A Furry Visitor

I glanced out the patio door this morning while I was eating my Cheerios and saw this bunny investigate under the step and then sit there looking around. I don't know if there was anything interesting under the step or in the yard but it stayed there a good long time before hippity-hopping away. When I opened the shade over my bed this morning there was a hen turkey walking around down the block. I kept watching to see if it would come visit but it didn't. Oh well.

 

I spent most of the day at Townline Pub & Grill at a vendor show. Traffic was pretty light but I sold nine books and gave away one. Two women bought all three of The Seaview Series books for a little discount so I threw in the Christmas novella too. They also bought Better Than Mom's so I thought they deserved a thank you. It was rainy most of the day so perhaps people stayed home but I did alright.

 

Today's drawing creature is a Pelican. It turned out well and even the coloring turned out well. I was so tired from the day at the show (it's hard to be "on" for 5 hours) that I picked a little bird, something simple, to draw.

 

It was raining and I looked out to see this squirrel hanging onto the suet nuggets feeder and having a high old time. It kept looking around like it either expected applause or to be chased away.

 

It was supposed to get up to 70 degrees today but I doubt it did. Let me check on my phone... it says it did but since I was inside most of the day I didn't notice. And 70 in the rain isn't the thrill it would be if it was sunny. My tax accountant called me this afternoon needing more expenses to balance out my writing profits so I took a quick canter through my file of receipts and added up a bunch of things. I was very pleased with myself that I kept such good records. Whew. Taxes are a pain.

--Barbara 

Feeder Cleaning Day

It was nice and sunny outside today so I decided to clean the square green feeder. I poured the seed into a bucket, spilling a good amount on the patio table, then I used the sprayer and hose to wash out the mat of caked seed from the bottom. It didn't want to come out. I had to use a stick to pry it out in places but got most of it dislodged and out. Then I laid it on its side in the sunshine to dry before refilling it and hanging it back up. Once again the bag of seed in the can had gotten damp on the bottom and molded into a cake. Ew. So I dumped it all out onto the patio, picked up the chunks, and left it for the birds and chipmunk to deal with.

 It didn't take long for the chipmunk to discover the bounty available for gobbling up. It made many trips to the seed, filling its cheek pouches, and then scurrying off to wherever it lives to unburden and return. I dumped out the seed around 10:30 and by 3:00 it was all gone. There's a very efficient cleanup crew around here.

 

I refilled the cob corn holders up on the retaining wall. So far the squirrels haven't found it and the chipmunk was too busy with the patio seed to notice it but I'm sure it won't take long for something to start nibbling.

 

This Chickadee discovered that the square green feeder was once again dispensing seed so it spent some time pecking away. I took four shots hoping to get one with its head up but they were all the same.

 

When I went uphill to fill the cob corn I noticed that the sedum right under the holder was starting to sprout.

 

And down the retaining wall the day lilies have sprouted too. They're tall enough today to be seen over the blocks of the wall. Now if I could only prevent the weeds from growing up there too, I'd be happy.

 

I decided I wanted to paint flowers tonight so I pulled out a book and got to sloshing paint around. I'm marginally happy with the blue forget-me-nots but the African daisies, not so much. The bigger daisy was too wet when I dabbed in the orange so it bled together too much and the rose color didn't show up well. I need to take more time and not try to cram it in between writing and blogging.

 

Once again I spent a lot of the day critiquing for next Wednesday. I also worked on my own manuscript a little. But most important, I spent forty-five minutes on the phone with Spectrum because my internet dropped this morning when I wasn't on Zoom. Gah! I got bumped up the line to a supervisor and then handed off to their Customer Service Reliability team for special attention. I've got a vendor show tomorrow so they'll get in touch on Monday afternoon to let me know what the next step is. They're very nice and very eager to fix whatever the problem is. (me too!) Fortunately they've got records of the tech visits and calls and the service spikes when things go haywire. Just when I thought everything was fixed.

I've got my car loaded with my table, chair, rolling bag of books, tote of tablecloth, etc., book rack, and poster. I even remembered to fill my water bottle. Now I have to remember to carry it into the venue. I watched the weather before coming back here and it looks like it could be raining when it's time to load the stuff into the venue. Just dandy. And me without a raincoat. Oh well, I'll figure it out. I won't melt. And my books won't get wet, which is the most important thing.

--Barbara 

I Didn't Get Kicked Off!

Tonight I had a 3-hour knitting Zoom and I didn't get kicked off and my internet wasn't unstable. So the tech who activated my new modem, updated my router, and optimized my wi-fi did the trick. Hallelujah! 

