Journal: Spring Buds, Gardening, and Vacation Flashbacks

Here’s another shot of one of those little armadillos we saw in Florida.  Ain’t ’e kyooot?

Well...  okay, maybe not.

Victoria says they look like ‘anteaters in tin cans’, haha.

A friend wondered how they cope with the heat, in that get-up of theirs.  That made me curious, so I looked it up:

Armadillos live in warm habitats, usually near the water. While they have a reputation for being desert creatures, they live in areas like the rain forest, the woods and grasslands.  This is because they need the heat to survive – they have low metabolism and don’t store much body fat, making them particularly vulnerable to the effects of cold weather.  Armadillos burrow and tunnel, creating dens throughout their territory so they have multiple places to hole up.

I found this at an interesting website:

Animals – the Armadillo

Two of the online quilting groups to which I belong were discussing a similar question last week:  “Do you cut and save your fabric selvages?  If so, what do you use them for?”

I’ve saved some selvages in the hopes of making a bookcase quilt one of these days with the selvages as book bindings, with an appliquéd cat on one of the shelves.

Just look at this dress made of selvages:

Have you ever been confused about the spelling of that word, ‘selvages’?  I could never figure out which was the correct way, as it seemed that every time I saw it, it was different.  I finally looked it up, some years ago, and was surprised to find – both ways are right.  ‘Selvedges’ is British; ‘selvages’ is English (American). 

{‘Salvages’, on the other hand, is something my husband finds at junkyards, and ‘savages’ is what the Pilgrims found when they landed at Plymouth Rock.  I’ve seen both of those last two words used instead of selvages/selvedges, heh heh.  Oh, and ‘selveges’ is just plain wrong, no matter what you’re trying to spell.}

I’ve just ordered myself a pedometer, in order to find out how many steps I walk a day, and how many more I should be walking.  I have no idea how many steps I take per day.  Probably not enough.  If I’m typing a lot or working on photos, I put my keyboard and mouse on things to elevate them, stand at the table, and exercise as I stand there (providing no one is looking).  It certainly helps me not get so stiff from sitting.

Gardening helps, too.  I like pretty yards... lovely flowers... but the thing is, I work on it today, and three days from now, you’ll hardly know I did anything!  On the other hand, what I sew (or take pictures of) today may last indefinitely.  Ergo, I’d rather sew.  Or take pictures.

A friend wrote to tell me about the magic of iron-on Velcro for doll clothes.

I was plumb tickled pink (‘plum tickled purple’?) with it when I used it on Emma’s doll’s nightgown recently.  Why didn’t I ever use that stuff before?? 

When I did use that Velcro one other time, I’d gotten the iron-on by accident, and then had to sew it on, as my piece couldn’t be ironed, my sewing-machine needle kept getting sticky, and it was hard to sew through.  Once when I used long strips of Industrial-Strength Velcro on my quilting frame, I stupidly stretched out strips of the soft side and the hooked side, both at the same time.  They immediately curled together, stuck together, wrapped around me, tied me up, and I’m still down there, kicking and screaming and trying to get loose. 

{This is Sarah Lynn’s ghost, typing on her behalf whilst she’s thus entangled.}

The same friend told me she was taking a three-hour-long sewing class.  She has some old injuries that make immobility painful, and was hoping she’d be able to sit that long. 

“Just jump up now and then,” I told her helpfully, “shout ‘BOOGIE WOOGIE!’ and launch into that ‘put your left foot in’ thing.  With vigor.  Everyone will think you’ve been hired to do that, and join right in!”  Then, “Or maybe they’ll just stare, but oh well.”

Last week after putting away the winter bedding and getting out the summer things, I remarked, “We will now get a humdinger of a blizzard.” 

Guess what the forecast is for Friday night? 

Did you guess?

Well, ... no blizzard.  But ‘possible flurries’.

I was snapping shots of this little bird in Florida, wondering, Just exactly what kind of LBB (Little Brown Bird) are you?

So he turned around and showed me: 

He’s a yellow-rumped warbler, yessiree uh-huh!

