Avian drama, car drama and natural art

Friday the contractors arrived at 7:30, all ready to finish the stucco, and the kitchen.

I'm told this will dry lighter.

So much cooler that  I picked a few flowers for a bouquet.

It's guarded by a white hound, Herend porcelain, usually to be found on a high shelf in the kitchen. 

Then I gladly escaped for a walk, and found myself in an avian drama. I'd heard a Carolina wren singing and getting responses. 

See on the roof there. He's there. Really. 

Then I saw another wren in a nearby  arborvitae bush, both unconcerned about me, but both shouting a range of songs. Then a male cardinal flew out of the bush, pursued by one of the wrens down the street. I think maybe he was intruding on their nest site. Wrens are fierce defenders of their nests. 

I've seen them take down a squirrel in a similar drama, one pecking his head, one his tail, till he was happy to escape, with them pursuing him for a couple of hundred yards.

That was a good year because their nest was on our patio and we didn't see another squirrel for months. The nest was a beautiful piece of architecture which the children's department of the library accepted for their nature corner.

The recent torrential rains have made lichen flourish 

And the cloudy weather means the morning glories stay open a bit longer.

And the complications with the car continue. We had another round of  texts and emails. They processed an upwardly revised claim, will send the difference directly to the body shop. I was in touch with them.  That's sorted, finally.

Meanwhile Gary was trying to get someone to help him retrieve the car  I'm stuck here because of the contractor needing me to be present for payment, and the other friend is in India. Timing! We did manage it and the car's  home again, looking very nice.

I'm starting the yes2next August challenge, saves thinking about what video next. Numbers refer to their YouTube videos.

Happy day everyone, keep fit, guard your home and your rights! Sez Ted and Big Ursy 

Spring is starting to happen, weaving and Freecycle

Here's a wonderful spring happening, permission granted from photographer Kizzia Mildmay 

And after mentioning paper weaving using shredder strips, here are a few pieces I made using my shredded photographs 

Bathroom art!

Artist book covers awaiting assembly and pages.

And while I looked for the weavings, I came across paper to Freecycle 

Materials usually go over well. The tan papers are mulberry, and there are various tissues, tracing paper, nice card stock, index cards, drawings on artist made paper, a grab bag.

And there's quite a bit of artwork, drawing, embroideries, photo and fabric transfer, ink and wash, ink drawings, so we'll see if there's a taker 

Weekends are good for Freecycling because people are free and out and about.

So that's a change from medical bulletins and miserable billionaires.

Happy day everyone, even if you're just a hundredaire!

Misfits day and assistive devices

After the hours stuck yesterday in the surgical waiting room chair, despite my getting up and stretching and trying not to get stiff, my dodgy hip was in a state this morning.

I hadn't walked yesterday and really wanted to today, so I bowed to reality and rummaged in the coat closet for the cane last used many years ago by Handsome Partner.

I fiddled about to get it adjusted to fit then went to YouTube to learn how to use it! To be exact, which hand to hold it in. Turns out you do best using the hand opposite the hurting part.

So I did that and took a trial short walk to test my skills. I got the hang of it and the hip definitely hurts less with the support of the cane.  The only tiny hitch was bursting out laughing at the comic figure I cut trying to get my feet moving right, the cane mixing me up at first. Like the caterpillar forgetting how to move his feet when he starts thinking about it.

So I got home and posed on the deck as a scary old lady sitting leaning on her cane ready to judge people and wave it about threateningly. It gives a new meaning to raising cane.. You kids get off my lawn! It's a plain cane, and I'm thinking of decorating it.

I did see an interesting lichen on my walk, not many lichen this year, maybe because of the drought, which looked like a white freehand drawing on a tree.

Later I did stretches and weights and the standing up exercise, to get back in trim, or as near to trim as I can get anyway.

Misfits box arrived, and the recyclables from the last box were picked up 

I'm trying purple garlic, new to me, but you can't go far wrong with garlic, oat milk which I could make at home but why not, Nancy's yogurt likewise,  honeynut squash I think I'll probably bake and stuff, since they're small and a nice flavor. Black beans to keep up my bean department, you always need back up beans.

This was a small order, between larger ones. It's such a luxury to have great food appearing reliably on the step. I used to hate grocery shopping and get in a blur with the choices and finding where they'd moved my things this time.

I think rearranging the store is a marketing idea, to bring you past different items you might suddenly need. It backfires with me, just making me annoyed when I'm traipsing around in search of something that was right there last week.

I'm now reading the latest Osman 

This is the first of a new series, different characters from the Thursday Murder Club series, and up to now looks like fun.

