Big, Medium, Little

Birds. I had all three today. When I went out to check the mail, this Turkey hen was sashaying across the front yard just as casual as can be. I was afraid she'd spook and run off when I opened the door but she didn't. She just kept up her pace and angled toward the side yard. I don't know where she went from there.

 

And of course, the little bird is a Hummingbird. It was the male, as usual. He's got my feeder on his radar and makes a couple stops a day for a sip. I didn't sit at the table much today so I was lucky to see him once.

 

For the day's medium-size bird, I have a Bluejay. It landed on the suet nuggets but stayed on the back so it was nearly invisible, but then it landed on the ground and finally hopped out from behind the crooks. It's in the shade and looking away but you can see it and that's good enough for me. 

 

The first iris bloomed! I looked out the kitchen window and there it was up on top of the retaining wall, and there are more buds getting ready to burst open. 

 

Yesterday I scrolled down to look at my Amazon ads which stopped producing Impressions and Clicks a couple months ago. And I had no idea why. Many many of them were blank. No activity at all, just the most recent ones are producing anything at all. I woke up this morning having figured it out overnight. I realized that the books I linked the ads to were the ones I unpublished so the ads had nothing to advertise. So I spent the greatest part of the day archiving the unproductive ads and making new ads linked to the republished books and eBooks. I went from 115 ads, down to 25 ads, and then back up to 68 ads--so far. Following the instructions I saved from the last time I did the Ads Profit Challenge (thank god I kept them), I made Auto ads and Category ads. Next I'll make Keyword ads which are the ones that always performed best for me. Luckily I also saved the Excel worksheets I used when I collected book titles and author names from similar books to use in the Keyword ads so I don't have to start from scratch. Whew.

 

Today's drawing is a Water Lily. I always have trouble drawing the petals that face the front, the perspective usually eludes me, but today I didn't do too badly.

 

Then I took my red shoes for a walk up to the stop sign and back.

 

When I came in from walking I saw that another Christmas cactus flower had opened. Isn't it pretty? I love the stamens and that purplish thing in the center. You can see another bud to the left of the flower too. It's pretty small so it may not blossom, but it might. 

 

I had convinced myself that at least one of the story starts I typed into the computer yesterday was almost ready to be published. Went looking for it after my walk. Nope. None of them are ready for publication. And none of them are any longer than the previous story starts I'd uploaded. Oh well, that gives me more room to maneuver. 

--Barbara 

They Came!

My latest marketing idea became reality today. LL and another one of the members of the Novel Intensive critique group commented on the muffins Rose makes in the Seaview books. So I worked to fit the recipe on both sides of a postcard, sent it to KM, my assistant, for refinement, and ordered 100 from GotPrint. They came today. I plan to hand them out at vendor and book fairs. Across the bottom of the back side is all of my contact info. Hopefully people will make the muffins and buy the books.

 

The other things I got today are seven 10-13 second videos to post on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. I don't know if I can put one on there but I'll try. Otherwise go on my page on Facebook because I posted one there this afternoon. (Well, that didn't work so follow this link to my Facebook page and watch there.)

 

One surprise flower in the yard is the tiny white flower clusters on the dogwood bush on the corner of the house. I don't remember ever seeing flowers on it before but I noticed it when I was outside the other day and snapped a picture.

 

A pair of Mourning Doves landed on the edge of the patio table this afternoon. They perched there surveying everything before deciding to fly over to the edge of the birdbath for a drink. Were they on a date?

 

The male Hummingbird showed up today. I was sure this was a female until he turned to the side and there was his ruby throat. I'm determined to get a picture of her one of these days. At least this picture is in better focus.

 

Today's drawing is a Chicken. I was running out of time because I spent so much of the day trying to figure out how to download the videos from my email onto my phone. Never did figure it out so KM texted them to me. I downloaded them but didn't know where they went. Finding that out took another hour but I finally tracked them down. Whew. Anyway, here's a brown chicken. Meh.

