Just a Woodpecker

I looked out this morning to see a Downy Woodpecker on the suet pellets and he stayed there long enough to get his picture taken. Hooray! Two Bluejays showed up on the platform feeder but flew away before I got the camera up, darn it.

 

The Stella d'Oro lilies seem to be taking turns sending up one blossom at a time. Here's today's entry.

I stuck with the You Can Draw In 30 Seconds! book to do the skill level challenges of the Tube lesson. I have long-suffering Alexa set the timer for me over and over so that I can test my skills and speed in the challenges. I'm not very good at getting the early ones done in 30 seconds or a minute but I try. 

 

I'm better at the "no time limit" ones. That was the case with this page of drawings. I cued up my audiobook and listened while I drew. It's a good system some days. Some days I like it quiet when I draw but today I wanted a story.

Today's toss was an old paper fan that's been sitting on my dresser for years. I have a collection of fans that I never look at anymore. I should take them to an antiques dealer to see if they're worth anything. One of these days.

I ran an errand to the birdseed store this morning only to find the parking lot torn up. Seems the staff didn't know that was happening and weren't happy but we customers managed to park and find our way into the store. Then I went to the grocery for bananas and grapes and a new 10-inch teflon frying pan because my old one looks like it's been through the wars. I tossed the old one too. I seem to visit the grocery a lot these days but bananas don't last long, do they?

--Barbara

Tuesday Turned Out to be Lawn Mowing Day

I tried to put lawn mowing off but then I looked at the temperature predictions for the next couple days and immediately changed into shorts, a tank top, and my mowing shoes and got to work. It's supposed to be humid and in the mid-80s the next few days. Not optimum mowing weather. Today it was 75 with low humidity. I waited until after supper so that the backyard and most of the side yard were in the shade so I didn't get too hot.

I was going to entitle this blog entry "Arrgh!" because there were three interesting birds at the feeders this morning and each of them flew away as soon as I reached for the camera. The best one was a Flicker which is a kind of ground feeding woodpecker that I've never seen on the feeder before. It was standing on top of the platform feeder and took off with a flock of skittish Sparrows as soon as I touched the camera. Then a Goldfinch couple visited for a minute. He landed on the suet pellets and again flew away before I could take a picture. Then a Downy Woodpecker came to the suet cakes and posed really nicely hanging from the bottom of the feeder. Did it stick around long enough? No-o-o-o-o-o. Like I said, arrgh!

There are a few orange day lilies still blooming but they're getting scarce. Here's one of the last of them.

Tubes was today's lesson in You Can Draw In 30 Seconds! It was fun to draw the pretzel tube with the really long guy poking out each end. Or is it two guys? I don't know but it was fun.

But the most fun was the tube cities I drew. I confess that I used a ruler to make the tubes, it just seemed logical.

I dragged out the watercolors after lunch and painted the red salvia in pots on the patio. I like the way it turned out. For once things went the way I imagined they would.

When I was done painting I cued up my audiobook and sat down to finish knitting the heel of the Villasol Sock. Now I just knit around and around until I get to the toe when more fun happens. I also ordered more sock yarn (which I don't need). It's called Zauberball Crazy and I love the bright and crazy colors. I'll show you when it arrives.

Today's toss was my mowing shoes. I realized that they were broken down so that I had no foot support on the backyard slope so I dug out a new pair of sneakers and demoted my old ones to mowing duty.

--Barbara

Monday is Laundry Day

I didn't plan it but when I sent a hoodie down the laundry chute it didn't fall far so I figured that it was time to do the wash. So I did. It came to four loads and I had to fold the sheets that I'd left in the dryer since I changed them the other day. Folding sheets by yourself is a challenge, especially king size sheets. There are no pictures.

While the wash flung itself around downstairs I got out my sketchbook, pencil, and colored pencils and had a little drawing session. The next figure in the 3-D book was called Queasy Quagmire. I have no idea what that means. His drawing was a lot more complex than mine turned out to be but I think I got the essence of it down on paper.

Then I pulled out a book called Draw Like an Artist that I don't use very often. It's taken me a while to learn to read the pictures to see what to draw next. The newly added lines are a little bolder than the previous ones. The next picture was a gull. I think it turned out okay.