Happy day everyone, use whatever you need to do what you need to do!  When you read this it will be November. How did that happen?

 

Nowruz, lichen and doll beds

Happy Nowruz if you celebrate. It's Iranian, but not much to celebrate there  this year. Still marking it in the hope that its concept -- a new day, an end to cold and darkness -- comes true there. Everywhere, really.

Yesterday's walk, finally the wind dropped enough, yielded all kinds of spring. The flock of mourning doves, until last week flying in a group, were flying in pairs. I heard the shouts of the redwing blackbird, and the hammering of woodpeckers.

And I saw this

Beautiful crust type lichen, like red gold hair shining in the sun, spread over the downed  tree. My searches have not yielded a name for it beyond red lichen (!). 

But the State University website yielded this valuable information. See the end.

 I took the pictures to preserve as much as I could of the tree trunk in case that helps identify it. Can anyone help? 

On the way home here's a cheerful little sign of spring

And I came home to afternoon tea with toasted cinnamon soda bread

And my sock in progress. I think of Rose every time I pick it up. 

Halfway through Lent and winnowing continues. Here's the current offering

Twin doll beds, 12"by5", seen here one head, one foot, which came via Freecycle some time ago with other doll furniture. 

The Dollivers took the chairs and the garden bench but rejected the beds. 

So here's hoping good dolls, deserving dolls, not dolls fighting with each other, get these nice beds...

Happy day everyone and thank you all for thoughtful responses to my question about spiritual practice and the brain. This is a great group of friends, much valued by your humble blogwriter.

Battling the forces of darkness on another front 

Jigsaw puzzles, small treasures, chocolate,

 First, to blogistas who observe 

The Freecycling yesterday was a love fest end to end. Such happy and courteous people. All the surplus plants gone and more than one recipient said they're happy in their new homes! Chairs to a very nice person who never fails to get back to thank. Anyway, very encouraging.

Probably more soon. Meanwhile the last piece of the San Francisco street scene goes in 

And the completed image is the one I'll use for Freecycle to show potential takers it's complete.

Yesterday's walk yielded beautiful lichen

And a discarded bluejay feather

There were local thunderstorms, but here just rain with sunny intervals. 

And the front path was getting narrower with sedum, chrysanthemums and spiderwort spilling over it.

So I pruned back the bits catching people's ankles and have a house arrangement

In the afternoon, time for a little something, and I hadn't got around to making banana bread, so I made a  chocolate spread for afternoon tea

In addition to what you see on the counter, I added a drop of milk and a spoonful of confectioner's sugar. Worked nicely. And later last evening, a spoonful blended with a mug of hot milk made a late night hot chocolate drink. 

Meanwhile here's my knitting group

Well, if you don't count the gracious living room, the hats and the knitting of blankets for the troops, that is! Otherwise exactly the same.

Notice the hatless lady near the window winding a hank of yarn off the skein held around her knees. Probably the kids were at school, otherwise this was a classic kid task, holding the yarn and learning to move back and forward to make it easier for your mother or Gran or older sister or aunt, you could be called on anywhere, to wind.

At this period the guests,  even relatives, kept their hats on. My aunts would, in our house. Only the lady of the house went unhatted. And everyone hatted up outside the house, even to run to the corner shop. 

Evelyn Dunbar was more than a wartime illustrator. She was an acute realist social historian. She's worth looking up.

Happy day everyone, tend to our knitting, glad for the friends in PEI who came through Fiona, many thoughts for all our Florida blog and rl friends facing Ian 

Photo AC 

Lichen and wild daylilies

Cool and windy and grey yesterday with sun now and then, lovely contrast to the day before.

Here's a lichen that suddenly appeared on the fallen tree I've shown you before.

Here's either mating, male and female dragonflies of the same species, or battling for territory between different species. If anyone knows, please say. anyway a lot of circling and darting.

A few yards away, wild daylilies. 

We see them on roadsides, at the edge of woods like here, always a few days earlier than the cultivated daylilies.

I'm still very jangled about the eye situation, not helped by, every time I calm down, yet another text requiring information, most of which I already gave. And the dox being required by the HOA, who I think have assumed I have a new tenant, but I'm too tired to get into it!  Tiredness is my main thing going right now. 

However, art will save us all, so today was about using a calligraphy pen not in the way it's designed.

I love all the shades of color happening in the ink, depending on how it's applied. Even some flying white, that broken cloudy line beloved of  Chinese painters and calligraphers, except they usually do it with a fairly dry brush.

Happy day everyone, stay calmer than I can!