Post #400

Today I'm recording the first "Harebrained Scheme of 2010." I noticed yesterday that the people across the street had thrown out their real Christmas tree. I remarked to Durwood that it might be fun to drag it into the back yard and hang pine cones spread with peanut butter and rolled in birdseed so that the birds would have a treat and a place to hide when the Sharpshinned Hawk flies by. But then I realized that it'd be a real pain to fix it to stand upright in the snow, and gave up the idea. When we got home from Walmart this morning he said, "are you going to get that tree?" I could hear a note of excitement and glee in his voice so I pulled on my boots and clomped across the street and nabbed the tree, dragged it to the garage, and started putting it into the tree stand. Realizing that was putting the cart before the horse, I dragged it into the backyard and went back to trying to put it in the stand so it would withstand winter winds and the depredation of squirrels. The tree trunk was too frozen and the little blades at the bottom of the stand were bent so Durwood made a wooden stand. While he played with wood and made sawdust downstairs I tied strings on the eleven pine cones, then spread them with cheap peanut butter and rolled them in a bucket of birdseed. Once I got it standing up to my satisfaction, I hung 2 mesh bags of suet and the seeded cones on the branches, and came in to wait for birds to arrive. It was a lot of work for a "what if..." idea that flitted through my mind, but that's really the kind of thing that gets me off my duff and makes me grin.











I finished weaving in the tails on the second Brangelina glove, finishing the set. I do intend to make a third glove one day soon using the changes I made on that second one, but it's cold and I need thick warm gloves in the car now.






Seldom able to resist casting on new projects, I wound 5 skeins of bulky wool I got in Lexington last Spring (using my ball winder and the swift Durwood made me {click "the swift" and scroll down}) and got my friend Zoe's help to figure out Elizabeth Zimmerman's Ribwarmer pattern for thicker wool and needles.