Because Yahoo groups are declining and often
have little activity, last week I joined a quilting group on Facebook that has
over 75,000 members.
I looked through my Facebook settings to turn
a few privacy settings to public so I can offer my patterns there and hopefully
sell more. I don’t know my way around Facebook very well, though
I’ve had a Facebook account for years. I haven’t used it much, as I’m
unimpressed with many of their policies. But I’ve figured
out all sorts of things in the last week.
I got
everything switched to public that I wanted public, and everything kept private
that I wanted private – all except one lone person, a cousin of mine, who
seemed for one reason or another to be an entity unto himself. I had evidently categorized him differently when
I confirmed or affirmed or allowed or accepted something he asked or requested
a little while ago, and
my settings for all my other friends (the hefty number of a couple dozen) were
not applying to him.
I
searched around for a way to change it, and while I
was hunting, I went away from that spot entirely, and then I couldn’t get back
to it! Haha, I sound like some of those li’l ol’ ladies who used to call
for help when I worked at Megavision.
They’d get so lost, it was a wonder they ever found themselves again in
their own homes.
Meanwhile, my cousin, noticing my updated
Facebook page, promptly clicked ‘Like’ on all the new things I did. Now
if I go try to remove his notoriety (uh, public face, whatever-it’s-called),
will it be as though I’ve punched him in the nose for liking my quilt?
Okay, found it. I had to click ‘About’...
scroll down... find a line reading ‘Family and Relationships’... and then there’s
an Edit function over on the right, which shows only if you happen to hover
your mouse directly over it. Who would ever know this?? I changed the option
from ‘Public’ to ‘Only Me’. My cousin
will wonder why I wanted the world to know he was my cousin – for two short
hours only.
Within 30 minutes of posting on the Facebook
group ‘Quilting’, 130 people had visited my blog. The pattern I posted
had 95 ‘Likes’. If they’d pay me for those likes, I’d be in the clover!
It was
my sister Lura Kay’s 76th birthday Tuesday. I got her a mug with a picture of Marble
Lighthouse on the side, a box of fruity herbal teas, a little teaspoon with a
tiny ceramic teapot at the tip of the handle, a white ceramic teapot-shaped
teabag holder, and an orange-blossom-scented candle.
I
wonder if she likes tea?
It was a pretty day, sunny and warm, supposed to get into the
low 70s. The wrens were singing their hearts out.
After doing a bit of ‘bookwork’ on my
computer, I headed for the sewing room. I had a table topper to put together!
The
cat we call ‘Tiger’ sure would like to come in the house. I
wonder if he could actually fit through the pet door? I sorta doubt
it. He’s biiiig. 20 pounds, easy.
Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to know about the pet door.
Teddy stopped by to pick up a shovel or two
to plant a little cedar tree he’d gotten at one of Walkers’ jobsites. He
came in the house carrying Tiger (and called him by that name, just because
that’s what he looks like), and exclaiming over how big he was. The cat
was a bit scared, having been picked up by someone he didn’t know, and then
brought into the house, which makes him a little nervous in the first place,
even if he does want in.
But soon he was purring and rubbing around on
us, shedding hair, and putting Teddy at risk of an asthma attack. “Wash,
wash!” I exclaimed, pointing him in the direction of the sink.
Teddy’s so funny... he really likes animals,
and he’s liable to just pick up some strange beast and remove several ticks,
maybe treat its ear mites, or take a thorn from its paw, without the slightest
worry whatsoever. And the animal invariably
acts all docile, and, afterwards, appreciative.
And yes, he once thought perhaps he’d be a
veterinarian.
It wouldn’t have been a viable choice,
though, on account of his asthma and allergies.
By evening, there’d been nearly 1,000 visits
to my blog, and over 400 downloads of my latest free pattern. One person
wrote to ask if she could purchase all the patterns to date. She worded it very carefully and politely,
but obviously wanted a discount.
Well, I’ve looked around at other people’s
patterns, and I see that $5 per pattern is about right, not too much, and not
too little; and I’m not rich enough to be nice enough to give discounts,
ha! Sooo... I just as carefully and politely told her that yes indeed she
can purchase all the patterns, and then I gave her the links whereby she
might do so.
“She’ll just think I’m too stupid to know
what she really wanted,” I told Larry – and was shortly proven correct
when she wrote back to more directly ask for a discount. I responded with a more direct refusal.
