Squirrel Redecorating

I looked out the patio door this afternoon and noticed that a squirrel had done a little redecorating on the Oriole feeder today. The orange half is now sitting in the grape jelly dish. I didn't check but I'm confident that the grape jelly dish is full of watery grape jelly soup because it rained most of Friday overnight. I might go out and dump it out and put more jelly and an orange half out tomorrow. Maybe.

 

I was lucky enough to catch sight of two Sparrows on the new feeder this morning and quick enough to take a picture. Since I haven't had much luck taking bird pictures lately, it made me happy.

 

It was sunny, cool, and breezy this morning so I took a walk before it heated up for the day. I took this picture as proof and to show off my red shoes.

 

Instead of working on a manuscript (or two) today, I scheduled three Substack stories so now there are six of them lined up. I don't have to worry about them for at least a month. That will give me time to work turning more of my story starts into stories.

 

This morning while I watched CBS Sunday Morning, I finished knitting Scrap Hat #5. I added an extra decrease round so that there were fewer stitches to draw together at the top. I think it turned out well. On to the next one, because I have plenty of yarn scraps of various sizes, fibers, and colors. I'll take them down to the shelter when I have a few more made. They're nice and thick which would be good for people who spend time outdoors.

 

Coming back from my walk, I saw that another Dad's rose bloomed. The intense sunshine changes the color of the flower, making it look almost iridescent. I'm not sure I like the way it looks, all flashy, but it still smelled the same, which is fabulous.

 

 Once the back of the house was in shade, I went out to cut rhubarb to make another batch of sauce. I cut the remaining hail-damaged leaves and had to pare off places where the hailstones abraded the stalks. The new stalks are much thinner than the old ones so I'm afraid this might be my last batch of the season. I hope not. Hopefully more thick stalks grow once I've thinned them out. Fingers crossed.

 

Today I painted the first flower in the floral watercolor coloring book. It's Agapanthus. It turned out well. I'm most happy that I managed to paint very thin stems using the very tip of a size 6 brush which is not one with just a few hairs.

 

I haven't been able to figure out why some of my ads are spending over my bid and when I got the monthly ads bill today I looked into it further and discovered that I'd forgotten to choose "Dynamic bids down only." Tsk. Careless of me. That ad spent over $15 last month while most of the others spend less than $5. I'm glad I figured it out. I'm not letting Amazon spend too much of my money when I don't sell enough books to cover my ad costs. But what else can I do to sell books? I'm trying every avenue I can think of. 

Last night I got a text from a former neighbor that the Liberty St. house is for sale. She sent me the website and I looked at the pictures of the house. It looks very different. They took out most of the wall between the kitchen and living room and totally redid the kitchen. They also put French doors out to the backyard from the middle, smallest bedroom. Also the price is $299,900. Mom and Dad bought it for $14,900 in 1961. Quite the increase in value! Makes me wish they'd have an open house so I could go creep around in it.

--Barbara