And next in 10-Steps: Nature was a black bear. It too turned out okay. I'm not very good at coloring fur. I think my strokes are too long but it's not bad. It looks like a bear.

The flowers on one of the sedums are really blooming. I'm not such a fan of pink but I like the way it looks with the light green of the leaves. 

Once the laundry was done I sat down and worked on the heel of the Villasol Sock. You can tell that I'm increasing because the colors have spread out and pooled. I'm hoping that they come back into line when I get back to the foot because I like the little dashes of color down the leg.

I saw a flash of brown and turned to find this little Wren hopping around on the patio. I got the camera up and ready and it fluttered up to perch on this rock. I haven't seen a Wren in a while so was glad to see this one.

Today's toss was Durwood's old shooting vest. I brushed up against it when I was sorting wash and heard it crinkle. I was going to donate it to Goodwill but when I took it off the hanger I saw that the back pocket was evidently rubber lined and the rubber had dried out and cracked. That means that the vest is no good for its intended purposed so into the trash it went.

DS, DIL1, LC, and OJ invited me over for a birthday supper tonight. They made grilled squash with Korean bulgogi burgers with kimchi mayo. OMG, it was all so good, the burgers were spectacular, juicy and tasty. DIL1 made a chocolate mousse cake for dessert and everyone sang. There were homemade cards from the kiddos, a bag of goodies from Penzeys spices from DIL1's folks, and an Amazon gift card for art supplies or books or whatever I want. It was a great evening.

--Barbara

What Did I Do Today?

Well, mostly I sat here at the computer rereading last November's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) manuscript and deciding what part of it to take to The Clearing at the end of the month for critique. It's 276 pages so it's a full day's reading, um, skimming. No, that's not right, I do read most of it for typos and to change things like "let us" to "let's". See you get credit for each word in NaNoWriMo so I don't use contractions or abbreviations when I first write it so I get the most words per day. It takes a lot of words to get to 50k in 30 days so every word is important. Then I have to go through and make them all like real speech which is a pain but necessary. The exciting thing that happened today is I thought of a title--Island Dreams. Oh man, I was thrilled when that little two-word phrase came to me and I wondered why it's taken 10 months. I also think I might have a plot which I've been sure I didn't. Now if I could only figure out how it's supposed to end...

Late in the afternoon I went for a walk around the block because I've been sitting around all summer and need to motivate my flab into some muscle. I had to put on a light jacket to carry my house key and cellphone because the pants I'm wearing don't have pockets. Why make denim pants without pockets? Can someone tell me that?

Then I sat down with my sketchbook and yesterday's lesson from the 30 Seconds book and drew the penguins...

 

...and the ant. None of these are originals but I enjoyed drawing them and mine seem to have different personalities than the examples in the book. Does that mean I'm finally developing a style?

I didn't toss anything and I didn't paint anything, I just spent the day working on my manuscript.

 I solemnly swear that I will remember to post this blog entry tonight instead of having NH text me in the morning asking if I'm alright since I didn't manage to post last night's blog and she was worried. I sincerely appreciate the concern and I wonder about my mental acuity.

--Barbara

Dad's Rose

I looked out this morning and saw that another rosebud is getting ready to open. The other two flowers are pretty much done and ready to let the petals fall so this one is stepping up to blossom.

At the corner of the lot the pampas grass (or whatever kind of grass it is) is blooming too. I wonder if blooming is the right word for the tufts that are showing at the top of the stems. Whatever it's called I like it.

It was a drawing day. The next lesson in You Can Draw In 30 Seconds! was a flag. So many different ways to draw flags. I especially liked the family of penguins marching across the page but I only had room to draw the daddy penguin who was leading the parade. Maybe I'll draw Mama and Baby tomorrow.

Once I filled three pages with all of the different flags and scrolls, I pulled out Drawing Cute to find a moose and squirrel to draw. Moose and Squirrel! Remember Rocky and Bullwinkle? I'll have to look for them on YouTube.

I had a vague memory that I needed to make the leg of the sock an inch longer for the heel I planned to use, checked my notes in Ravelry, and found out my memory was correct. So that's what I knitted this evening. I got a few rounds into the heel but not enough for a picture.