I was going great guns on
getting that table topper put together, but quite suddenly I acquired a bad
sore throat, and didn’t feel so great. So
before it ever got to be midnight, I quit for the night.
Trouble was, I had quilt blocks spread out on
the floor in my sewing room. If Victoria
needed to iron something early in the morning, this could present a problem, as
the iron and board are right there in the sewing room, and those blocks were
all around and under the ironing board.
I lit on what I thought a good plan: I’d take a picture of them, so that if she happened
to move them, I’d be able to look at the picture and put them back in order.
When I came downstairs to sew the next day, I did indeed
find my quilt blocks misplaced. But I
would later learn that it hadn’t been Victoria who had misplaced them. It was Larry
coming in to find heavy thread and sturdy needle to fix a seat in the truck
he’d been driving. Furthermore, he had his work boots on! :-O
((hair standing up on end)) Not
notice the quilt blocks, he trod right through them without seeing them until
he turned to exit the room (and was then of course duly horrified, probably
more so envisioning his wife going ballistic than for any worry about dirt on fabric).
However, by some extremely curious phenomena, his boots –
are you sitting down? – were not dirty. I cannot find any spots or marks whatsoever
on the quilt blocks – and there’s white
fabric on each and every one.
That
day, I got the blocks for the Pineapples and Pinwheels table
topper put together, and started removing the newsprint foundation paper from
the back.
Larry
and I must’ve both been craving caramel.
I ordered two bags of Starbucks Caramel coffee from Amazon... and he
bought one bag of Panera Bread Salted Caramel coffee and another bag of Folgers
Caramel Drizzle coffee at Hy-Vee. Then
two more bags arrived that I’d ordered from Wal-Mart, including one from Eight
O’Clock, Caramel Macchiato.
Wednesday
was the day we had our graduation services at church. I stayed home, on account of the sore throat
and earaches I’d acquired. Waaa, waa, waa. At least I was able to watch it
online. I listen to that large group of
children sing... and I think of how amazed my father, our founding pastor,
would have been to see how many there are now, and what a testimony they are to
his teaching. He started with a congregation of 26. There are now almost
400.
There was a slide show on the big screen with
pictures of the graduates as kindergartners, first-graders, sixth-graders, etc.
Much as I would’ve liked to have been
there, I must say that it was considerably easier for me to watch on my laptop
than it is to watch at church, because of the blepharospasm that particularly
plagues me there.
There was a lot of racket upstairs after everyone got
home. I thought it was just Victoria clomping
about in her high heels feeding Larry, Kurt, and Jared the pasta-chicken-vegetable
stew she’d made, but then Larry came downstairs to keep me company while he ate,
and told me he’d been chasing a bat. He
caught it atop the cupboards, then released it outside.
When
he finished the stew, he actually helped me remove paper from the back of a couple
of blocks. Unheard of. I think he was trying to absolve himself of
guilt from treading upon those same blocks, what do you think?
Thursday
morning, I started the day by washing a heap of dishes
that the maid forgot about. It was sunny with puffy white clouds, and 61°.
The goldfinches are in full summer attire, and look like bright flying flowers.
I paid some bills... placed an order at
Wal-Mart.com... and headed downstairs to finish getting paper off the back of
the quilt.
I
opened the door at the top of the stairs – and found Tabby sitting there forlornly. He’d gotten stuck in the basement somehow,
and had probably been down there all night.
Poor little thing! He purred and
rubbed on my ankles while I got him some food.
Cats rarely blame you for accidentally locking them in somewhere; but they are everlastingly grateful that you let them
out.
Neither he nor Teensy will meow to get out when they’re behind a shut
door. Now and then we might hear them
scritch-scratching on the door, trying to get it open, but they hardly ever
make a peep. Kitty and Socks, on the
other hand, would howl loudly enough to wake the dead, should we ever shut them in somewhere.
That afternoon, I saw a tiny little rubythroat
hummingbird buzzing around the lilacs. The sun shone on his brilliant
scarlet gorget, and his emerald green back glittered. A little flying
jewel, he is!
I promptly boiled a new batch of hummingbird
nectar on the stove and rinsed out the feeder.
When the nectar cooled, I poured some into the feeder and hung it
outside.
Lydia
sent pictures of Baby Ian; he was three months old that day. What a beautiful, bright little face that baby has!
