Saying yes...

There should be mandatory swinging... (non-filthbot edition)

My oldest lamblet is home today. She was sick when she came home from a weekend campout and although she was doing much better this morning, I'm a stickler for the fever and vomit-free for 24 hr rule.

She's been helping me sort through boxes of old stuff... school papers, keepsakes, photos. This has needed to be done for awhile, but I finally got over the resistance hump and have been going gangbusters. I'm spouting out new-ageisms as I go! "Let's make room for the now! Let's make room for the future!" My lamblets giggle, Grizzled ignores it just because he's happy I'm going through a bunch of stuff. He'll have to go through his own later.

It's a gorgeous day today, sunny, mid-70's, a cool breeze. The lamblet and I decided to take a break and go outside. She plopped down on a swing. I played for a bit with the dog, but soon joined her. We swung, we chatted. She cursed her gym class and the upcoming mile run. I cursed the weeds, but pretty soon, we were both swinging nice and high, chatting, laughing and everything seemed a little less serious. I think they should install swings in the Whitehouse (no Clinton jokes, please). I think they should install swings at the UN (no Bolton/Plato's Retreat jokes, please). I think every employee should have to swing for at least 5 minutes before the commute home. I'm thinking there will be much less road rage and fewer scuffles on public transportation.

End of sermon... back to the sorting.

Sculpting with Knitting Needles

My oldest sister knits for relaxation and it's one of the many ways she expresses her creativity. She's left many mediums where she excelled by the wayside and now, this is her form of choice. She just sent me this picture this evening. It was a sea lion hat she made for her daughter... no pattern, she just kind of winged it. I can knit, I can follow some patterns, but there's no winging it for me. Winging it and ending up with this is a mystery.

I felt the earth move...

... and it wasn't due to Grizzled. A little after 4:30 this morning, I heard the apothecary jar where he keeps his spare change, start to rattle. I also heard the floorboards start to creak. I thought he had gotten up, but no, he was lying beside me. He was awake and had heard the glass lid on his change jar rattling as well. I then thought it was one of our daughters coming in after a bad dream. I called out, nope, no child. I then thought it was the dog, but that was when the dog came bursting into the room as though something had pinched his behind.

Of course the thought of burglars is never far from my paranoid mind, but the dog wasn't barking. The items on the top of the dresser stopped shaking, the floor stopped creaking and the dog plopped down. I put it out of my mind and went back to sleep. About 90 minutes later, Grizzled woke me up to tell me the cause of the rumbling. It was one of those rare Midwestern earthquakes. The New Madrid fault was making some adjustments. The real action happened downstate where they experienced a 5.4 earthquake.

BG and BP- they said it could be felt in portions of Ohio and Wisconsin as well? Did your earth move this morning?

ATPCT: make-up edition

Yes, I know I said I was pulling the blinds on the blog for awhile. I'm still up to my neck in work that needs my whole focus, but I couldn't let the day go by without briefly touching on one of those nice surprises that you don't fully expect.

I had painting class again today. It was a make-up from a couple of weeks ago when my youngest lamblet was oh so sick. I was not looking forward to it. I had just gone yesterday and had had my usual struggles with those who say they want to be taught and yet show every sign they don't want to be taught unless you stop teaching... No, I was not looking forward to today, especially since it's really nice out and the snow and ice are melting and the sky was clear, but I went.

It was going to be a small class. Most people had previous commitments or just didn't like the thought of the schedule being changed. That's ok,  I thought. I'll take a small class. I'm not up for more and I was grateful when only 3 out of the possible 4 showed up.

The women ranged in age from late 60's to early 80's and also ranged in abilities. One had been painting longer than I have been alive and one only started this year. They all told me to just sit down and to not set up anything that they would work on their own stuff. So I sat and we talked. We talked and we listened and we opened up.

It was nice to hear their stories and for us to compare where we were at life-wise, etc. One of the women is turning 81 and is going into Senior Living center on Monday. Another woman is 72 and I would swear is no more than 58. She’s confident and adventurous. She does so many things and goes so many places and just seems very young for her age. I also love that she can ask for help and not mind being helped. The last woman, the one just starting painting, is in her late 60’s, she sounds like she's had kind of an odd and hard life, but she is so funny and is just full of insights. She was an accountant before she retired, but when I listen to her, I hear the heart of an artist. She sees things that only an artist can see.

It was a nice class. They worked on various painting projects, but mainly we just talked and even better, people listened. Today there was no one-upping, no passive aggressive tendencies, just a sharing of creativity and stories.