That bird by the Homosassa River cottage that I’d thought might be a mockingbird was instead a gray catbird.  They sound a lot like mockingbirds, though not quite as melodious.  Similar in appearance, but darker gray, and with rust under the tail.

I should’ve been able to tell:

Okay, okay, here is the real photo:

And then there was Mr. Cheese Puff himself.  I had to be quick; he, uh, suspected! – like Winnie-the-Pooh’s Heffalump, he suspected.

You know, part of the reason it was making him nervous to have my bazooka aimed at him could’ve been because he and the other two young men with him were employees of Wal-Mart, and they were supposed to be collecting carts – but they were talking, laughing, goofing around, and not doing anything, really.

Every time he looked my way, I swung my camera around and acted like I was merely getting shots of the helicopter that was circling overhead.  Ergo, I got lots of photos of the helicopter.  :-D 

Maybe it was the Italian mafia, and they were looking for him?

Victoria came home from Earl May’s last Tuesday with a tall peace lily blooming in a shallow pot that is resting in the top of a wide-mouthed glass vase in which is decorative rocks and water, and in the water is the betta fish she returned to Earl May before we went on vacation.  She decided she wanted it back again.  (She claims she got talked into it by her boss.)  So she set it down in the middle of the table, where Larry was eating supper, and then they both went to carrying on a discussion that the fish was supposedly having with Larry, as it stared out of the glass straight at him:

“Hey, I know you!”  “Where ya been?”  “What’s wrong with my tank, and where did all the fake flowers go?”  “What’d’ya do with my log?”  “I need me my log.”  “Hey, what’r’ya eatin’, and can I have some?” and on and on.

They’re goofy.

Larry and Victoria, not the fish.

The fish is just, uh, fishy.

That night I posted photos of our trek south from Daytona Beach after we left the AQS quilting show, as we headed to Sebastian.  I took numerous photos of houses (they look so different from houses around here), the aforementioned armadillo, birds, and a manatee snout (best I could do, without going underwater with a snorkel):  Florida, Day 5, Part 3

Wednesday, I continued working on pictures from Day 6 of our trip.  It’s like traveling through it all over again, looking at the photos.  What’s the difference between ‘photo’ and ‘picture’?  I’ve noticed that professionals (or those who consider themselves so) say ‘photo’.  I used to always say ‘picture’...  now I say ‘picture’ half the time and ‘photo’ the other half, so as to impress everybody at least 50% of the time.  ((snerk))

A friend’s remark about an intricate pantograph made me think about the very first thing I ever did on my ‘new’ HQ16 quilting machine and frame.  It was sort of a ‘practice’ quilt – a wholecloth piece in red, white, and blue, with a muslin backing, but I never make anything that will be ‘throwaway’, as it were (or at least I try not to), so I planned this to be a gift for a good friend whose birthday is on the Fourth of July.

I chose an elaborate pantograph with extremely detailed anchors, ships’ wheels, and stars.

Well, just because I liked it, of course!  (You asked why; I heard you.)

Trouble was, when we got my machine, the lady had sent along the old wheels.  Her note, however, gave Larry and me the impression that, though she had purchased new wheels, she hadn’t yet put them on.  Sooo... yep, you guessed it, Larry removed the [new] wheels that were on the carriage and machine and put the [old] wheels in the separate baggy on.

And those old wheels he put back on had flat spots on them.

So, in addition to never having quilted ever before, I was fighting old, flat wheels – and using the most intricate pantograph I could find.  (Because I liked it, of course.)

Then, just to make things even more interesting, I chose red/white/blue variegated King Tut thread.  (Because I liked it, of course! – and it would really show up, you know.)  Boy, did it.

Well, that didn’t look so hot, but... hmmm... didn’t look so bad, either.  Especially if you squinted.  Turned lights down low.  Looked the other way.  Thought about something else.

I considered.  Then I made oodles of prairie points in red, white, and blue to go all around that quilt.  If something goes wrong, just fancy it up! – that’s my motto.  Act like you did it on purpose!

