the same color at the store about 3 blocks from here. Guess where I'm going tomorrow.)

A flock of Sparrows showed up on the feeders today. Lately they've been coming in larger numbers and investigating every feeder. These three set the round feeder slowly spinning while they pecked to see if they could find any goodies.

This pair of Sparrows are two of the bathers. There were two more but they moved on. One of them was standing on the little island in the center of the birdbath and tried flapping around but didn't really get wet. I could see how puzzled it was and then it moved into the deeper water and was happier.

This morning I had my critique group Zoom and got some useful comments that I hurried to implement in the manuscript. I'm pleased that I'm not getting rafts of comments taking it to mean that I'm getting better at this writing gig. In the afternoon I pulled out my trusty notebook and pencil, wrote 2 pages, typed them into the Alphasmart, and uploaded them into Word. This was a suggestion made by one of the critters this morning so I'm taking the idea out for a spin.

Drawing today was from 20 Ways to Draw a Tree. I'm not overly thrilled with any of these drawings but I'm always glad that I draw.

And I remembered to make time to draw a gratitude page. I took a little walk tonight and came back pretty breathless. Dang it, I need to be less sedentary but everything I like to do I do sitting down. Drawing, writing, knitting are all done in a seated position. I need to force myself to go walk when it cools off after supper every day. Yeah, we'll see how that goes.

I had another BLT for supper with a little cup of gazpacho chaser. I have got to eat those tomatoes I overbought and that soup isn't going to stay fresh forever. The precooked chicken bacon is back on the shopping list. It's not great, but it's better than no bacon at all.

--Barbara

Not A Picture Day

I had small company this morning and into the afternoon, then I worked on critiques for tomorrow so I didn't take pictures of any of that.

I folded a basket of laundry, mostly undies and socks, and I didn't take pictures of that either.

What I did take a picture of was this drawing I made out of 20 Ways to Draw a Jellyfish. Of all of the figures on the page I think I like the little crab the best. Some of the others look to me like my eyes aren't well-connected to my hand. Every time I think that I'm getting better at drawing I have a day when none of the things I try to draw satisfy me. Oh well, I'll keep working at it.

I got to deliver OJ to a birthday party this morning, managing to get home the back way so I didn't have to buck the game traffic on the highway, and then LC found a punch card from a cafe in the neighborhood that only needed one more punch for a free meal so she suggested that we go there for lunch. So we did. We had burgers, big burgers, that we made totally go away. My burger was so big that I had a cheese stick for supper. It was delicious. The burger, I mean, although the cheese stick wasn't bad.

For most of the afternoon (after the laundry folding) I sat here reading the manuscript making small changes hoping for inspiration. Nothing came but I don't feel bad about it. I have faith that it'll come. Soon.

Man, it was hot again today. I felt sorry for the people at the football game. I'm sure they were roasting because there didn't seem to be any breeze. Another reason to be thankful for air conditioning.

--Barbara

Way Too Many

Usually I'm pretty good at judging what size container a food will fit in but I was waaaaaay off the mark when buying tomatoes at the Thursday Farmers Market. I made the gazpacho this morning and even put in an extra tomato and ate a tomato this afternoon. This is how many are left. So I guess I'll be having BLTs and eating plain tomatoes until they're gone. 

I had a bowl of Summertime Gazpacho for supper tonight along with a mozzarella stick and some crackers. The gazpacho is good but a little onion-y. I couldn't buy a single onion at the Farmers Market so I just used a big bunch of scallions that I had on hand. I think that the scallions have a stronger flavor than a sweet onion. Ah well, there's always Tums. And there's no one here to be offended by my onion breath.

I drew a flower out of Draw 500 Fabulous Flowers. I think this looks like an orchid. Is there such a thing as a polka dotted orchid?

After supper I sat down to work on the Gray Bear while I listened to an audio book. I'm trying to knit tighter so that there are fewer spaces for the fiberfill to poke through on the finished bear but doing that is hard on my hands. I got this far and had to stop to give my hands a rest.

I got overconfident yesterday about having manuscript ideas, saying that ideas were like a handful of scattered jacks. Well, I sat down today and couldn't think of a word to write. I knew that I'd jinx myself bragging about it. Dammit. But I'll keep at it and words will come.

Oh! I forgot to tell you that Open For Business, book 2 of The Seaview Series, is now available in audiobook form on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. Woohoo! That means that all of my titles are now available in eBook, paperback, and audiobook so however someone wants to read them there's a book for that.

