Belated

This evening DS, DIL1, LC, and OJ had a belated birthday party for me.  It was small, just

them, J&HZ, and me but there were brats on the grill, Sunny Hill Farms corn, baked beans, cucumber salad, and chocolate ice cream with homemade cherry sauce on it.  No food remains to have its picture taken but I have my array of gifts to show off.  LC made me a card with a rainbow on it.  J&HZ gave me a jar of refrigerator pickles and 2 jars of homemade jam.  (Did I mention how much I love homemade gifts?)  DS & family gave me a lovely cod card with a Joann Fabrics gift cod inside.  Yay, more fabric!  It was drizzly but we ate out on their patio in the screen room so the kids had playing space and it was lovely.  Thanks, guys, you made this sickly old broad feel very loved. 

I watched the weather report this morning and realized if I wanted to finish mowing the lawn I had to do it today.  The weather guesser said it will rain tonight and tomorrow night so as soon as the grass seemed passably dry I got into my lawn mowing togs, tied a bandana around my head, and spent an hour cutting grass.  I can't tell you what a difference it makes to have the self-propeller working.  On Friday I realized that the front wheels are the ones that the self-propeller engages so when that doesn't work the wheels don't turn freely, there's resistance so it's extra hard to shove the thing around.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, LJ, for fixing it on Saturday.  There are no mowed lawn photos.  It looks the same as before, only shorter.

The usual hummingbird came to the nectar this morning but zoomed off before I snapped her picture.  I managed to keep her in sight and take this photo when she landed in the top of the apple tree.  You can even see her long bill.  (click to embiggen)






 
This is a Hairy Woodpecker... never mind... it's a Downy Woodpecker.  As I typed that first part I thought I should look at the picture again just to make sure and it's a good thing I did because I would have been wrong.  See, the Hairy's bill is twice as long as the Downy's and this one has a short bill.  Whew, that would have been embarrassing.


September 3--Winslow Homer, Eagle Head, Manchester, Massachusetts.  It was scandalous.  Olivia came out of the ocean wearing her day dress and without a bathing cap.  Her clothing clung everywhere it touched.  She flung her hair forward and used her skirt to dry it.  Lifting her skirt exposed her legs all the way above her knees.  Felicity and Mae wore caps that contained their hair and robes that concealed them from neck to feet the way propriety demanded.  Olivia had spent her childhood on an island in the Caribbean.  Obviously things were looser there.

I don't even know what that means.  I'm pleading dullness caused by an excess of snot.  I think I'll go knit.  Last night I got the stitches on the Montparnasse Eco Cardi back decreased to my target number so now all I have to do is knit even for 14 more rows, soak it and block it into shape, and then it'll be time to sew all the pieces together and knit the neck edging.  It won't be done for the Summer of Basics but it'll be done before the snow flies.  Score!
--Barbara