We spent most of the time tonight watching and discussing the splashdown of Artemis II's capsule and the retrieval of the astronauts from the capsule. It looked like a typical government job--a lot of extra workers and a lot of expensive equipment. Four helicopters. One for each astronaut. Lots of divers. Lots of people in small boats circling around not doing anything but gawking. I followed LB's suggestion and got out a drawstring bag to put the back of my sweater in so it didn't keep sliding off my lap when I turned it around and managed to knit quite a few rows increasing for the left front. I've had the yarn I'm using for at least 20 years and am finally turning it into something besides a tote full of balls of yarn.

 

I've been watching to see when the tiny squills bloomed so I could go out and take a picture. Well. This morning I looked out only to discover that some bunny has been dining on them. Dang it.

 

The hyacinths are sprouting big time. In this picture you can see all of the crocus leaves behind it that the rabbits have chewed off. I'll be lucky to get a couple crocus flowers. Evidently hyacinths don't taste good.

 

Neither do daffodils. These are the 47 year old ones I planted 48 years ago when I was pregnant with DS. I remember working so hard to get these bulbs in the ground around my big pregnant belly. But they're about ready to pop open.

 

It's hard to tell, but there are two Chickadees on the feeder in this picture. They're next to each other, not pushing or arguing, just eating seeds. I'm amazed they stayed long enough for this picture. 

 

This Sparrow discovered that I refilled the suet nuggets with fresh ones. Of course it was on the back side of the feeder so all I could see was its head but at least you can see it. A fully yellow Goldfinch landed on top of a crook but stayed only long enough for me to pick up the camera. I didn't even get the lens cap off before it flew away. Dang it.

 

I spent most of the day laboring over critiques for next Wednesday. I finished two of the three today and will tackle the third tomorrow. In the morning I got on Pinterest and uploaded all of my books. I don't know how that will help people find my stuff but it didn't take long and it might help. Oh, I almost forgot. I got an email from my audiobook narrator that she'd posted the first chapter/sample for me to listen to and request revisions if necessary. She also posted short samples of the various characters voices for me to approve. She did a great job on those. I listened to chapter one, asked for revisions, and then she jumped right on it and had the redo posted in just a few hours. So I listened again and approved it. Now she can work on the rest of it. That's going to take awhile but I'm glad it's in the works. 

I also packed books, repacked my tripod easel so I can display a poster on Sunday, and made sure I had enough business cards and bookmarks. Tomorrow I'll put the back seats down and load the car so all I have to do on Sunday is hop in and drive away. Also tomorrow I need to refill my water bottle. I usually forget that until the last minute. Trying to do better.

--Barbara 

Another Peek

I went outside this morning to fill the birdbath and took this picture of the rhubarb peeking out of the ground. It was very windy last night so a lot of leaves swirled into the picture but, trust me, there are wrinkled dark pink leaves and paler pink sprouts in this mess. I probably should have used a rake to get the leaves out of the way but I didn't think of that. Sorry. I'll do better next time.

 

This squirrel was checking out the fallen seeds and anything it could find on the ground. At least today it wasn't hiding behind the crooks so you can see its face. It didn't stay long or do anything interesting but at least it's a little wildlife. I saw one Sparrow sitting on the rim of a container but it didn't stay long enough for a picture, darn it.

 

I spent most of the day at the laptop working to incorporate the comments from yesterday's Novel Intensive critique session into my submission. It's interesting to read what the different people have to say about the same pages. Then when I was pretty much cross-eyed from doing that, I shifted to the critique I need to have done for my Zoom with cda on Monday morning. To say I'm mentally exhausted is an understatement. And I have three other critiques to do for next Wednesday. I'll do one tomorrow and tackle the others on Saturday. That way I'll have Tuesday to skim through them another time before we meet on Wednesday.

 

Today's drawing is from a page entitled Garden Friends. It's a beetle and a snail. I like drawing bugs so I stopped flipping pages when I saw the beetle. They were fun to draw and color. Although tonight I think the beetle looks a little like a wood tick. Maybe I need to clean my glasses.

 

And I have the hiccups. Dandy. I need to pack for Sunday's Vendor & Craft Show. Maybe tomorrow so I'll be all ready to load the car on Saturday. We need to bring our own tables and chairs for this show. We have a corner booth so we each get to utilize a whole table for our display. Six feet of table is plenty of space for all the doodads and display materials we have. 

--Barbara 

Peek

I spent quite a bit of time waiting for this squirrel to get out from behind these crooks so I could take its picture. It never moved for about five minutes (which seemed like an eternity) and then it bolted for the back corner of the yard. Stubborn tree rat.