Then I bought picnic dishes, glasses, and colorful silverware with fat plastic handles, fancy Fourth-of-July napkins, and a fat red, white, and blue candle, called the quilt a ‘picnic quilt’, and that was my friend’s birthday gift.

One of these days I’m going to enlarge that pantograph (I used it in a small size, since, after all, it was a small quilt) and give it another try, just to see if I’ve improved.  (The wheels have certainly improved – twice.)

It’s been like late spring here – 80° Monday, 75° Tuesday.  Wednesday it was 54°, but it was blue and sunny, and the birds were singing like everything.

Here we are at Ft. Pierce Inlet State Park, heading over to the Atlantic.  Behold the Neon Tennies!  They make me look like a fancy little Clydesdale, huh?

After hitting a few fancy-schmancy restaurants on that trip, I thought, Well, hmmph, I can do that.  Hence, there now resides in our freezer some excellent smoked salmon, and a couple of packages of baby shrimp.  And one of these days, I’m going to open up one of my fancy-schmancy cookbooks, and just **follow the instructions**.  I can do that.  In fact, that’s what I did when we were first married, and I didn’t know how to cook!  I’d made yeast breads, the kind you have to knead a couple of times, and I’d made ranger cookies.  Oh, and homemade pudding.  All of the above were for home ec – if I made anything else, I’ve forgotten.  But I got rave reviews from all my teachers for those entrées, because 1) I could follow instructions in a cookbook, and 2) because I set a fancy-schmancy table. 

If I could do it when I was 13, I should be able to do it at 55, right?  Right??

That evening after church, we gave Andrew his birthday present, a tote with inside-the-car-cleaning things, which I thought more useful than outside-the-car-cleaning things, as he cleans the outside via carwash.  Larry helped me pick the cleaners.  Sometimes it’s hard to know just what to get our sons and sons-in-law.  I wonder if they think all I ever give them is socks?  Socks, socks, socks.  Thin socks, thick socks, tall socks, short socks, light socks, dark socks, toe socks, wool socks, cotton socks, polypropylene socks ... (try wearing those!)

It was Norma’s birthday Wednesday; she’s 77.  When she and Lawrence had their 25th wedding anniversary last month, we gave them a little book of proverbs and inspirational passages, Apples of Gold, by Jo Petty.  For her birthday, I got her three more books by the same author, Wings of Silver, Golden Promises, and Treasures of Silver. 

That ends the deluge of family birthdays and anniversaries for the end of February / beginning of March.  It’ll start all over again 1 ½ weeks into April.  Ethan and Aaron, our two oldest grandsons, will have birthdays, turning 12 and 15, respectively, and I’m going to give them mementos from our trip to Florida – things from the Pensacola lighthouse and the Naval and Aviation museum.

Thursday morning, I forgot I was going to go work in the flowerbeds first thing.  When I get up, all creaky and stiff, I make the bed and head straight for the bathtub and/or shower, in order to steam away the stiffness.  So then, once I’m squeaky clean, lotioned, powdered, and coiffed, do I want to tromp outside and get all dirty and stiff, hmmm, do I??  No, of course not.

Then some time in the afternoon or evening, I look out the window on a lovely spring day, see all the gardens that need tending, and think with a burst of enthusiasm, Tomorrow morning, I’m going to get up and scurry out there and really tear the bone out in those flowerbeds!

Then the morning dawns, and --- reread the last two paragraphs, ad infinitum.

But I’m agonna surprise myself one o’ these days, and just do it, I am!  Just you wait and see.  And wait... and wait... and wait... 

Actually, I did get a little bit done out there, working at it for a little while Thursday and Friday evening, removing old growth.  Why do I have so many flowerbeds, anyway??!  I have way more than I can care for.  That is, if I want to do anything else with my time, I do.  I’ve been transplanting hostas into various areas; they take less work, and as they grow, they hold down the weeds.

I now have a big pile of old growth that I need to toss into the wheelbarrow and haul to the south end of the property.