--Barbara

An Inch An Hour

I only knitted on the Waterlilies Roll Brim Preemie Hat tonight at Friday Night Knitting and I added three inches to the hat. So that means I was knitting at a rate of one inch per hour. Doesn't seem like much but it's better than no inches per hour. I think I would have gotten farther on the Gray Bear (because the yarn is thicker and the needles are bigger) but I spent so much knitting time this week on the Toast Bear that I thought I'd give the bears a rest.

This Downy Woodpecker flew in this afternoon and landed on a Slinky, then went over to the platform feeder, and finally settled on the suet cakes for a nice long snack. It's either a female or a juvenile because it doesn't have the red swoop on the back of its head.

A Cardinal showed up and chased all of the other birds away from the platform feeder. It disturbs me that such a pretty red bird can be such a bully.

And a squirrel leapt from the birdbath to the top of the suet cakes then to the top of a crook and hung down upside down on the suet pellets nibbling away. I don't know how they can eat so happily when they're hanging there like that. 

I drew a few figures from 20 Ways to Draw a Butterfly (aka Things With Wings) and really like the little fairy second from the top on the left just under the beetle. I wasn't at all sure that I could make her look good but I think I did okay.

Here's another Dad's rose. Just because I can.

I spent some time today finding a place to insert a scene I wrote the other day. I'm working my way through the manuscript adding scenes to flesh out the story and I think it's going well. Watch. Now that I said that it'll turn to worms. BUT I've got just over 50k words which makes me very happy. Only 30k more to go!

--Barbara

So Many Roses

You have to see all the roses and buds on Dad's rose right now. Usually I go out and take closeups of individual flowers but there are so many that I had to take a group shot. I know it's not as easy to see in a shot like this but there are so many little spots of red.

And here's a rosebud just because.

This afternoon I met RP, the knitting lady I met in the dentist office waiting room a couple weeks ago. We met at Cheesecake Heaven for, what else, cheesecake and so I could deliver the bin of yarn. I don't think that she was expecting a full bin of yarn but with the inclusion of the bag o'yarn from KE the bin was full. When I arrived at the restaurant she handed me a little bag that she made for me. It's the perfect size for putting a few things in my purse. Such a cute little thing. She also bought two books! She was going to buy The Seaview but when I told her that Open For Business is the sequel she bought that one too. Bought, as in paid cash money. Hooray!

I stopped at the Farmers Market on my way home and bought too many tomatoes, a cucumber, a red bell pepper, a box of plums, and a cookie. I want to make a batch of gazpacho because I've never had it and I put the recipe in the back of Open For Business so I thought I'd better make some just in case someone asks about it. Last weekend's chill is long gone. The heat is back along with the humidity that never left. It was in the mid-80s this afternoon with not much breeze and the blazing sun. It was hot at the market. I didn't tarry too much, although I did get stopped by the director wanting my email address because it's time to apply for the winter market and she wanted to send me the application. When I got home I had an email from LW who spearheaded our market days the winter before last forwarding the forms to me so I filled them out and sent them right back (once I figured out how to download it so I could fill it out online). The director also advised me to get a certain brand of folding table that's better quality and a lot more durable so I looked it up on Amazon when I got home and ordered one (it was quite a bit cheaper than I thought it'd be) and a pair of tablecloths. I want to be ready when November rolls around.

Here are the next few figures from 20 Ways to Draw a Tree. I wasn't thrilled when I turned the page to see the last one to fit on my page was a log. They're a pain to draw but I think mine didn't turn out too badly.

After supper I cast on the gray bear. The gray yarn is a lot thicker than it's supposed to be but the variegated yarn is thinner so I'm rationalizing that it balances out. I think the bear is going to be bigger than the toast bear so it might be too big for a baby. We'll see. I got the legs knitted and knitted together. Next comes the belly and arms. I really like knitting it all in one piece, well, you can't knit both legs at the same time but the rest of the bear is all in one piece so I'm counting it.

 

I almost forgot that I glanced out to see a Red-bellied Woodpecker on the suet pellets. It didn't stay long but long enough.

I spent some time on the manuscript this morning and after the Farmers Market. I've slotted in the scenes I wrote the last few days and added more trouble to one of them. See? I'm getting better at it. Two weeks from Saturday I'll be going up to The Clearing for a week's writing retreat and I want to be ready. Next week will be spent deciding which scene to print off to share with the group. That should be fun. I love how it feels when the ideas come and the words flow. I just hope that the weather cools off some. I don't want to be up there in the heat because the cabins aren't air conditioned. The classrooms are but not the cabins.