 

When it came time to draw, the page that fell open was Squirrel but I chose to draw the optional critter. A Chipmunk. They're the same, in this book anyway, except for the tail.

 

This morning's novel intensive Zoom went okay. I used my phone's hotspot to connect to the internet and only got kicked off once and it came right back on. Whew. As soon as the Zoom meeting was over FedEx delivered my new modem. It couldn't have come yesterday so I could get it hooked up, no, that would have been too convenient. Then I spent an hour on the phone with a Spectrum tech getting the new equipment activated and he also updated my (new) router. In addition, he tweaked my wi-fi somehow so it would be more reliable. Friday will be the test. I have a 2-hour Zoom after lunch with writers and then a 3-hour Zoom after supper with the knitters. God I hope this solved the problem. Luckily I made an appointment to return the old modem because when I got there, there were 25 walk-ins waiting and not nearly enough service people working, so I was only there for about half an hour to return the modem, get a receipt, and leave. 

That was pretty much my whole day. After this morning's novel intensive group Zoom, I read the comments as they came in and worked to integrate them into the manuscript. I'm having a hard time with some of them. A couple people said I need to describe my characters, what they look like, what they're wearing, their mannerisms. I've never really done that so I'm struggling to try my hand at it. I know what they look like but I'm having trouble putting it in. Can't people use their imaginations? I know I need to add sensory detail and I'm struggling with that too. Maybe I'll take a little break. Clear my mind.

--Barbara 

Look Who Woke Up

I was getting my coat on to go to the polling place this morning when I saw something small and fuzzy dart onto the edge of the patio. It was a chipmunk! They hibernate so they're not out in the snow and cold. This little guy or gal is the first one I've seen since last fall. I think it looks very well groomed for something that has been down for a long winter's nap. You can also see a bunch of rabbit raisins around it. We must have lots of rabbits because the raisins are all over.

 

And speaking of the polling place, I was voter number 119 this morning. It's so important to go vote. I can't say it enough. If you can't go, get an absentee ballot and make sure your voice is heard. One cool thing, when you go in you have to say your name for the clerk and I overheard the man next to me. I recognized his name because we went to high school together. I told him my maiden name and he smiled and said, "From school." That's all, just a glancing blow but it made me smile.

 

This Robin was scooting around the backyard looking for something to eat. It pecked at some seed on the grass but I was surprised that it didn't go over to the suet nuggets I dumped out yesterday. Although it looked like the night rabbits made inroads.

 

I snapped a photo of two House Finches on the square green feeder. Of course, the colorful male was behind the drab female so his raspberry head isn't quite as prominent as it might be. I was just happy to see them.

 

Today's creature is a Dolphin. I like the way this turned out and I like the way I colored it. I'm all around happy with it for a change.

 

In the afternoon after my haircut and filling up with gas, I sorted through short stories and scheduled a few on Substack ahead into May. It's getting to the point where I'm going to have to do more short story writing. That's okay. I have that carton of prompt writing to glean story starts from. Some of the ones from the last gleaning haven't turned into anything. I like them but when I try to make them into a story it doesn't work. One of the stories I scheduled today should have been published in March but I forgot so it's going in in May. Oh well. And I figured out how to link my website at the end of the stories so that people can no only see my book covers, they can click the link to go check them out.

 

I finished the last of the Easter leftovers today. Mm, I do like ham. I squirted some horseradish spread on it and folded it into a little flour tortilla. It was delicious.

--Barbara 

Filled

I went out this morning, dumped the suet nuggets, scraped the crud out of the bottom of the feeder, and refilled it. It wasn't exactly crud, it was soggy, powdered nuggets that got snowed and rained on and made mush. Now I've filled the feeder with nice fresh nuggets so that the birds and squirrels have something more appealing to eat. I tried to shake fresh seed into the ports on the square green feeder. One side cleared out but the other side must have gotten the bulk of the snow because it also is cruddy. So one of these days I'll dump out the seed, clean the feeder, and refill it.

 

I spent some time admiring the flowers I got from LC yesterday. I'm always attracted to the bouquets of brightly colored asters or daisies in the store so I'm really enjoying this little vase of them. She's stuck them in floral foam so I have to make sure they've got enough water so they last as long as possible.

 

Today's creature drawing is a Frog. I seem to have a problem making things round. As was yesterday's rabbit, the frog is longer and leaner than the one in the book. I like it, don't get me wrong, but I always hope my drawing will turn out more like the example than it ever does.