Later that evening, with fingers, hands, and
wrists tired of pulling paper off of fabric, I spent a while looking at Google
maps, images, and Google Street View. I like wandering about on Street
View; it makes me feel almost as if I was right there. I traipsed up and
down some streets in Manhattan where a quilting friend lives, turned corners,
got lost, and had to plug the address back into Search to get back to where I
started. Then I went to map view, zoomed out, and looked at the overall
picture.
Did you know that New York City has a
population density of 27,578 persons per square mile? Sitka, Alaska, on
the other hand, has a population density of 3.1 persons per square mile. Paris has New York City beat by almost double:
55,855 persons per square mile. And they call it the City of
Lights?! I think Claustrophobia Megalopolitan would be a better
term. New York City has four times the total population, though.
Oops... my computer was running a bit slow
(fan on high – something’s using up too much temporary RAM... what is it? –
must have too many weather apps running all at once) ... I accidentally swiped
three fingers across my touchpad, impatiently trying to get the Street View to
move – and I wound up with an aerial 3D view of Jackson Square, the Hudson
River, etc. I can click on each individual building, and get its name and
address. There’s the Magnolia Bakery... the Spotted Pig... Abingdon
Square Park... I could just play
with this all day long. Here’s The Jane, for $325/night. The description: “This former
sailors’ residence has an opulent lobby, plus cozy rooms & cabins with free
Wi-Fi.”
If you zoom in too much in this 3D aerial
view, or whatever it’s called, things get all distorted and you wind up with
Art Deco. And then I discovered that
clicking on certain establishments on Google Street View takes one right
straight into the business, where one can ‘walk’ around and look at everything
in high def! – at least in New York City, it does. Here, get a load of
this – I walked right into Jeffrey Rosenberg’s Advanced Dentistry Care! Makes my teeth hurt just looking at the picture.
Judging by the businesses one can ‘go inside’
of, it appears that the Google Street Guys (sounds like a name for a music
band) like the hooch-serving establishments.
Here’s a funny thing. Once inside a place, you can’t exit through
a window; you have to go back out through the door. So now we know that
the GSG aren’t ghosts, hmm?
I finished taking the newsprint foundation
paper off the back of the table topper, sewed together the backing, ironed
everything, and got it loaded on the quilting frame. And then I discovered
that I had no batting that was the right size or the right kind, either
one. If I’d’ve been ‘up to power’, as a friend of ours used to say, I’d
have hopped in the Jeep and barreled off to Wal-Mart to get some. But I
wasn’t, so I didn’t.
Instead, I got a pantograph sized and ready
to print, and I printed a page telling the newlyweds what this quilt may be
used for (a table topper, a couch throw, a lap throw, or an end-of-the-bed
coverlet) and how to launder it. I have a box of Color Catchers to
enclose in the box.
Then, with the perfectly good excuse of
having no batting, I returned to Google Street View. I looked at The Apple, a park
with actual green stuff growing in it – even several tall things that look
suspiciously like trees; I walked through the Hudson River
Greenway, and stared at boats – yachts, I should say – by the Hudson. I wound up in the Hampton Gourmet
Deli.
Over here we have The Roxy,
where you can stay for a mere $275 a night (moderate, by Manhattan standards),
and have goldfish in your room by request (are they talking about those little
fish-shaped crackers?). Here’s another view of The Roxy.
Sometimes the Google cameras don’t stitch things
together quite right. Is this guy coming
up out of, or going down into
the drain? And where did the other half
of that girl go?
I found a flower market – Abingdon Square ... and
then there’s the view nearly straight down from the Empire State
Building.
One more thing I discovered: You can
click on a little clock, top left, and you’ll be given a timeline whereby you
can look at the same view through years gone by.
And with that, I headed for the feathers, feeling
like I’d been on a short vacation – and hadn’t nearly finished with it. I
should know better than to get started on something like that,
obsessive-compulsive person that I am. I like geography... I like history...
I like travel... I like exploring... and I like nifty computer stuff.
Friday,
I had a bowl of Raisin, Date, & Walnut oatmeal for
breakfast, with a side of two Arthritis Tylenol tablets. I take them
rarely, and they don’t really help much when I do. But I hoped they’d
kick in in a few minutes, and I’d work up enough oomph to go to Hobby Lobby for
the batting. Hobby Lobby is only 7 miles away; Wal-Mart is 15. So
there was a bonus to not going the night before, when Hobby Lobby was
closed. Plus, Hobby Lobby has more to choose from.
