I Come from Haunts of Coot and Hern, and Crochet Art

Sorry, couldn't resist the quotation, though I can't remember offhand which poet I'm quoting. Literate blogistas are warmly invited to chime in and tell us,though.

Anyway, this is a group of coots I surprised on my walk on the Preserve the other day, local tiny wilderness area, when I went down a narrow path to the edge of the lake, where they were taking baths, why do water birds take baths, in a nice little inlet, hidden by rushes from view.



They took off quickly after they spotted me.



I love coots, aside from their comic name, because they dive and surface where you won't notice them, and they're chunky and toylike, bobbing up and down on the surface of the waves.

Home again, to show you the treasure of crochet I was given via Freecycle the other day. Turns out that, as I thought, every piece really is handmade, some of it virtuoso crochet work, from the older generation of the giver's family. So I'm really happy to honor their work by giving it another surge of life.

Here's one beautiful piece, now under glass on my side table where I sit and watch birds and drink morning coffee.




And here's the group of the rest of it, wonderful stuff some of which I have plans for -- incorporating into wallhangings, creating summer purses, forming into new wallhangings with no further work needed,just to show the wonder of this work.



This is not just the busy work that people used to do, though. This is truly fine work and worth preserving. The family did keep a lot of what they found when emptying a relative's house, and only gave away their surplus. So they did know what they had here, and handled it with respect.