 

Every day I look to see if the daffodils are blooming. So far, they aren't but they're trying. It's supposed to be sunny and warmer for the next few days. Maybe that will encourage them. 

 

In the continuing saga of me, Zoom, and the internet, I had a Zoom this morning with cda and got kicked off again so I got on my phone and that worked better, a little. I still got kicked off but could get back on right away. I remembered that I have a service agreement with Cyberworks, a local computer store, so I called and got an appointment this afternoon for a remote appointment. The technician scrolled around in my laptop's innards and said he didn't think the problem was my laptop. He has high hopes that the new modem arriving tomorrow will fix the problem. I'm reserving judgement. He did give me a work-around. Since I can get back online on my phone, I'll use my phone HotSpot to get online with my laptop and that should solve the problem. I hope. This is making me crazy. I'm on Zoom so much, at least 10 hours a week, that I need it to work and work all the time. Isn't technology wonderful?

I was sitting here talking to cda when I heard what sounded like raindrops hitting the window. It wasn't rain, it was snow. It didn't last long and it didn't stick around, but a snow squall came screaming through this morning just to remind us that we live in a place that can have all four seasons in one day. 

--Barbara 

Happy Easter!

Now that it's the actual day I'm saying Happy Easter one more time. I had a lovely day. DIL1's parents invited me to their holiday lunch in Shawano which is about 35 miles northwest of Green Bay. And I did not get pulled over for speeding this trip. Whew. We had ham, carrots, green beans, scalloped potatoes, and their family's traditional green jello stuff. It's good. All of it was good. And there was lemon pie for dessert. No one left hungry.

 

There were gifts! LC made the older ladies little vases with bright asters in them. OJ made everyone a clay sculpture. Mine is a tentacle which unfortunately broke at the end when I was bringing it home. *sniff* And they brought the grandmothers each a bar of soap from Colonial Williamsburg. They had lots of tales of their adventures in Virginia. It was fun to hear. Oh, and HZ gave me a nice kitchen towel that I immediately put out so it didn't get in the picture.

 

Before I left for lunch I got out my drawing things and found a Rabbit to draw. This isn't the round, plump bunny in the book but it's not bad for a quick sketch.

 

I was lucky enough to catch a squirrel on the suet nuggets. There must be something wrong with them because they all take one nibble and then drop off and run away. I should go out, dump them, and refill the feeder with fresh nuggets.

 

I had a momentary panic this evening when I was watching television. The picture stopped, the screen went black, and it said "reconnecting." I looked at the router and the blue "everything's okay" light had turned red. I immediately called Spectrum but was told that there was a problem in my neighborhood, not just at my house, and they were working to fix it. It was back on in a couple minutes. That was a relief.

--Barbara

Tiny Flowers Coming

I went out to the flower bed in front of the house during the few minutes this afternoon when it wasn't drizzling to check out what's sprouting and what might be ready to bloom. I was most excited to see the tiny squills just about ready to open. They're tiny, only about 1 1/2 inches tall and the flowers will be about the size of a pinky nail. But they're so cute. Little white bells with pale blue stripes. Can't wait.

 

And the daffodil buds are taller and just about ready to open. When I was a kid in Evansville, IN, the daffodils bloomed for Easter. Not so in Wisconsin. The grocery store daffodils are blooming but the garden ones aren't ready quite yet. That's okay. I can be patient.

 

While I was out there I took a picture of the remnants of last month's Blizzard Elsa. There's not enough snow left to make a respectable snowman, although I can see a mound of snow down at the other end of the block and, of course, the parking lot mountain behind the neighbor's house isn't all melted yet. 

 

I splurged on some reduced fat Cheezits (they were on sale) and spent some time portioning them out into little snack bags. Fourteen crackers per bag counts 2 WW points. I confess I ate the broken ones.

 

Most of the day I spent critiquing, first cda's submission for Monday, and then two of the ones for Wednesday. I've figured out how to make comments on them without writing in the lines of the work. If you highlight what you want to comment on, a little box pops up on the right margin, and if you click on it, you can write what you want to say and the little box stays there so the author can read what you said. Very tidy.

 

In bird news, a Robin scampered over to the ground under the square green feeder and evidently found something to eat. Fallen seed would be my guess. Anyway, it stayed there for enough time to have a picture taken. Two or three pictures even.