These are brown pelicans on the rocks, a sailing boat, and a fishing boat at Ft. Pierce Inlet State Park on the east Florida coast.  I was going through these pictures, when suddenly the birds way off in the sky caught my eye – they weren’t seagulls or pelicans, as I had imagined!

I zoomed in...

Ohhh!  I’d been taking pictures of magnificent frigatebirds (that’s their actual name – magnificent frigatebirds), and hadn’t even known it!  And that tail is actually a scissor-tail, though they often hold it together as in this picture, when they fly.

More pictures here:  Florida, Day 6, Part 1

Dorcas sent pictures of baby Trevor.  He’s smiling in his sleep, and is quite adorable.  How does such a little face know how to do that?? 

I refilled the bird feeders, and the little birds were soon back again, chowing down.  The grackles have returned... the turtledoves are cooing... the robins are singing.

??  There was an odd bird out there chirping away – sounded like someone trying to adjust an old metal lid on an old metal gas can, and the threads weren’t meshing.  Maybe it’s an Ernest T. Bass bird?

I sewed the patch from AQS onto my lighthouse quilt... got part of a butterfly wing cross-stitched (the Bucilla quilt)... and chased a stray black cat out of the house.  He couldn’t find the pet door from whence he had come for a few moments, and wound up making frantic forays into the basement, sliding wildly across my marble table, flying back up the stairs, and crashing headlong into the screened patio door in the laundry room before he finally got his wits about him and dashed out the pet door. 

Amy sent some pictures, including one of Leroy standing on a culvert near their house.  He has on a green John Deere shirt, his hands are deep in his jeans pockets, and he has one pantleg tucked into a boot, and the other pantleg out. 

In another, all eight kids are standing on various rungs of the barricade at the end of their dead-end road, except for little Warren – the top of the bottom board is just about even with the top of his head.  Nevertheless, in the first shot, one little leg was coming up, as he wanted to be right up there on the slats with his siblings.  In the second photo, he’s looking around at his Mama as if to say, “Need a little help here!”

Amy wrote:

So I said that it was time to go back and everyone started running back.  Grant stopped and asked me if he could put his ‘stuff’ in my pockets.  I said I had no pockets (I truly didn’t think I did!  haha).  He said, “Yes you do!  In the back!”

So he filled my pocket with his ‘stuff’ and took off running.  His pockets must have been too full for him to run.  Remember I said he liked pockets?  Every time I get him dressed he wants ‘pocket pants’.  My pocket is now full of rocks, keys, a flashlight piece.....

There was another photo Josiah, holding one of their cats, while Biscuit the golden lab gives him a slobbery kiss.  The kitty is rubbing her head on Biscuit and purring away.  I was glad all over again, seeing that photo, that the dog is okay after her ordeal of getting run over!

Tabby is begging for his soft food.  He thinks I am his personal valet, and he demands attention promptly.  He’s patting on my kneecap... now my hand...  He had gum disease a few years ago, and the vet had to remove five of his teeth.  So he gets soft food.  Big ol’ Teensy tries to move in when Tabby departs – and he doesn’t need to gain more weight.  But he’s cute, too, so sometimes I let him have a few bites, or clean up the saucer if there isn’t much left.

Larry calls me a milquetoast; but he’s even worse than I am, the big ol’ teddy bear. 

I took a break from editing pictures and washed all of the pretty seashells Larry gathered on a beach in Florida.  He wants to give some to the grandchildren.  Believe me, they don’t want them yet!  Wheweee, those things are ripe.

Don’t tell anyone, but when Larry was collecting those seashells, he got into something, uh, whewweeee, uh... inadvisable(!) – if my olfactory senses served me right, it was something someone’s pooch left on the beach, never mind the fact that there were signs saying “No pets on the beach”.  He started to get in the Jeep... I howled... Victoria caught wind of him... she howled... he hastily bailed back out, and I came up with a makeup wipe I’d saved from the motel that morning. 

