Birdies

Today is a banner bird day.  First there were four (4!!!!) fledgling Orioles cavorting around the feeders.  They even stuck around while I was out putting an orange half and some grape jelly in the feeder up on the retaining wall.  It was the first time I'd heard their voices.  These two figured out how to drink from the hummingbird feeder even though they're about fifty times bigger than the intended patron.


Later on Durwood spotted this little lady Ruby-throated Hummingbird having lunch.  Sorry that the shot is blurry but they move so fast it's hard to take my time to get a decent shot.





One of the things I've been meaning to do for months (months, I tell
you, months) is to see about fixing the wind chimes that broke their hanging strings last year.  Or was it the year before?  Yeah, probably because last year was Broken Ankle Rehab Year so I wouldn't have even thought about fixing it.  Anyway, I brought them in from the garage yesterday morning and took a look at the problem.  I thought I could pull out the broken strings and thread new ones in their place but they were stuck into the wood somehow so I ended up cutting lengths of nylon twine, tying it onto the existing ones with overhand knots, and then centering them through the hanging ring before tying them all together using some bastardized version of a hitch.  I am absolutely certain that I would not have earned my Boy Scout knot-tying badge but the chimes are back hanging from the eaves where they belong and I'm very glad to see and hear them there.  (my resident Eagle Scout was asleep at the time I tackled the problem so things probably would have been neater and knottier if I'd waited but sometimes I have no patience whatsoever; my fix feels very Hank-like and I kinda like that)

Did I tell you I got some new shoes yesterday in between dropping off the tax files to our new accountant and meeting AT at the Fair?  Well, I did.  I realized that I'm sewing up nice clothes that sometimes might deserve to be worn with shoes that aren't white leather tennis shoes.  So I went to The Heel, a real shoe store with people who measure your feet (both of 'em), find out what you're looking for and not looking for, then go up into the loft and bring down stacks of boxes of shoes which they then help you try on.  It was amazing, just like playing shoe store when I was a kid.  I probably tried on a dozen pairs of shoes and settled on black leather Mary Janes with a thin gray edge on the top and a pewter buckle on the strap.  It's going to take some time to get used to wearing something other than tennis shoes all the time, to not think of them as dress shoes.






I picked a few tomatoes this morning.  And I saw that the WI 55 plant has so many tomatoes on its highest branches that the weight of it splintered the bamboo stake and toppled the whole thing over the fence.  Durwood says he thinks we have a 2 X 4 downstairs that's long enough to shore it up.  Next year I think each tomato plant will get it's own bale and stronger stakes.





Last night at knitting guild I ripped out the tiny bit of owl I began and started again holding a third strand that makes it look more feathery and pleases me no end.  I'm going to make this one a bit shorter than Hoot and maybe make the wings bigger.  The beak will be smaller, no question about that.  Hoot has a real beak of a beak.   There were only seven of us last night and just as we'd settled in to chat and knit it started to rain, a misty rain, so we packed up but then JL and I agreed that we weren't ready to leave so I suggested that we move under the shelter of a nearby Methodist church's porte cochere which we did.  Naturally as we moved into cover it stopped raining but we stayed under the roof and knitted, much to the amusement of the choir members coming for practice.

August 18--Flemish artist, Medici workshop, Nautilus Pitcher.  Wine poured from the dragon's mouth like blood.  The red liquid swirled in the crystal glass releasing a faint scent of earth and cherries.  Gloria's hands lay still in her lap.  It took all of her self-control to keep from examining the pitcher.  That can't be a real shell, she thought.  A real shell would be stained by red wine but the shell glowed white with iridescence.

Well, I've spent most of the afternoon calling around town trying to find some eclipse glasses.  Everyone's out so I watched a couple YouTube videos and will be making a pinhole viewer on Sunday.  I have a shoe box.
--Barbara