Reckon anyone would notice that I smelled
like hot rice? (I had a heated rice bag behind my back. Ahhhhh...)
I got Mountain Mist Ultra-Fine polyester
batting. This quilt was going to be a table topper, so it needed to be
thin. The cashier looked up the item in
her flyer, and I wound up with the $15 full-sized batting for $11. Not too
bad.
Home again, I noticed as I crossed the back
deck that the bird feeder needed to be refilled. The birds are going through seed like
hotcakes, trying to keep their ravenous youngsters satisfied. One afternoon there was a papa finch with four
babies at the feeder! He was working his head off, trying to keep them
fed. They screeched and squawked and chased after him, and one finally
pecked him in extreme impatience, whereupon he flew to the opposite side of the feeder. The baby looked this way and that... stood on tiptoes and tried
to peer into the opaque side of the feeder... then squatted down low and tried
peering in under a metal leaf... They’re
so funny to watch!
I loaded the batting, printed the pantograph,
taped the pages together, and got it all positioned just right. Then I dashed upstairs, stuck a Schwan’s
chicken casserole in the oven, started timers on both the oven and on my computer,
and launched into the quilting.
By 10:00 p.m., I’d reached the halfway point.
A friend asked if the longarm and frame made things
easier, or if it was so much work loading quilt top, back, and batting that it
really wasn’t worth it. I wrote back:
Yes indeedy, it’s sooo much easier quilting
on the longarm than it was on the domestic. The last one I did on the
domestic was the king-sized Mariner’s Star, and my shoulders, neck, and
especially my elbows didn’t recover for six months thereafter. I was so
very thankful when we found this used HQ16 at a price we could afford. I
can do things on it I could only dream of doing on the DSM.
Loading the quilt on the frame is a whole lot
faster and easier than making a quilt sandwich on table or floor, trying to
make sure there are no wrinkles, and that everything is straight. I use Red Snappers on the front bars, though
I generally pin the whole works to the leader on the take-up bar that travels
through the machine’s throat. I did use the Red Snappers both top and
bottom on the Christmas tree skirt, and I basted (with the longarm machine)
around the sides. Releasing a quilt from
the frame is a snap with the Red Snappers – just pull them off, and it’s
free. Takes about 15 seconds, tops.
Loading the quilt ... hmmm... I always forget
to time it. I suppose it’s under 30 minutes, for a full-sized quilt. I used my laser light with a pantograph to do
the quilting on this table topper. Sure makes things easy! But I
like free-motion quilting, too. I like quilting with rulers.
“Yesirree, this is easy!” she said, as she
limped off to do that last row of quilting, rubbing her aching hands as she
went.
But I was allllmost done... allllmost done...
allllmost done...
Shortly before 2:00 a.m., I was done, I was done!
And done for. I took the quilt from the frame; I would trim it and
start on the binding the next day.
Speaking of binding... I find those inside V corners trickier than
the outer corners. By the time I work my way all the way around that
quilt, I should be a pro at it though, right?
...
((reconsidering)) ...
Or
have eight thoroughly messed-up inside V corners, one or the other.
The thread I used to quilt the table topper
is Superior’s variegated King Tut in ‘Sheaves’ color. It’s a light
gold/dark gold/bronze – and Heidi’s kitchen is aqua blue, bronze, and white; so
I thought it would be a good thread to use. I would never have purchased
that color of thread, but I had a customer some time back who wanted gold
thread on the black background of her quilt. Since I was doing an intense
double-feather scroll, and the quilt was large, I purchased 3 or 4 (maybe 5?)
large cones of that thread. I wound up with 1 ½ left over, and thought I’d
never, ever use it again – but I’ve used it on at least three quilts since
then, just because it was exactly the right color to either blend or contrast.
One of the things I’ve had a bit of trouble
with, in thread color, is when I use a totally different color on the top than
on the bottom (in the bobbin). I often used 40# thread on top and 60#
underneath (the higher the number, the finer the thread), and getting the
tension exxxaaactly right so neither thread showed through to the other side
was indeed a challenge.