He stood there right outside the Jeep, wiped off his hands good and proper, jigging and singing ♫ ♪ Splish, splash ♫ ♪ I was takin’ ♫ ♪ a bath! ♫ ♪, with Victoria and me trying in vain to shush him (he’s such a clown).  I gave him another plastic bag to better tie up the seashells (among which were a few objectionable ones), and soon he was scrambling back into the Jeep, not too much the worse for wear.  And so we allowed him to continue traveling with us. 

Friday, a friend asked me if our trees were budding.  The question made me grab my camera, put on the macro lens, and trot outside to see about the buds on the trees.  From a distance, only the sugar maple looks like it’s putting out leaves (funny little red fronds – that’s them, in the photo); but up close, all show clear signs of life.  More photos here:  Spring Buds

Yesirree, most of the trees are covered with buds.  The cherry tree... peach tree... apricot tree... even the slower-leafing cottonwood has tiny signs of life, if you look close.  And the locust tree (Aaron called it a June bug tree, once upon a time), the apple, the crabapple...  soon the blossoming trees will blossom, and the leafing trees will leaf. 

I love springtime!

I heard the odd-chirping bird again, and decided it was most likely a grackle.  They can make more odd sounds than I ever thought:  Common Grackle Sounds

In Florida, we saw boat-tailed grackles.  I didn’t know that the female was all shades of rust and brown and purply-black, with a buff-colored underside.

This is at the Lake Okeechobee north fishing pier.  The Lake is so big, one cannot see across it.  It’s shallow, though, with an average depth of only nine feet, and a maximum depth of twelve feet.

I was surprised to learn that.  Compare that to Grand Lake, Colorado:  at elevation 8,366 feet, it is about 400 feet deep.  But it’s considerable smaller in surface area – only 600 square acres, while Okeechobee is a whopping 467,200 acres, or 730 square miles. 

Grand Lake looks like a big lake, though, when you’re standing on the shore.  It’s so clear, you can look right down through the water at the brilliantly colored stones of granite and quartz, some 20 feet down.  This is where the kids were skipping rocks, and Victoria, age two, went running to throw a rock – and, thinking the boulders a little ways out were the water’s boundary, ran splattity-splat right into the cold, cold waters of Grand Lake, looking surprised the entire way. 

Aarrgghh, Teensy just got in another fight – this time with the stray black cat.  And now he’s limping again, though not very bad.  Yet.  Why won’t he just stay out of fights!

This is a ring-billed seagull.  Isn’t it beautiful?

What a place to have a house!  This is at St. Petersburg (below), and the houses are facing west toward the Gulf of Mexico from the east side of Boca Ciega Bay.  Under the thatched roof is an outdoor kitchen.  The photos was taken from a high bridge taking us to the Indian Shores.

I was going through these pictures, when I spotted something in the water, zoomed in... 

A fin!!!

While there are both sharks and dolphins in the waters off St. Pete, I do believe this is a dolphin, as the rear edge of the dorsal fin is so curved.  And the hump at the head, too... though some sharks swim with hump behind head showing... and some varieties of sharks have curved fins... but I think it’s a dolphin. 

After all, there weren’t scores of general populace lining the shore screaming “SHARK!!!  SHARK!!!” 

(Though that, too, can be a sign of a ... dolphin.) 

Maybe I should look back at the St. Petersburg news, and see if any of those kitesurfers lost a leg or anything?

That night, Larry and I drove to town and splurged on a Snickers Blizzard.  It wasn’t on my diet, but that didn’t affect the flavor of it any.

Saturday morning, a friend was telling me about her little two-year-old granddaughter nearly swallowing a coin.  That reminded me of the time Teddy swallowed the propeller from a little toy boat.  It was Saturday night, and I was at church playing the piano while our various singing groups practiced for the service the next day.  Dorcas came rushing in the swinging doors suddenly, saying, “Teddy has a propeller in his throat!”

I didn’t waste time asking questions.  I just fled for the door and dashed across the street to our house. 

The child was breathing okay, and he could talk a bit, but was in obvious distress.  We packed up kids and rushed for the emergency room.

The emergency room doctor, some alien who could barely speak our language, looked at Teddy, peered down his throat with a flashlight, and proclaimed that the propeller had gone down, and had only scratched his throat; that was what was causing him discomfort now.

