Sprouts on the North Side

This afternoon when I went out to fill the birdfeeders I saw that the daylilies on the north side of the house tucked in behind the privacy fence have sprouted. I don't know how things turn green there because it never gets sunny hemmed in by the fence and the house but there they are giving it their all.

 

House Finches showed up on the platform feeder today. There were two pairs and they were billing and cooing like courting couples. The males would feed seeds to the females, they would tolerate the attention for a while, and then drive the males off when they'd had enough. Kind of like humans.

 

This morning I woke up thinking about the Wisconsin Writers Assn. webinar I attended last night about Substack. I decided that is a place where I can share my short fiction. I dived right in and set up my account and in the afternoon I couldn't resist sharing my first story. Click the link and tell me what you think. I hope you like it. I got a million of 'em. Well, maybe not a million but at least a hundred. I plan to share a story every Wednesday until I run out. Then we'll see.

 

Because all of the feeders except the suet cakes were pretty much empty the squirrel was reduced to hanging on there gobbling up suet. I could see crumbs falling on it and on the ground, the glutton.

 

I pulled out my watercolor sketchbook from last spring's class at The Clearing and attempted to paint a trillium. I tried to follow my notes and it isn't terrible, just not very good. I like the varied blue green of the background the best.

 

I ordered a book from Amazon yesterday called Steering the Craft which is a small book of writing exercises and advice by Ursula K. LeGuin so I read the intro and started the first chapter. I did the first exercise. What I wrote is pretty terrible but we were supposed to use flowery language to make our writing "sing." I don't know if what I wrote sings but it's flowery. Lots of interesting words.

 

Before I went out to fill the feeders I saw these bird prints in the snow on the patio. They have to be Mourning Dove prints because they're so big but I never noticed that they basically walk in a straight line. It kind of looks like the bird was hopping on one foot.

 

I went to the grocery store to get a few things (again) and I kept forgetting what day it was. That's important because I bought dessert for tomorrow night's knitting group and left it in the car when I got home thinking I'd be going tonight and it would stay cool. Fortunately I remembered that today is Wednesday and went out and got the stuff to put in the fridge so it isn't ruined. The only way I know what day it is is looking at my pill keeper. I suppose I could look at my phone. It's on there too.

I don't know if you've heard but a pair of river otters escaped from our local zoo during last Wednesday's snowstorm and were caught on camera cavorting in the snow. They've called in trackers and the otters haven't gone far but I haven't heard an update in the last couple days. At least they're not tigers. (we don't have a tiger at the zoo here.)

--Barbara