A Big Red Sign of Spring

This morning the sunrise was especially inviting...


(ignore that giant pile of snow)

and this Bluejay spent quite a bit of time acrobatically pecking peanuts from the wreath.





 


Look at how much of the patio snow has melted.  A week ago it was piled up to within 6 inches of the bottom of the birdbath basin.  Today the base of the birdbath stand is visible.  That's at least 10 inches gone in a week.  No wonder people got flooded out yesterday.



 

It was so nice that I saddled up and drove to Sturgeon Bay to visit a knitter friend and spend the afternoon knitting and chatting. Along about 3:00 we heard the bridge horn, the drawbridge opened, and the big red Coast Guard cutter sailed slowly from west to east from the bay of Green Bay toward the Lake Michigan end of the ship canal and its home at the CG station there.  They were keeping a narrow channel open and that means that pretty soon the giant 1000-foot freighters that winter for maintenance there will start plying the waters again.






I got plenty of knitting accomplished.  I cast on and knitted March Preemie Hat #2, we had lunch, and I cast on March Preemie Hat #3.  It needs about another inch, maybe more, before the top gets seamed and two pompoms are made to adorn the corners.

On the way home I noticed a lot of cars and people around Wequiock Falls so I swung off the highway to see the melt water roaring over the cascades.  The water is muddy but it's so nice to see it flowing instead of frozen.







16 March--Tropical Obsession. 

Susan stood in the gallery staring at the framed and matted photos. She didn't go to the galleries on the island often. Most of the art for sale was patently made for sale to tourists, tourists who most often left their good sense--and good taste too she thought--at home. What seemed to sell best were naive paintings of colorful flowers, palm trees, and romantic depictions of island life. Too many of them to count made their way onto cruise ships and airplanes to hang in middle-class living rooms as a reminder of a few days' holiday in the tropics. But these photos were different. Jorge Provenza, whoever he was, had used light like a paintbrush and his camera lens as his canvas. What might have been a trite picture of a lone flamingo at sunset in less imaginative hands had become through Jorge's eye an abstract shape emerging from flame-colored water. No sky, no trees, just barely ruffled water and that distinctive silhouette. Susan leaned closer. Damn. Not for sale.

Before I left this morning I bagged up the trio of bell peppers that I cut up and spread on a baking sheet to freeze and I popped out and bagged the 1-cup pucks of frozen chicken broth I made with the carcass of my last rotisserie chicken.  Both of those will make cooking easier.  Thanks to Durwood for teaching me to do stuff like that.

I'm glad I drove away this morning and spent the day elsewhere.  It isn't as though I have a lot of things weighing on me here but a change of scenery and a day spent visiting is a real break--even though I don't really understand what I needed a break from.  Maybe just myself.
--Barbara