Teddy, age 4, opened his big eyes wide in indignation.  “No, it’s right here (pointing at the middle-throat area); I can feel it!”

I added my vote.  “If he says it’s there, it’s most likely there.” 

Teddy generally knew what he was talking about.

So they had him drink milk of magnesia while they ran an x-ray. 

He could hardly swallow it; it kept trickling down the sides of his chin.  But there on the screen, we could see the white stuff going down his throat – and when it reached the middle of his throat, the white stream paused, then separated into three separate streams! – because the propeller had three blades.

So the doctor had to admit it was indeed right where the child said it was.  He sprayed some deadening throat spray in Teddy’s mouth, then, using a flexible ‘grabber thingy’ (technological term meaning ‘hooky snagger thingy’), he carefully pulled out the propeller.

He then made some remark belittling Teddy’s intelligence for putting such a thing in his mouth and swallowing, and again Teddy’s eyes flashed.  “But!” that usually-shy child said in even greater indignation than before, “I didn’t do it on porpose!  I was lying on the floor, playing with the boat, and the propeller falled off and landed in my mouth and went in my throat before I knew it!”

So the doctor laughed and patted Teddy’s shoulder and apologized.

We forgave him, packed up our half-a-dozen kids, and went home again, breathing great sighs of relief.

My mother was once in a doctor’s office, way back in the early forties, when a grandmother and young mother came rushing in, screaming and crying.  One of the ladies was holding a baby who was limp and blue; she’d pulled a bead off the ‘entertainment bar’ on the front of her stroller as they were going for a walk, put it in her mouth, and choked on it.

The doctor and nurses came running and worked frantically on the child, but it was no use; they couldn’t save her.

My mother never got over that, and was always so very careful about little items that a baby or toddler might put in his mouth, and thus made me and my siblings cautious about it, too.

I must say, it sure is hard to keep little things out of baby’s reach, especially when there are big siblings who have little things they play with, themselves!  So, I told my older children the above story, and worked hard to make them feel responsible for their own ‘little things’, for the sake of the baby.  I don’t know how well it took, though, as I remember often stepping on Lego in the middle of the night.  :-O  :-P  >:-{

When I was young, I traveled north along the west coast with my parents, all the way to Vancouver.  I remember the sea waters crashing against the rocky western coast, with tall, tall mountains immediately to the east.  I remember California’s enormous sequoias and redwoods.  The only really over-populated place we were was in San Francisco, where we went to see a friend of Daddy’s whom he’d known since they were quite young.  We wound up on an Interstate that seemed to have about twelve lanes per side – right during rush hour.  Everything was gridlocked.  How do people get to their jobs and suchlike on time, when that happens??  I never understand how life can work, when cities have rush hours like that.  Well, we had our camper with us, and Mama ran back and got some cold water from the refrigerator for us to drink --- and then someone went around doling out little bags of popcorn, just trotting from car window to car window, handing them out from a giant bag, and someone else was going around giving out little paper cups of lemonade.  I thought it was great sport, a new adventure.  I loved new adventures!  

But ... once was enough.

Aren’t there other roads?  Why does everyone have to be on that one Interstate, all at the same time??

Farther north, we stayed in a campground (rare enough; Daddy was more inclined to park at a truck stop, UGH) in the mountains, under the tallest trees I’d ever seen in my life.  The ground was soft with pine needles, and there was a blue, blue lake with ducks on it.  It was utterly quiet there.

We didn’t find Florida nearly so populated as some warned we would – but much of the time, it was chilly enough that we wore sweaters.  It was actually warmer in Louisiana than it was in that part of Florida where we were.

This screeching seagull was on St. Pete’s Beach.  It was coooooold out there, with the wind blowing in off the water; but it was beautiful. 

Saturday evening, I posted the second half of the photos from Day 6 of our trip to Florida:  From Ft. Pierce Inlet State Park to St. Petersburg

Spaghetti and meatballs were on the stove.  Except... I discovered after putting the meatballs and sauce into the pan that I had no spaghetti.  Sooo... it was actually spaghetti — and broken-up lasagna noodles.