--Barbara

Awww

So cute! I kept seeing something flash past on the patio and it finally held still long enough for me to see that it was a baby bunny. It took a few more minutes for it to hold still long enough for me to take a picture.

Here's the tallest of Dad's roses. It's way up by the soffit and all I can see is the underside of the petals. There's probably five or six roses blooming right now. A late summer flurry of flowers.

I think these weedy things on the retaining wall are perennial asters. I keep trying to yank them out but this summer I just let all the weeds grow. I know, I'm a bad person but I just didn't have the motivation to get out there in the heat and sun to weed that whole hundred and ten feet of retaining wall. It's just too much. I'll do better next year. See the bee?

After lunch I drove over to DePere to pick up a bag of novelty yarn that KE was going to give to Goodwill but left out for me to add to the bin of yarn that I'm giving to RP, the lady I met in the dentist's office last week. This is a lot of fuzzy yarn!

When I got home I pulled out my sketchbook and drew a few figures out of 20 Ways to Draw a Jellyfish. I'm happy with the way they all turned out but I think I like the whale the best. Or maybe the angelfish.

After supper I sat down and embroidered the face on the Toast Teddy Bear, finished seaming it up, stuffed it and sewed up the bottom. Then I cast on stitches for the scarf and just finished that before coming back here to blog. I think it turned out pretty well. I'm glad I got the extra squishy fiberfill. It'll be easy for a little one to grab and gum. Plus it's washable so if it gets gakked on it'll clean up just fine.

I spent an hour or so working on the scene I wrote the other day. I had to add the worry and trouble. I think I'm getting better at putting it in. Next I need to express emotion. I'm not very good at that.

--Barbara

Not Just Knitting

I didn't go anywhere today. Well, I went outside a few times to take flower pictures and to fill the bird feeders but I didn't drive away so I had lots of time to do lots of things. First thing after my shower I came back here and got busy with the manuscript. I had the beginning of a scene that I wrote the other day and decided to see if I couldn't enlarge it. So I got out my notebook and pencil since I'd had luck with it last week and wrote two pages. Then I wanted to put it on the computer but it's too hard to balance the notebook on the small laptop shelf of my desk. I thought for a minute and got out my trusty old Alphasmart which is a little word processor that I can type things into and then hook it up to the computer and download the file into a Word doc. Easy peasy.

Then I filled the feeders and as usual spilled a little seed but this chipmunk was quick to come out and clean up the spill. It kept darting out and then back into hiding so it took me a few tries before I managed to get this picture.

 

When I took the cob corn up to fill those feeders I saw all of the bees on the bronze sedum so I had to go inside for the camera and back out to take pictures of them. There were lots of bees but this one posed the most so it gets to be on the blog.

The only bird that showed up to take advantage of the feeders then was this Downy Woodpecker that hung itself on the bottom of the feeder so that it could peck both suet cakes one after the other. I also saw a flash of iridescent green at the Oriole feeder and realized as it flew away that it was a Hummingbird! I haven't seen one of those in a long time and don't have a Hummingbird feeder hung out.

I looked out the window next to my desk and noticed that Dad's rose has really burst forth with new flowers. One of them is so high over my head that all I can see is the underside of the petals. But this glorious rosebud posed just at my eye level. Thanks, Dad.

Last weekend up at CS's cabin (which is really a cottage they call a cabin) KE brought mum plants for the two birthday girls (CS and me) and she brought another one for DM as a housewarming gift. Isn't it a pretty color?

Once I hit a blank spot in my writing I got out Drawing Cute and drew a pancake and some peas. I like 'em.

It was only after supper, during Jeopardy!, Finding Your Roots, and the Presidential Debate that I picked up my teddy knitting and finished knitting the whole flat bear. I dug out my knitting clips and put it together. I embroidered the face on but when I looked at it realized that the face was off-center so I picked it out and will redo it. We can't have a cockeyed bear, now, can we? BTW, I had plenty of the toast yarn to knit the bear and sew it up so the two skeins on their way are surplus. Oh well, it won't go to waste.

I love days like this. Days when I bop from project to project, getting things done, and having fun. Tomorrow I'll drive over to KE's to pick up a bag of novelty yarn that she was going to take to Goodwill but now is letting me donate it to the knitting lady I met at the dentist's last week. I'll get in touch with her to arrange a meeting tomorrow afternoon or Thursday and hand off the bin and bag of yarn. Good riddance.

--Barbara