I came to two conclusions: 1)
It might be better to have the bobbin thread match the top thread rather the
backing fabric (makes the back interesting, as a bonus), and 2) It’s
easier to get the tension right if there’s finer thread on top. So as I
use up my 40# thread, I’m replacing it with 50#. Since I often do fairly
heavy quilting, 50# looks better anyway – it sinks into the fabric and doesn’t
look so thick, especially where I retrace stitching lines.
When I first got my machine, I was told to
use the 40#/60# combination. But in researching the matter more thoroughly,
and learning what the pros use, I discovered they more often use finer threads
on top. I’d gotten the impression that finer threads would break, if used
on top. But that’s not the case, so long as tension and timing and needle
size are right.
My very best tensions are when the top and
bottom threads are the same weight. However, one does wind up
refilling the bobbin quite a bit more often, using 50# instead of 60#!
Oh, and by the way: as for whether or
not a quilt will be too stiff if there is intense quilting, as many say it will
be... with very fine thread, that problem is negligible.
Saturday, I trimmed the Pineapples and
Pinwheels table topper, cut the binding, sewed it together, and started
attaching it to the quilt. A little
after midnight, I finished sewing down the back side of the binding. I carried it upstairs to take pictures of it...
and noticed as I was smoothing it out that I’d totally missed a little section
of feathered leaves in the pantograph. So,
after finishing the pictures, I put the quilt back on the frame, fired up the
HQ16, moved the panto into place, and finished the design.
I still need to steam the inside corners (i.e., ‘smoosh them
down flat’) and sew my tag on the back. More
pictures are here.
Any suggestions as to what to do with the
quilted half square triangles – 8 large (12 ½”), 4 small (6”) – cut from the
sides of the table topper? One side is backing (a small flowered design
on mottled ecru and cream) and the other side is muslin. Maybe I could
incorporate them into some type of bag?
I opened the door to let one of the cats out at 1:00 a.m. – and heard
a mockingbird out in the trees somewhere singing his heart out! He goes through a repertoire that imitates
every bird common to the area – robins, English sparrows, cardinals, house
finches, goldfinches, blue jays, orioles, wood thrushes, brown thrashers, etc.
– and he adds numerous tunes of his own. Quite the songster he is!
I stayed home from church again Sunday,
because of this nasty cold. It was windy, and though the sun was shining,
the sky was a dirty white color.
Victoria had dinner at Kurt’s house. Her contribution to the menu was a fresh
blueberry pie she’d made Saturday night.
She brought home a piece for Larry and I to share. Mmmm, it was scrumptious. And too small of a sliver.
A question was asked on one of the online
quilting groups: What drew you to
quilting?
Well, once upon a time, back when I was 18, I
was paging through the J. C. Penney’s catalog, looking at bedroom sets. I
came upon a puff or biscuit quilt that made me drool.
I can do that, I
thought, and off I went to get some fabric. I chose satin, in brown and
peach, in order to match other things in my room. But before I got the
fabric cut, Larry and I started making wedding plans. So, not wanting to
spend any money unnecessarily, I instead used the fabric for my bridesmaids’
dresses. Our color scheme was brown, peach, and cream.
Everyone immediately decided that my favorite
color was peach. (It isn’t.)
I didn’t make a quilt until a couple of years
later, when I appliquéd a giant sailboat onto a large piece of fabric
(twin-sized), stuffed it from the back, put it together with backing and two
layers of the thickest batting I could find, and used the ‘birthing’ method to
finish the edges (right sides together, turn, stitch the hole shut). I
then tied it with yarn. That was for oldest son Keith. He loved
that quilt. Even tried to lug it around, though it was made for his
twin-sized captain’s bed, and not really a drag-around.
Sooo... if I was 20 when I made that, then I’ve
been quilting for 35 years. But that’s not really accurate, since up
until 2003 or so, I mostly did clothing. Lots of clothing.
But every now and then, if all the children’s clothes for Christmas/Easter/ Fourth
of July/Thanksgiving/school were done, I happily relaxed with a Lone Star quilt
or a cross-stitched bunny baby quilt or... whatever struck my fancy.
Soon I must launch into bridesmaid/candlelighter/etc.
dresses for Victoria’s wedding. Somebody tell me I won’t ever have to
do this again.