 

The Spectrum maintenance tech showed up today and spent some time up in his bucket (in the drizzle) checking the wires outside. They're all just fine, he said. Which means my laptop is probably the culprit of my Zoom problems. He gave me one tip to try to fix it by lowering the bitrate (I have no idea what that means or does), so I googled it and followed the steps and lowered something. I hope it's the right something. Monday morning's Zoom with cda will be the test. But I will be visiting a computer store to see about a system that will be able to handle hours of Zooming at a time. The tech also suggested getting a new modem from Spectrum. Maybe it's the modem. They gave me a new router last week but I've got the same modem. I'll call them and get them to send me a new one. Couldn't hurt. I love technology.

 I spent so much time critiquing today that I didn't make time to draw so no pictures of creatures or food.

Happy Easter! Tomorrow's Easter and I get to go to Shawano to spend the afternoon with DIL1's parents and DS and family. I just hope it's warm enough that the roads aren't icy. HJZ said they had ice again today. Ugh. But it's supposed to be close to 50 tomorrow so it should be alright.

--Barbara

Arrgh!

My internet stayed stable during my 2-hour Zoom this afternoon but it kicked me out almost at the beginning of my 3-hour Zoom tonight. So I Zoomed on my phone, tried rebooting the system by unplugging the router which didn't work, and ended up calling to have them send the magic signal. So frustrating. Next time I'll try Zooming on my iPad. If that works, maybe the problem is in my laptop. This has to be fixed. I Zoom a lot.

 

There was a Robin in the backyard today running around, stopping, and then looking at the ground as if there was something interesting there. I didn't see it pull up a worm.

 

Then a Chickadee landed on the birdbath long enough for a picture. It flew over to the square green feeder and I took another picture but I'll save that one for tomorrow.

 

This afternoon I went out into the backyard to pick up all of the trash that blew in over the last couple of windy days. As I stepped out the patio door I saw that the day lilies have sprouted in the bed under the kitchen window. More green! That's a good sign.

 

Today's drawing is Peppers. A bell pepper and chili peppers. They were easy to draw and fun to color.

At Friday Night Knitting I started working on the left front of the Vienne cardi. I got this far before it got so annoying that I put it away and went back to knitting some hat ribbing. The cardi back kept slipping off my lap and pulling on my needles so I felt like my knitting was getting too tight. Maybe when I knit on the couch I can figure out a way to control it better.

 

 And that was my day. I worked on a critique of one of the submissions for next Wednesday and made lemon-lime Jello. Now I'm ready to put on my jammies and hit the hay.

--Barbara 

Freezing Rain

I knew it was raining before I even looked outside this morning. I could hear the little drops pecking on the window over my head and when I opened the shade, I could see the ice coating on the branches out the window. My first view of the freezing rain effects was this view of the Slinkys wearing their icy layer.

 

But my favorite view was seeing the icicles dangling from the wind chimes. I think it looks like a fancy chandelier. I didn't have to go anywhere today so I wasn't worried about driving on icy streets. This week is Spring Break for the city's school kids so there weren't kids walking in the freezing rain or riding buses sliding on the streets or parents giving slow motion rides to school. 

 

I spent most of the day working to integrate the comments from yesterday's critiques into the first 25 pages of my manuscript. I added a lot of explanatory information that will give people new to the series a little background about the main characters. It worked pretty well to have my original copy on the right side of the screen and the critiqued copy on the left so I could work back and forth between them. 

 

Today's drawing is a Sloth. It was very easy to draw and color. I like the calm look on its face and the two-color leaves on the branch.

 

The Spectrum tech came right around noon today and the tech was a woman. She was very thorough and discovered that whatever is happening to the internet isn't only happening to me but to other customers down the line from me. But she said she thought I was getting it worse. Now I have to wait for a maintenance crew to come to look at the wires and stuff outside. The odd thing is that although the laptop gets kicked off I can get back on on my phone immediately. Gosh, I hope I don't need to buy a new laptop but if I have to I have to. I can't keep getting kicked off in the middle of meetings. I love technology.

DS and family are on the way home. It sounds like they had a lovely time out in Virginia. I'm eager to hear tales of their adventures. One thing I know they did was go to a big amusement park where DS and LC rode all the roller coasters, including the one with six inversions that goes nearly 70 mph. Yikes! I'd be the one holding glasses and wallets and keeping my feet firmly on the ground. I'm a real pantywaist when it comes to that kind of ride. 

I folded the basket of clean laundry this evening. Man, I have a lot of socks and undies. It's a good thing so I don't have to do wash too often. I'm in favor of less frequent laundry doing. 

The birds and squirrels stayed home today. I did see one rabbit race across the backyard but it was moving so quickly it was just a fuzzy brown streak.

--Barbara