 

Tonight at Friday Night Knitting I worked on Melt the ICE toque (hat) #3. I was nearly done with the long ribbing and decided, instead of starting something else, I'd work on finishing it. I finished the 6" of ribbing and started on the crown decreases. KE wants a red hat for a friend and I've got one done that she can have. When I finish this one I'll have one on hand, just in case I need a rebellion hat.

 

And just because I can, here's another picture of the male Oriole that stopped the other day.

 

I took a walk up to the stop sign this afternoon. I didn't drive anywhere today, but I could have.

--Barbara 

Back To Humming

I was lucky enough to see the male Hummingbird a few times today and get halfway decent pictures. I saw the female once or twice and got nothing. She's smaller and a lighter green and doesn't have that ruby throat but I was still thrilled to see her.

 

The squirrel was all over the suet nuggets this afternoon. It wrapped itself around the feeder and got to nibbling. The Gray Catbirds have learned that there are crumbs that fall from the nuggets so they spent a good amount of time down there. Naturally, they were behind the crooks so not very visible. I didn't keep any of their pictures.

 

I refilled the grape jelly this morning, much to the satisfaction of the House Finch pairs. They come together and leave together. Usually she flies off first and he follows.

 

The bleeding hearts are all abloom. It was kind of windy when I took their picture so they were bobbing around some but they aren't blurry. For which I am grateful.

 

The ferns are unfurling. Some of them are in the middle of the lilies of the valley and others are in the middle of nothing. There's an expanse of plain, empty dirt with a volunteer fern popping up in the middle of it. Maybe more ferns will fill in. That would be nice.

 

The lilies of the valley are starting to bloom. Those little, arching stems of white bells are so sweet and smell so good. Every spring I send a sprig of them to DD in Kentucky because she's always loved them so much and I love her. I wish she lived closer.

 

Today's drawing is Bugs & Such. That's the name on the page in the book. I like drawing bugs, I really do. And I like all of these, especially the bee and the grasshopper.

 

Last night I finished knitting Scrap Hat #4. I think I'm going to take a break from knitting them and find a pattern for a chemo hat. I've got some cotton and acrylic yarn that would be good for them downstairs that's calling my name.

 

I spent a lot of the afternoon typing in the rest of the story starts from the 2016 prompt notebook I unearthed from the carton downstairs. Fifteen yesterday and twenty-one today should give me a lot of things to work with for making into short stories. A couple of them are almost short stories already but most of them are just a couple paragraphs. They won't all turn into stories but I've got lots of raw material. 

 

I got my car back! Hooray! And all of the door locks work! Hooray! Thanks, JR and S! Two days without wheels is torture. Not that I had anywhere I needed to go but because I couldn't go anyplace I wanted to. Now I can go places and lock the car when I get there. Yay!

--Barbara 

Orange You Glad

I was so excited to see a male Oriole land on the feeder and stop for a few bites (sips?) of grape jelly. Finally. I managed to snap three pictures so you can expect to see them all in the coming days.

 

And the male Hummingbird visited twice, too. I thought the female came around suppertime, but when I looked at the pictures I could see the ruby throat and knew it was the male. Maybe he won't share the location of the feeder with the Mrs. 

 

I went out with my leather gloves and some lopping shears to cut back all of the dead rose canes so you can see how Dad's rose is growing. The sprouts have really shot up in the few days between photos.

 

This morning I had an email from GetCovers that included the final files of the Horizon
cover redo. I really like the change. It's so much brighter and attractive than the old, moody one. In the old one, the clouds were dark purple and the people were nearly invisible because it was so dark. Hopefully the new cover will attract more readers too. 

 

And I sat down to load The Seaview on to Ingram Spark for wider distribution. It took some doing to figure out how to work the website to get all the info they want entered but I used the Help pages and got it done. When I tried to load Horizon, it told me that the ISBN number is already in use which means the Extended Distribution through Amazon is still in effect. Dang it. It's a good thing I bought the 100 pack of ISBNs because I'll assign a new number to the paperbacks to get them uploaded and out there. Honestly, sometimes I'm my own worst enemy, but I can be good at fixing things too.