Today people painted, people talked and people listened. 

... and the blinds go back down...

That's not a bird... THIS is a bird!

What is it with men and size?? The relatively scarce Billy Pilgrim has surfaced long enough to send me a photo of the bird that alit on one of his limbs (and I mean his own, not his tree's) and apparently his bird is bigger! It's also more colorful. It's beautiful. It ain't no nuthatch though. It didn't randomly show up in his backyard and swoop down for an early morning chat. No, he said it's obviously some kind of *parrot-y* type of bird. At least it's not dead! I know a dead parrot when I see one!  He also had to go to the San Diego Wild Animal Park to find this one... and then lure it with sugar water. I lured my nuthatches with the pure sugar of my being...

Still, what an awesome shot. If I flinched when my cute little nuthatch came down on my hand, I might have screamed and flailed when this big-beaked-baby decided to perch.

FYI- I have it on good authority that that is really BP's arm! Funny... when I first saw it, I thought it was Michael McDonald's.

Thanks for the bird picture, BP! Thanks for the gratuitous arm shot!

Bird Nirvana!!!

Updated below:

As was mentioned a few weeks ago, a new bird had been hanging around our place. At first I thought it was a Chickadee or some variety of Junco, but it turned out to be a Red-Breasted Nuthatch. I had never seen a Nuthatch before, but apparently they're in our area in record numbers since 1989.

It seems as though Nuthatches are also a calm bird, the only bird that will stay at the feeder while squirrels and/or people are around. Our area newspaper ran an article stating that it was fairly easy to get one to eat from your hand! I so wanted to try, but of course didn't have many Nuthatch sightings after the one where I realized what it was.

Well today, today while reading, I looked up from the Sunday paper and saw not one, but two in our back tree. I ran to the basement (it's garden-level) to get a better look at them, you can see the feeder from this spot. I noticed the two frolicking on the tree. They are indeed tree-clingers and were much smaller than I originally thought.

They flew off so I figured it would be a good time to fill up the feeder. Two slacker squirrels had just had their way with it and it appeared to be empty. I filled up a container with bird feed and went out back into our icy tundra. I was paying more attention to all of the ice and doggie land mines and not so much on the tree so wasn't I surprised when I got to the feeder and there were my nuthatches, literally inches from my face. They danced, they swung upside down on branches, they flitted to the feeder as I was thinking about filling it. I was just frozen with the excitement of these teeny-tiny, cute little birds taking care of business right in front of me. Did I say RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME? I did, but I had to say it again because I've never had birds just hang out in front of my face. Sure, I've had plenty of Seagulls try to attack my grocery bags in the parking lot. I've spent my fair share of time wading through pigeons in the park, but something about these birds was different. I expected them to fly away the minute they heard me clomping over the ice. BUT THEY DIDN'T! They were inches from me!

And then... then the best thing happened... I remembered the article had said they'll eat out of your hand. I didn't have any peanuts handy (how they can eat peanuts is beyond me, these are tiny! Smaller than a Peep!), but I was holding the container of bird seed. I poured some into one of my hands and held it out. The male spied it and kept tilting his head way to one side to get a look and then way back the other way to look at the feeder. The next thing I knew, he swooped into my hand. I flinched a tad and he hopped off and went for the feeder. He was still much less than a foot away.

I wanted to stay and see if I could get one of them to land in my hand again, a bird in the hand and all, but I knew the lamblets would love this. I went inside, made them get dressed asap and hauled them out on a cold Sunday morning. The birds did not disappoint. While none landed in our open hands, they did do their bit of prancing, dancing and scurrying right in front of us. They also regaled us with their gentle chirps and their crazy lady calls. You're right Lance, they do sound like a crazy woman locked up in the attic and yes, I was able to differentiate from my own cackles. :)

The birds even humored us long enough for the eldest lamblet to run in and get her camera. She got a photo of the female (her breast is just tinged with the slightest bit of rust whereas the male is much redder) clinging to the tree. Credit for the above photo goes to her.

Update: Anyone with nuthatch experience please feel free to chime in. As I mentioned above, I had never actually seen one of these birds until this winter. The ones I have seen have definitely had a very rusty breast and would fall into the Red-breasted Nuthatch category. After looking at more images today, the one in my daughter's photo almost looks more like a White-breasted Nuthatch. Would a white and red hang out together? The other bird of the pair I saw today was definitely had a red breast and was a more intense blue which led me to believe the one above was the female.

