Squirrel's Back

Only this time it's a juvenile squirrel that can't figure out how to get to the seed in the square green feeder. It spent quite a bit of time leaping from the back of a patio chair to the top of the feeder, leaning down looking at the seed and the perch, and then giving up or falling off.

 

This is a terrible picture, but in the center is a brown and beige smudge that is the back of a hawk in the tree. It flew over the yard being chased by a bunch of smaller birds that kept mobbing it and generally throwing a fit while it sat in the tree until it gave up and flew away. 

 

The male House Finch posed on the square green feeder in the sunshine so its bright head and breast were shown to their best advantage. He didn't visit the orange or the grape jelly...

 

But the female House Finch (or a juvenile) had a nice grape jelly snack a while later.

 

I am crazy about these ostrich ferns. They spread underground and are moving around the flowerbed, crowding out other ferns, and shading the peonies. I couldn't even see if a peony bloomed there are so many ferns in front of them.

 

Today's drawing is a Daffodil. I know Daffodil season has passed, but it caught my eye and I thought I could draw it and not screw up too badly.

 

Like I said the other day, the Stella d'Oro lilies are exploding into bloom. This plant has about ten or so flowers in various stages of opening or closing and more buds than I could count. Well, that I stood around counting. I could have counted them if I'd stood there longer.

 

Today's easterly breeze brought the fragrance of Dad's roses to me here at my desk this afternoon. It's a much more appealing aroma than Burger King which is also borne on the wind, but from the west. See, there's a Burger King a block away and I'm downwind when it blows out of the west. Sometimes it's almost impossible to resist the allure of charbroiled beef, but I manage.

 

I took a little walk today but I'm impatient for my physique to catch up with my imagination. I imagine that I can walk without huffing and puffing and having my lower back ache, but so far I can't. I am not giving up. I can tell that I'm a little better and maybe by the time I go back to The Clearing in October I'll be a lot better. If I don't give up, that is. But I won't. Promise.

I worked on a different short story today before critique Zooming with cda this afternoon. I might have finished the story today. Maybe. I'll have to reread it tomorrow to see if I'm right.

--Barbara