 

When I gave up on Ingram Spark, I took the laptop to the kitchen table to start typing in the short story starts from the prompt notebook I went through yesterday. I think I got about 15 of them on the computer with at least that many yet to go. They aren't long, the longest are 2 composition book pages, so it goes fast.

 

While I was working on the story starts, I heard a lawnmower rev up and knew that the mowing service was here. I was wondering when they'd come this week because the dandelions were getting pretty tall. The mower guy picked up the trash that blew into the backyard and even took away the branches and rose canes from the front yard where they were piled for the stick truck to collect. 

 

If I didn't have two vases of flowers from Mother's Day, I'd have cut lilacs to bring in this afternoon. When I went to take their picture the aroma enveloped me. So sweet.

 

JR, my car guy, called late this morning. The mechanic, S, had three of the four doors working but the back driver's side door needs a new actuator. I don't know what that is, but it's necessary if I want the automatic door lock to work and it ain't cheap. I told him to go ahead and install it because I'm hoping the HHR is my last vehicle and I want everything to work if possible. Naturally the part won't be in until tomorrow so I'll be without a car again tomorrow. Fortunately I don't need to be anywhere. However. If for some reason the part doesn't show up and S can't fix it tomorrow, JR'll bring my car back so I'll have wheels over the weekend and then I'll take it back after the Memorial Day holiday on Tuesday to be finished. I love cars.

I have more flower/plant pictures from today but I don't want to make this blog post too long. I'll save them for tomorrow.

--Barbara 

Sprouting

I got dropped off at home this afternoon from taking my car to the shop to hopefully get its auto door lock system fixed tomorrow and saw that Dad's rose has really sprouted over the last week. I can no longer procrastinate going outside with leather gloves and shears to trim away the old, dead canes so that the new growth has room.

 

This morning I went to school for OJ's spring concert. The fourth graders build their own ukuleles and decorate them in art class and then learn a couple songs on them for the concert. It was easy to tell how much they enjoyed it because their faces lit up and they really sang out on those songs. LC was asked to sit in with the fifth grade band because one of their two trombones moved away during spring break. She was way in the back so I only saw her forehead and the top of her trombone. But she and DS practiced the song and I'm sure she did fine. She's going to take trombone lessons at a local music store this summer. OJ still hasn't decided what instrument he'd like to learn next year.

 

I saw a Hummingbird again this morning. I couldn't tell if it was a male or female but I'm always happy to see one. A Bluejay tried to land on the suet nuggets but there was a squirrel there first so it veered off and flew away.

 

Today's creature is a Lizard. It's an anole lizard, according to the book. I like it and the way it turned out. I was supposed to leave some white streaks for shine but I don't think lizards are shiny so I left them off. 

 

I knitted a couple rounds on Scrap Hat #4 after supper. Well, I knitted almost one round and then didn't have the right number of stitches when I got to the end of the round so I tinked back, one stitch at a time, recounted the stitches, did a little mental math, and tried again. That second time it worked out. "Tink" is knit backwards. It means to unknit each stitch instead of pulling out the needles and just ripping. 

 

The biggest Christmas cactus flower started to open today. Like I said, it's redder than the others have been. Looking good.

 

I spent quite a bit of the afternoon reading through a prompt notebook and flagging the ones I found interesting. Tomorrow I'll take the laptop out to the kitchen table and put them into the "Story Starts" file, then get to work turning some of them into short stories.

 

I just tossed out some trash and it looked very weird in the garage without my little red car in there. I took it up to Rabideau's Auto Mart to have the mechanic see if he can fix the auto door locks mechanism. I told him if he couldn't fix it, to at least get the back passenger door open. But JR said if anybody can fix an electrical problem it's S. I trust him. I think I do, anyway.