Several friends have suggested using the HSTs
cut from the table topper sides to make hot pads. I thought about that; I’ve done it with
leftover quilted pieces from casserole covers I made. But these have Mountain
Mist Ultra-fine polyester batting, and muslin on one side, not really suitable
for potholders. Besides... I think I’m done with the wedding
gift! I’m done, I’m done, I’m done. I still need to add my tag –
and even that sounds like a chore now. Do you ever feel that way,
after finishing something? You don’t want to do one more thing on it.
Maybe it’s because I’m under the weather, the
sink’s full of dishes, the floors need to be vacuumed and mopped, I need to
post another pattern, I need to start on bridesmaids’ and candlelighters’
dresses, and, ... uh... sweet little almost-toothless Tabby kitty is begging
for his soft food. He’s 18 ½ years old – that’s the equivalent of 89 ½,
in human years.
I might not want to do anything else in the
way of a wedding gift right now, but I don’t mind feeding Tabby cat!
Amy
sent pictures of the kids playing
with their new kittens last evening. They're so cute (kids and kits both)... including one kitten that's all sprawled out on account of being unable to get his footing on the wood floor. That floor is slipppppery!
Victoria
brought home a can of blueberry pie filling to put in a small extra pie shell
she’d made Saturday night. She had
leftover streusel topping, too. So Larry
and I wound up with another piece of blueberry pie after all. It was good... but it didn’t quite equal the fresh blueberries.
A friend wrote and asked if I’m treating myself
for this cold.
“Yep,” I answered, “I’m treating myself with
caramel drizzle coffee and blueberry pie.
There are no known side effects – because... the bathroom scale is
broken. hahaha”
Today I felt like I was in the middle of
Drama Central for a little while:
So here I stand, minding my own business,
reading my email, the news, and the funnies (not necessarily in that order)
whilst I curl my hair... and I hear, “Cccccccccccrrrrrrasssssshhhh... slllllide...”
Now, I’d heard the FedEx truck pull into the
lane a few minutes earlier, saw the guy peering into the back of his truck in a
‘what am I doing here’ sort of way... and I know they are notorious for
putting packages where packages are not wont to go.
But I’ve put a note on the front and back
garage doors saying, “Do not put packages in garage! Put packages either
on front porch or in front door.”
Hannah saw the note last week, laughed, said,
“You forgot to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.”
“That’s ’cuz I wuz all-steamed-up after
finding lost boxes hidden here and there in the garage, some of them all wet
from the rain!” I retorted. “Plus, I’ve called and emailed the companies
(UPS and FedEx) time and again to no avail.”
“I figured that,” she nodded, still grinning.
(My piqué makes my offspring grin?!)
So ... I thought the noise must be the FedEx
guy, but what was he doing?
I wandered out into living room, kitchen,
laundry room (where the back patio door is)... nothing. Came back to
finish curling hair and reading the funnies.
Then ------- CCCCcccccrsrrrrrrrrsssaaaaaashshshshs!!!!!!
Ssscccccrrrrrrraaaape!
So now I’ve decided that evidently the FedEx
guy has found a ladder, shinnied up it, and is playing slip-slide on the
roof. Or an ax murderer has gotten into the house, never dreaming that he’ll
have to cope with me. Ah ain’t what ah look, huh-uh,
nosiree. En garde!
I march forth to find the culprit.
...
...
...
Film at 11.
...
...
...
...
...
Oh, you want The Rest Of The Story now?
Wellllll... alrighty then.
What I found was... Teensy in the washroom,
in gleeful pursuit of a baby bunny he’d evidently brought into the house to
play with. Play with first, eat later. Or not.
Aaaarrrrgggghhhh. I hate cats.
I yell. I sound funny. I have a
bad cold; I’m hoarse. Teensy looks at me in a bemused sort of way. ‘Huh?
You sound funny.’ The bunny skids under a branching, blooming arm of
Kalanchoe. I try to pick him up; he makes a leap for it. Teensy
scampers forward. I yell. Teensy stops, looks at me
curiously. ‘You really do sound
funny.’ The bunny runs for the patio door. I hurry to open it, scaring the bunny.
He lippity-lops toward the hallway leading into the kitchen. Long-legged
Teensy lippity-lops after him. ‘Fun fun fun!’
I yell and holler, making both Teensy and
bunny hop faster.
I yell. They hop. I shout.
They skedaddle.
