The Poster Day of Dreary

It has been unrelentingly gray and chilly and drizzly today.  It took me until 3 o'clock to even think about getting dressed and it wasn't until 4 o'clock that I went on my mission of mercy and to ALDI for butter on sale.  First, here are the only bright spots of the day.  These few tulips didn't get trampled or dug up when the two stooges replaced the fence along the retaining wall two years ago.  I would swear that those two guys had never heard of a straight line or a measuring tape.  Fortunately they weren't using premade fence sections because not only does the fence waver this way and that along its length, its posts are not regularly spaced, neither are the boards, but it does the job.  I'm just glad a few of the tulips survived.  And a few of Durwood's raspberries made it, but it's too early for them to be out and about.

 
I was the recipient of a dandelion bouquet the other day.  It's been years since I've had such an enthusiastically picked and generously given gift.  I was informed that butterflies need dandelions because the flowers have nectar and that's what butterflies eat.  Durwood will have to look upon the lowly yellow flowers with more respect now. 



What mission of mercy you ask?  The other afternoon I walked up to the bank to cash a check and noticed a shopping cart from the Dollar Tree store in the nearby shopping plaza in the parking lot behind our house.  I had seen it a couple weeks earlier too.  It was nuzzled up to the dumpsters but hadn't gotten picked up.  I took a look at it and it wasn't broken, just made off with.  If it had been a nicer day my plan was to walk it back to its store but since it's rainy and yukky today, I shifted the stuff out of the back of my car, folded down one side of the back seat, and tucked it in there for the ride home.  I know those things cost a fortune and suspect that some prankish teenagers were to blame for its abandonment so far from home.



For most of the day I nestled on the couch with my broad spectrum lamp turned on and knitted.  I have inches more to add to LC's 3 Sweater.  The pattern says to add 5" from the underarms but I think I'll go until I'm nearly out of the dark purple yarn and then finish off the bottom with what's left of the lighter purple.  Maybe I'll add another narrow orange stripe.  We'll see.



I really am using the same three balls of sock yarn for Helical Sock Sock #2 only in a different order AND (this is the biggest change) I'm pulling from the outside of one of them, that's where the solid orange and red is coming from.  I'm hoping that the speckledy blue yarn I started sock #1 with comes back for the toe of #2.  Time will tell.



April 30--John James Audubon, Roseate Spoonbill.

Feathers the color
of dawn light
lift the spoonbill
over the mangroves.
Snow white egrets preen
in the treetops
while the rosy pink spoonbill
sifts for supper
in the shallows. 
~~~~~

And that, for good or ill, is the end of Poetry Month for another year.  Whew.  We made it through injury free.  Today's crap weather is making my left ankle ache but I suspect that breaking a bone has turned it into a permanent barometer.  I'm not thrilled.  I suppose it's time to go rustle up some grub.
--Barbara