short stories 16

Winter - After moaning about winter last post, we are having a week of fine weather predicted, sunny skies in the 60s and 70s. It was beautiful today. I got the last two botanicas mounted in their frames and the sealant is curing now and I got my rat-killing done, taking care of different errands, one of which was going by the Medina Farm Store to see what fresh organic produce they had in. I got some golden beets, purple mustard greens, a cabbage, a cauliflower, and beautiful organic farm eggs.

Birthday - We went in to the city Sunday to see our grandson who turned 18 that day. It doesn't seem possible that that little baby The Girl and Husband brought over on their way home from the hospital is now 18 years old. That boy has lived next door to us up until last summer since he was 18 months old. I gave him some cash and told him to remember that he was now an adult in the eyes of the law. He'll be graduating high school this year. And he still likes to come out here and hang out with his grandparents.

Loom - And since we hadn't seen our son and daughter-in-law since Thanksgiving, we went and visited with them. They have bought a loom and a spinning wheel and she was showing me all the stuff she had been doing. It was very cool. She's been spinning some of her own yarn to weave with and just practicing with small things, getting her skill set down. The big loom has string heddles! The heddles are the guides that the threads of the warp go through to keep them in place (if I have this wrong I hope Joanne will correct me) about in the middle of the whole contraption. Anyway I loved the whole look of her little weaving room with the rack of beautifully colored spools of cotton warp thread and the loops of yarn and her samples of weaving and wish like hell I had taken some pictures.

Bird - While I was sitting here earlier today, here being where I sit at my desk and work table and look out the window at the tea cup bird feeder under the eave and the shrub outside, I saw a bird that I had never seen before sitting in the shrub. Just about the time I noticed it, long enough to exclaim 'what are you?', a bigger cardinal flew in and this other little bird hopped to a higher branch out of my view unless I hunched down and looked up. I reached blindly for my camera and was trying to get in a good position to snap and picture but it flew away before I could. This little bird was a little bigger than a titmouse, was black except for a bright red breast, not just a patch of red, but the whole breast from the throat/neck down. And not rust red or brownish red or orange red but brilliant red and as bright as a cardinal. I couldn't find it in any of my bird books so I did an image search on-line and found it right away...a red-breasted blackbird, a member of the meadowlark family but way out of it's range of from Costa Rica south to northern South America. It doesn't seem likely, but this is the bird I saw.*

* OK. I could be mistaken about the red-breasted blackbird. It could have been an orchard oriole which is far more likely, but the oriole is more rust colored.

Bird - Saw another bird in the sky the other night. A firebird.