Now they are side by side, rushing madly into
the kitchen, neither any longer worried about the other; both concerned only
with the screeching fishwife (someone who’s married to a fish?) clomping along
behind them. The bunny zigzags, as bunnies young and old are wont to do
in times of great duress. This puts him in and out of Teensy’s
undersides, and through and between his feet. Teensy trips and stumbles
along. Feline and cottontail both dodge under the table.
Teensy decides to take the cat-chase-bunny
game back up. I yell and follow the critters under the table on all
fours. Critters scatter. Humans on all fours are fearsome things
indeed, things not to be trifled with. Bunny
runs toward the front door. I scramble up and open it. He panics,
whips around, and hippity-hops back toward the laundry room.
There’s a reason why they are called ‘dumb
bunnies’!!!
I hold up a hand in front of Teensy as he
starts out from under the table, palm facing out. “Stop!” I order.
He does. All my cats know what ‘stop’ means. And they know that if
they don’t stop when I say ‘stop’, I start throwing things, and I’m a
good shot. (Please recall the ‘En Garde’ utterance of Paragraph 12 in
this sequence.) (No, don’t call the Humane Society; I’ve not maimed any
of my sweet kitties yet. I throw lip balm tubes, not anvils.)
I trail the bunny back into the laundry room,
pulling the hallway door shut behind me. At least we now have a
Separation of Bun and Cat.
I opened the patio door. Then I
systematically went to blocking off all the little hidey holes behind dryer,
washing machine, pattern file, hamper...
The bunny scrambled. He dodged.
He ducked. He hid. He bounced. He hopped. And then,
suddenly, nose a-twitch, he detected ... open air. He hopped to
the door sill... and he leaped out onto the deck.
And then my heart stopped as he dashed
headlong for the edge of the deck – one story up.
He came to a halt just in time. There
he sat, staring in longing and fascination at the green, green grass far
beneath him.
I looked around. Ah, a large snow
shovel. I picked it up... went to a far railing... held the shovel over
the railing and down by the edge of the deck, like a retaining wall, sort of,
to guard against inadvertent bunny suicide. I advanced then, hoping to
make the bunny go toward the steps.
It worked. The poor little rabbit was
scared, but, one slow step at a time, and then faster and faster, down the
stairs he went. He reached the landing, about three feet above a
flowerbed of hostas and irises, sniffed, considered, and bailed off, little
back feet slipping and sliding as he went. Soon he was hidden amongst the
tall leaves, doubtless gone to proudly tell his family his heroic exploits.
His survival is no longer up to me; I’ve done
what I can to ensure the perpetuation of the species.
Rabbits! They need all the help they
can get!
(Don’t they?)
I just refilled the finch feeder. A friend
calls the birds that frequent her feeders ‘lil feathered pigs’. hee
hee Good description! Whoever said ‘eats like a bird’, meaning ‘very
small amounts’, never kept a bird feeder full, now did he?
Birds actually eat a whole lot. Some
eat as much food in one day as their own body weight, or even double their
weight. But the winner might be the hummingbird, who can eat up to 12 times its weight in
one day. They can consume 100 percent
of their body’s weight in sugar water or nectar every day, in
addition to as many as 2,000 tiny insects.
This
afternoon, two juvenile finches were perched on the same feeder perch at the
same time. Finch #1 watched while the Finch
#2 pecked up some seeds, cracked them, and ate.
Then Finch #2 watched while Finch #1 did the same. Funny little birds!
I
posted a few more of our vacation photos to a photography forum. We saw so many unique (to us) and interesting
things. Wish we'd have had time to stop
more often! One thing about photos,
though – they stop time, and can be looked at later. Nifty little thing, is a photo!
Somewhere
in the Florida Panhandle, we crossed a bridge, and I whipped the camera around
and pressed the shutter button without looking through the lens. Well, I got a halfway decent shot of a small
river – and when I looked at the shot on my large laptop screen, lo and behold,
off in the distance, on several logs over the water, there was a whole raft of
turtles sunning themselves, conversing, fixing lunch, and doing whatever
turtles do in their living rooms and kitchens. I’d have never seen that, had it not been for
the photo.
The
mockingbird is singing again tonight, and now it’s imitating the bull frog
that’s in our little pond! Now a
killdeer... now a blue jay... now a mixture of chickadee and robin, almost simultaneously. He’s been going at it for two hours now
without letup. Boy oh boy, can he ever
sing!
It’s
past my bedtime. So I shall go find it! The bed, that is.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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