This is For the Birds

Frank at the bar was taunting me the other night by telling me his friend shot "my" rooster pheasant. I let him believe it was the only pheasant in the world and there were no more to be had. This morning I am watching a rooster pheasant roosting in the cedar trees right outside my window. Ha.

There are plenty of pheasants around here. I make sure to throw bird seed on the ground so they will find food. The poor pheasants are still waiting for the cracked corn I asked Captain Crab to pick up for me.

Pheasants in the yard

Pheasant in big tree

Pheasant in little tree

This morning's rooster

Speaking of birds, I had a Christmas miracle. The day after Christmas I went out to feed my birds. It is the most exciting time of the day for my dog Gretchen. She nearly turns herself inside out as I bundle up to go outside. If she could talk she would be shouting, "We're going out! We're going out!" while spinning in circles.

Out we went with Gretchen crashing through the door as soon as I cracked it. As I was filling the feeder I heard a commotion. Gretchen had a blue jay! Here is the first miracle: I told her to stop and she did.

The blue jay lay there with his wings spread out. For a while, he seemed to be gasping for breath with his little beak. I didn't know what to do. Finishing him off seemed like the humane thing to do but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Heartsick, I went back to the house.

A few minutes later I looked out to see the blue jay standing up and looking around. He looked confused. Later when I looked, he was gone. So that was my Christmas miracle. I'll take what I can get.

Blue Jays

I love my birds. I get excited when someone new comes to visit me. I was a little sad to have missed this visitor who came to my door while I was out one day.

I had a visitor

Open Letter to Open Air

The internet is both wonderful and terrible. It is terrible for person with obessive tendencies, of which I may have a few.

Tonight I have been tracking you, I think. I can see your flight is in the air. I cannot tell if you are on your plane or if your luggage made it with you.

I can tell you this: I love you.

Your flight has a good 1600 miles to go and I can't track it any further tonight. I'm going to bed. I hope you have a wonderful time in LA, but not so wonderful that you move that far away from me.

You Say Po-Ta-To and I Say Yam

This post is for Gwen who posted back in November about yams. Or sweet potatoes. Whatever....

NO! Not "whatever". This is not to be taken lightly, as I discovered. Mea culpa!

To prove to her that here in the Heartland tubers are properly identified, I took this photo in a grocery store before Thanksgiving:

SWEET POTATOES!

I went back to the store after Thanksgiving and the same tubers in the same bin had the label "YAMS". ~sigh~

I don't mean to be a burr under her blanket. I love her blog. And this is the post that got me hooked.

Craft Du Jour

Popsicle Sled!

Made with big sticks.

Thinking of Mr. Rogers

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

Railroad Tracks

Tree

Gingerbread Nativity

Last night I mixed up a batch of gingerbread. TodayI went through my gingerbread patterns. It was like getting lost in old photo albums as there were more than gingerbread patterns to look at. It was a long, wandering trip down memory lane.

Among the lot I found a lost gingerbread nativity picture in with the nativity patterns. On the envelope that contained the patterns was the note "86 weird stable -- never again". Evidently, I was unhappy with the original stable and made up my own. Which did suck, now that I see the photo. The next nativity had a completely different stable and I had no pattern for it nor notes on how I constructed it. I hate when I do that.

What got me into looking for the nativity in the first place was that someone landed on my site by doing an internet search for "gingerbread nativity". So I was going to be magnanimous and put my patterns and instructions in a downloadable PDF file. But then I got stumped by the stable dilemma. I wanted to present the best stable possible (stable #3 being the best, IMHO) but with no pattern I was lost.

So then I went off in a different direction. I need a compass.

Anyway, I present the 3 stables in a row. You be the stable judge. I want you to know these are not my designs (except for the stable variations). They came from a magazine, I believe. If they're your designs, tell me! I'll link to you and you can sell them!

Original stable. That is one sick looking sheep in front.

The "never again" stable. Sick looking sheep still in front.

Wonderful stable with sick looking sheep removed.

Gingerbread Through the Years

I told you I could get into the Christmas spirit. One of the ways I used to do that was to make gingerbread houses. I made my first one for my niece, Baby Mac, from a pattern printed in the paper and decorated with the only candy I could find in tiny Ktown.

The houses evolved through the years. I made my own house patterns and made a permanent base that I wired with a little light so the house could be lit up from the inside. I made other things, too, as you shall see.