I'll be out back tomorrow with my salt-free, non-roasted peanuts. My neighbors will probably start to think I'm a scarecrow.

You can even eat the dishes...

My best buddy, Scott, sent me a link for some fabulous bacon bowls. Apparently he's hip to the fact that many of my readers are obsessed with bacon. These "bowls" actually look interesting and could add a new way to serve of the long-favored BLT.

What interested and scared me even more though were the bacon craft links that I spied on the page. Yes, there's more you can do with bacon. You can make bacon soap! You can weave a lovely bacon mat! Apparently there is a niche for bacon textiles...

Scott and I have long tried to gross each other out with meat couture. He coming up with the canned ham slippers, me coming up with the veiny roast beef serape. I don't remember which of us came up with the bologna flapper dress. I don't think, however, that we ever explored the full potential of bacon as a fiber. I'm now wondering what Burberry could do with bacon...  would they be able to capture their trademark plaid using bacon!?!

Bacon... it's not just for breakfast anymore.

(thanks to Scott for the title to the post. I miss you, Scott!!! You should live HERE!!!)

The wonders of modern technology

Grizzled took the lamblets and friends out for some sledding today. I stayed back, I had work I swore I was going to do even though we had a snow day. While at the computer, not doing the work I had stayed back to do, Grizzled sent me action shots of the lamblets. I have to admit, I am still amazed that someone can send me a photo of action that is taking place at this very moment. 

I looked at the image and thought... our dog would be jealous. He loves the snow and was running around this morning like a dog strung out on amphetamines. He was moving too fast for even an action shot.  But... Grizzled's images inspired me. I stepped away from the computer, took the dog out and got my own action shots which were immediately sent to him. Yes, while Grizzled was standing on the side of the hill, his beloved Bebe would ring and would alert him that our pooch was enjoying the outdoors as well. You've gotta love technology. 

I have two words....

Snow Day!!!!!!1!@!!!

Ahhhhh, there's nothing like the relief of finding out what it is you've been looking at...

I like animals. I like seeing what will show up around my home. Ok, I was not so happy with the mice that made their way through out attic, into our basement, but still, I'm always happy when I see that our surroundings are animal-friendly, animal-inviting if you will.

My computer faces a window that has a large fire bush right next to it. Even if I could see nothing else, I could probably tell what time of year it was by which type of bird shows up in that bush. That bush gets a lot of action. I've even seen little teeny-tiny hummingbirds perching in it during late summer. That's a very odd site, one I'll never get used to.

During this time of year that bush is visited by a lot of Juncos (I like to call them snowbirds) and the occasional Cardinal which is why I was surprised when I saw a Junco-sized bird show up that was definitely not a Junco. This bird had a dark head, some white around the head or neck, a rusty breast and it was a steely blue-gray. I had no idea what it was. I looked in my Audubon book. That didn't help. I looked online. That didn't really help either. I asked my bird-friendly, blogging friend, Lance. He suggested it might be a Chickadee of sorts since they like to hang out with Cardinals.

Ok... I can buy that. I looked up Chickadees, but it was not the black-capped one and the one it most resembled didn't really show up this far north. I put it out of my mind until today, when at our bird feeder was a bright steely-blue bird with a red chest and that black head with white! It couldn't be a bluebird... they don't have black. What was it!?!?

I tried to get a photo, but was inside and the window I was at still had a screen on it. The camera kept focusing on the screen! I went back to the internet... maybe I could put in the right combo of words and teh Google would deliver my bird! It didn't deliver my bird, but it delivered the next best thing... a site that would ask me questions relevant to my bird and then we could pare it down.

I found my bird! I then found it in my Audubon book. I had been looking in the wrong part. I had assumed it was a perching bird because I had first seen it in the bush and then on a feeder. It's not a perching bird. It's a tree-clinger. I even took photos (bad photos... blame the screen) of it today, CLINGING TO THE TREE... it didn't dawn on me that it was a tree-clinger until Lance asked me if I had seen it "walk up the tree".

Oh wait! I haven't even told you what the bird is yet, have I?!? It's a Red-breasted Nuthatch. It's adorable. It's really blue against the snow and the blue/orange combo of it reminds me of my favorite sneakers I had as a young girl...

Lance told me to keep an ear out for its laugh. He said it sounds like a mad woman locked in the attic. I love that! I asked him how I'd be able to differentiate it from my own cackles... He was too gentlemanly to respond.

Well, that's it. I've got bird-closure. It was some excitement in what was otherwise a day filled with rather mundane tasks.