It was so nice today--72, sunny and breezy--that I opened up the house and let real air come in. Then after supper I took a walk. I might even do that again tomorrow.

--Barbara

Too Fast For The Shutter

It was a good thing that I snapped the first picture of the Hummingbird at the nectar feeder because she was too fast for the shutter in the second one. I wanted a picture of her flying and pressed the shutter button as she rose up but by the time the picture was taken she was gone. Not a blur on the screen, nothing.

When I opened the drapes this morning there was a Downy Woodpecker on the suet pellet feeder. I dumped out the old pellets and refilled the feeder on Wednesday because the old pellets hadn't survived all of August's rain in good shape. They looked moldy and melted. Ugh.

The other day a recipe for Chicken & Greens Soup popped into my head, I looked it up, and couldn't get it out of my mind. So this morning I went to the grocery for the ingredients and made the soup this afternoon. I'd forgotten how much it made--over 16 cups--enough so I could freeze some and still have a bunch to eat for lunches next week and probably the week after. Once the everything is in the pot except the chicken you puree the soup with an immersion blender. Unfortunately my immersion blender gave up the ghost at the first whir so I ended up doing it in batches in the blender blender. It was a pain to scoop out soup 2 cups at a time, get it over to the blender without dripping all over the floor, and then whirring it into a slurry. There was barely enough room for the soup in my biggest Tupperware bowl so I had to transfer it back to the soup pot to stir in the diced chicken to finish it off. A lot of work but well worth it.

While I worked through the soup steps (of which there are many) I also drew the next figure in the 3-D book. It's called Quack! Quack! and it's a very cartoon-y duck. It was fun to draw. The soup recipe was complex enough that that was all I had time to draw in between Zoom calls this afternoon and evening.

I heard a crash as a bird hit the patio door and looked down to see this Goldfinch sprawled in the door track. It must have hit really hard because they usually fly away immediately but it eventually wandered off once it stopped seeing stars.

Tonight at Friday Night Knitting I got to the end of the Villasol Sock leg and am ready to start the heel but that takes thinking and a Zoom call is not the place for knitting thinking so I'll tackle that tomorrow or Sunday.

When I put the sock away I worked on the Another Teal Meadow washcloth and started the decreases to get back down to three stitches like I started with.

Just to prove that I did look outside here's the other Dad's rose that's blooming. Still no Japanese Beetles munching away at the roses. Shhh, don't say it too loud.

Today's toss was a few more activity books that the kids have outgrown. I didn't think I had that many strewn around but I guess I did.

--Barbara

Happy Birthday to Me!

I've had a good birthday. I got to talk to my cousin NH, my brother AJ, my brother-in-law RJ, DD, and Facetimed with DS, DIL1, LC and OJ. I got birthday cards and birthday texts. I went down to the library and found a couple boxes of books to sort. I knitted, I read, and I goofed off. A good day.

Dad's rose is blooming again. I forgot to go out to take a picture when it was still light outside so the color of the rose is a little washed out from the flash. It was still warm, in the mid-70s, when I went out and the fragrance of the rose floated out on the warm summer breeze. Mm.

The daily art page today was a doozy. It said to take a picture from a magazine or a photograph, draw a graph over it in fine liner pen, draw another graph on the page in the book in pencil, and duplicate the drawing cell by cell. I paged through photo albums, copied some pictures, picked the simplest one, and got to work. I might color in the picture tomorrow but I was just happy with the way the drawing turned out.

 

Today I drew the last figure in The 15-Minute Artist. It's water droplets. They were kind of fun to shade and turn from flat 2-D into 3-D. I think they kind of jump off the page like they're supposed to. A little anyway.

When I talked to AJ this morning I mentioned that I've taken up watercolor painting and then said I was going to eat a banana. He said, "You should paint it instead." I said, "I have another one." So that's what I did. I ate a banana in the morning and painted a banana in the afternoon.

I was kind of keeping an eye out for a bird to take a picture of and all there was were Sparrows but then this little Chickadee showed up and stayed long enough for a snapshot. I wish it was its face instead of its back but beggars can't be choosers.

Today's toss was a short stack of activity and coloring books that have outlived their usefulness. The grandkids have moved on.

--Barbara