--Barbara 

Hummmmm

Twice today I was lucky enough to see a Hummingbird at the feeder. The first time both pictures were too blurry.  There was just a blackish blur on the side of the feeder. But the second time I snapped about eight pictures and five of them are good enough to keep. Not perfect but you can tell it's a Hummingbird. I love that their wings beat so fast that they're just a blur of color. I put fresh nectar in today so maybe that's why he visited twice. I figure the female's sitting on a nest somewhere but will be along once the eggs hatch.

 

The Sparrows had a fine time at the square green feeder. No squirrels were in there so they could flit back and forth and enjoy their snacks.

 

And this pair of House Finches enjoyed the refilled grape jelly dish. They came back multiple times, always together, to dip their beaks in the grape-y goodness. 

 

After lunch and my morning Zoom with cda, I went to the birdseed store and bought more suet nuggets. It didn't take long for the Sparrows and Squirrels to discover the refilled feeder and take full advantage of it. This squirrel kept looking toward the house as if it could see me watching it. While I was out there I cleaned out the birdbath. Oh, it was really gross. Green, stinky water full of slime and bird poop. Yuk.

 

I spent some time scheduling more Substack posts. I'm running out of finished short stories so I have to get busy, quit focusing exclusively on my novel manuscript, and write more short stories. Maybe I'll page through another prompt notebook or two tomorrow when the cleaner is here. I noticed that I've posted 69 times on Substack since I joined. Most of them stories. See? I told you I had a lot of them piled up with no place to go.

 

There's something growing out of the top of my bouquet of carnations from DS. I don't know what it is. It kind of looks like another flower but these are cut flowers so why is something growing? Weird.

 

And the Christmas cactus buds are getting bigger. This one looks like it's
ready to pop any day now and it's a lot brighter and more vivid than the usual pink flowers.

 

These other two buds are smaller and pinker, and I noticed on the left of the picture I can see a couple more little nubbins of buds making an appearance.

 

I didn't draw again today. I spent too much time writing and thinking about writing and posting about writing. I'll try to get to it tomorrow. I feel guilty when I don't draw every day, like I'm letting OJ down.

--Barbara 

Boy, Did It Rain

The pavement was wet when I opened the shades this morning and it for sure didn't dry out all day. Because there was a steady line of storms, a little thunder and a good amount of rain, that marched through today. I'd planned to do some outside things, like clean the disgusting birdbath (see how green the water is?) and get the patio chairs out of the shed. I even thought about attempting to start the new snowblower to move it into the shed. But I didn't do any of that stuff. Because it rained. And rained.

I saw one bird this morning before the rain started. It was a Brown-headed Cowbird that landed on the square green feeder and held on for a moment before falling off/flying away. I did not get a picture and the ones in the archives are terrible. So imagine a Starling-size black bird with a brown head.

 

What I did today was read and edit the last fifteen chapters of my current manuscript, fixing passive voice and adding little foreshadowing threads that lead to bigger things coming later. Some of it involved going back to earlier chapters and inserting a brooding bad guy into a scene so I could make him the big bad guy in a later scene. 

 

And I went on GotPrint and ordered Seaview Muffin Recipe postcards to hand out at events. I ordered more business cards too because I'm running low. I chose Economy Shipping on a $42 order and it added $30 to the total. Holy smokes!

 

Yesterday it got up to 78 degrees and was humid. I had the air conditioner on. Today it got up to 51 degrees. I had to turn the furnace back on. Tomorrow it's supposed to get up to 80. With all of today's rain, I'm sure it'll be humid along with hot. Sheesh. 

The other thing I did today was watch and re-watch some 10-second videos that my assistant KM sent me. We're working on making videos to share on Instagram and Facebook. I've given up on posting videos to TikTok because every time I go on there I just get frustrated and can't figure out how to find what I want to look at. It's not worth it. I'll use the platforms I kind of understand.

I didn't draw or paint today because I was immersed in my manuscript and didn't want to stop

--Barbara