It tasted fine, never mind the oddly-shaped noodles.

We set our clocks forward later that night.

When told the reason for Daylight Saving Time, the old Indian said:

“Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and have a longer blanket.”

Sometimes when we are walking into or out of the church, we hear a rooster crowing nearby.  Somebody who lives in the vicinity has chickens in his back yard.  This is the neighborhood where I was born and grew up, and hearing chickens there seems mighty odd, to me. 

After church last night, we visited with some of our family, then we stopped at the store for eggs before coming home.  There’s nothing so deflating as getting one’s chops all polished up for an egg on toast bright and early one morning... putting a pan on the stove... a pat of butter in the pan... turning on the stove... opening the refrigerator... and finding... no eggs.  :’-(   ((waa waa waa))

As we got out of the Jeep on our back drive, I could plainly hear a bat chirping away, somewhere up under the eaves.  And, somewhere on the property, something has died.  :-O  :-P

Ah, the joys of living in the country!

Last night, I heard an owl hooting in nearby trees.  We don’t hear them nearly so much, since the pine sawyer beetle took out so many of the trees on our hillside.  Horrid ol’ beetles!  I loved all those Austrian pines!  It’s going to take a looong time for our little blue spruces to get that big.

As I type, sitting here beside my open kitchen window, I can hear cardinals, robins, juncos, goldfinches, English sparrows, chipping sparrows, blue jays, house finches, and another bird I don’t recognize.  Perhaps it is some type of oriole?  A thrasher?  Brown thrashers are in the same family as the mockingbird and catbird, and, just like them, can imitate and make up new tunes.  They all have a rich, melodious warble (or a loud screech, if they so desire).

Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge to St. Petersburg

What a pretty day it is today.  I wish I could work on my letter and pictures out on the back deck, but I can’t see my computer screen well enough in such bright light.  Hmmm... unless I put the deck umbrella up, maybe?  Trouble is, it’s very tall, and I can hardly get the cover off of it so I can open it, and it’s right next to the railing, and I have to stand on a chair.  Aiiyiiieeee, that makes my hair stand up on end, and sends a tingle through my scalp and down my back, just thinking about it.  The back deck is one story up.  (I have done it, though.)

Well, I think I’ll just open all the windows and doors, and stay here by the window in the kitchen.  The juncos haven’t left for the far north yet, but they’re already singing their courting songs – a pretty little warble, and they fan out their snowy-white-edged dark charcoal tail feathers with each melodious trill.  The first time I heard that, I couldn’t imagine what bird was making the noise – I’d only heard the juncos’ winter call, a sharp ‘chip! chip! chip!’  I keep hoping that one of these days, a pair will forget to head north, and nest in my yard.

They never forget, though. 

Okay, time for breakfast.  Hmmm... ((rummaging through the cupboard))  I have a choice of raisin/date/walnut oatmeal, or ..... Well, that’s about it.

I know, I know!  I’ll have raisin/date/walnut oatmeal!

Victoria has the day off, and is spending the afternoon with Lydia and three little boys, Jacob, Jonathan, and baby Ian.  Jacob and Jonathan have been longing for her to come play with them.

In a little bit, I’ll do some work on another flower garden.  If I can just give the yard a few minutes each day, I can make it look nice.  I’ll betcha Victoria won’t be spending much time on gardening this year, whataya bet?? – because... she and Kurt just set the date for a wedding.  October 30, that’s the plan.

Two of the front flowerbeds are cleared out; there are a lot more to go.  When the hostas start coming up, I need to transplant some of them.  The flowerbed on the west side of the house is a colossal mess.  I call it ‘an English cottage garden’ in the hopes that everyone will think I made it that way on purpose – but I have yet to see an English cottage garden that is such a frantic jumble of too-many flowers!  Gotta do sumpthang ’bout it, I do, I do.

Therefore, I’m off to put on my leather gardening gloves!

,,,>^..^<,,,     Sarah Lynn     ,,,>^..^<,,,