1982

Baby Mac with the 1983 edition

Also 1983. I made the mice and their house for Baby Mac

1984 - I broke away from the original pattern.

Here comes Santa Claus! 1985

Gingerbread Nativity, 1985

A whole farm! 1986

A dog in the dog house. 1986

Lit from within. 1987

Da Bears. 1987

1988

Detail, 1988

Cottages for sale, 1989

1989

House #1, 1990

House #2, 1990

Nativity, 1990

1992

No house was made in 1991 and I think 1992 was the end of the line. From the looks of things, taking a year off did not help my housebuilding skills. The 1992 versions sort of look like Norman Bates meets a 70's cartoon. Maybe I'll try one this year and we can see if a 15 year (FIFTEEN YEARS??? REALLY??) hiatus has destroyed whatever talent I may have once possessed.

Genetic Defeciencies

Last night I dreamed that I was watching wild animals cavorting outside my window. I remember seeing several elk, one bear and lots and lots of reindeer. I remember being worried about the bear. One of these things is not like the other. One of these things could kill happily frolicking ruminants.

Is this dream a Christmas nudge? Get ready, Christmas is coming! Deck the halls! Fa, la, la! Tick tock!

Or am I the bear, ready to kill to reindeer thereby stopping Christmas from coming?

I'm afraid it may be the latter for I am missing the Christmas gene. I am also missing the shopping gene prevalent in all other females. I am genetically deficient.

Before Thanksgiving I got stuck in line in Hobby Lobby behind 2 women who knew each other. Each had a young son stuffed in the cart among garish artificial yuletide decorations. "Are you ready for Christmas?" one asked. "I think so" replied the other.

Having to wait in line was torture enough. Having to listen to THAT almost made my eyes bleed. It wasn't even Thanksgiving yet and these women were "ready for Christmas". What the hell does that mean anyway? Did you re-mortgage your house to buy crap to give everyone you know? Do you have all this crap wrapped in expensive paper (good-bye, trees) that will be admired for 2 seconds before ending up in a landfill? Do you have your Christmas goose stuffed a month and a half in advance? Is your house lit up like a landing strip?

Don't get me wrong. At Christmas I like to see Christmas trees lit up in living rooms. I enjoy giving gifts to people I love. But does it have to be so much? And does it have to go on for so long? And don't your brats have enough useless crap already?

Irrefutable Evidence to the Contrary

A girl once told me I didn't have an athletic bone in my body. Here is my irrefutable evidence to the contrary. I AM AN ATHLETE!!

Digesting Turkey Dinner

My Thanksgiving plans changed several times. The last time they changed was at 9 on Thanksgiving morning when my brother called to tell me we were eating at 12:30 instead of 3:30.


I had to wait a few days to post about this because for days I was still filled with residual anger instead of the great familial love that has been warming the souls of other Americans.

So after dear brother called I shifted into high gear and headed off with a trunk laden with food. On the way there I had the thought that if I went in the ditch, I could have a Thanksgiving feast by myself in the car.

It was a gray and dreary day. It was snowing again.















Over the river and through the woods to .....














A bar of course. Not just any bar, either. A bar chock full of ambiance. A perfect setting.


































































My niece and some guy from Sweden.

The Day Before Thanksgiving

It snowed.






































But not as bad here as in Des Moines.













I baked.












































Tomorrow: more cooking, food hauling and feasting. In a bar. Not my idea.

Internet Inventor, Global Warming Watchdog and My Good Friend

I'm so glad I saved this. I have no idea how old it is.

Mitt vs Hill

(Willard) Mitt Romney has been airing ads in Iowa against Hillary Clinton. Should someone tell him that, for right now at least, Hillary is not his opponent?








I have mixed feelings about Hillary. I found this blog post which nails it on the head.

Box 'O Cat

Mouse, the cat.

Email Conversation

C left today. We took your vintage travel Scrabble game with us to play at the airport but we didn't even get a whole game in. Have you missed your travel Scrabble?

I have travel Scrabble?

She gave it to you for Christmas a few years ago. VINTAGE travel Scrabble that she probably fought tooth and nail for on Ebay. It's been in my table cloth drawer since.


man, am I excited now! It's like Christmas all over again.

Thanks for the laugh, kidlette!

MEAN MOMMY