Flowers & Bird

Lots of flowers are abloom today.  The lipstick lilies are shining their faces to the sun around one of the sole surviving milkweeds.  The day lilies against the house and along the lot line are out in force.  The orange Asiatic lily by the porch is still opening more buds and around the corner of the house the spiderwort (the part of it that the rabbits haven't eaten) is blooming too.  I have a terrible time taking a decent picture of the spiderwort.  The flowers are a purple blue-ish periwinkle color that refuses to appear on digital pictures.  My small Nikon washed them out so they looked pale green so I dug out Durwood's Canon DSLR camera and got close enough that a bit of brightness and contrast finagling made them look almost right.  I am becoming less and less pleased with the pictures I get from that refurbished Nikon I bought a few months back.  No matter how many times I read the manual I can't make it stop washing out colors and if I turn off the flash then the pictures are blurry.  Arrgh.















I almost caught a robin bathing.  Almost.  He stood on the edge of the birdbath preening and fluffing and I hoped he'd go back in for another dip.  He didn't, the little creep.  Wild birds are so unreliable.



We made the best stuff for supper last night.  I saw a recipe online for grilled chicken sandwiches made with chicken breasts topped with carmelized onions, provolone, and avocado slices.  We didn't want sandwiches so Durwood pounded the enormous chicken breast half (almost a pound and a half--yes, just one breast half, and the tenderloin was removed), then I sprinkled it liberally with Penzeys Mural of Flavor, a salt-free blend of herbs that we like, while the coals heated and I got the onions fried up.  It was delicious and I'm pretty thrilled that there's some left for tonight's supper too.  Yum.



In knitting news, I added a few rows to Sudoku Strip #4 but spent more time working on the Autumn Cumulus sock ankle scallops.  I only have four or five more scallops to knit before I get to make the cuff and be done.  You'd better bet I won't be making another sock like this one for a while, especially since I'm making the medium size and it's a little big for my size 10 foot.

I stayed up late knitting and watching the Women's Gymnastic Championships so I didn't write.  We have some appointments today so I need to get going.  Seeyabye.
--Barbara