Tweet......

 My feeders pull in lots of little birds like chickadees, pine siskins, finches and the occasional big stellar jay, but the other day I saw a bird I didn't know on the suet feeder. I asked my friend and big time birder Yvonne what it was as looking through the bird book is overwhelming to me and even then I'm most often wrong.

It's a starling. I see starlings in flight but have never seen one close up, I didn't realize all the colors and spots in their feathers.  I am loving having feeders at this house - at our previous house the bear could get the feeders no matter how high we hung them on cables between trees.

Birds drunk on basil seeds

 Sunday late afternoon and evening I noticed lots of little finches (I think they're finches) on my almost spent basil plants on the deck. I was able to grab a few pix through the window. They were out there munching away on basil seeds since I had let the plants go after making the last batches of pesto.

I would have never guessed they would have loved the basil seeds so much - I'll remember this next year.

We spent some days on the coast to relax and I taught a beginning drop spindle class on Saturday. Very nice group of gals - hope they went home to keep practicing and keep up with spinning. Not a craft learned in just a couple hours, takes much practice. I taught the class at The Wool Co in Bandon, OR. If you're ever on the Oregon coast stop in and say hi to Kelly.......and buy some knitting, spinning or felting supplies, we need to support the small local shops.

Getting a bit panicked about holiday gifts - need to sit down and make a list today of what I still need to create. I have a plan for our holiday cards but haven't put that warp on the AVL yet, so there's a plan but I have no clue how it will turn out so I need to get to this project soon. Today is prep work for a future day of gift making with a friend - can't say what kind of gifts, they're a secret.

If I can get to reading over the voter's pamphlet I'll also vote today - we've voted by mail here in Oregon for years - I love it. Easy choice for president.........hard to understand all the county and state measures and know close to nothing about many of the county and state officials that are running. Need to reread all info, once again, with hopes that I can figure some of this stuff out. And what's with many local positions that have only one person running, or a few with no one listed on the ballot at all - I'm thinking that's where I write in Bailey's name............I've done it before but never saw him on the news or in the newspaper as having received votes after the election is over...........

Slow start to the new year.......

It's been a slow start to the new year around this house. We spent New Year's Eve and the following week on the coast, unfortunately both of us had colds so we didn't do much. Days were filled with walks, reading, watching tv and knitting. I planned on working in WeavePoint planning new drafts and also doing research for a guild program I will give in April but didn't do either. We did get out antiquing one day (nothing bought), went to an excellent glass exhibit at the Coos Art Museum and took a drive 2 hours south to visit friends and have a yummy fresh crab lunch. A seagull pooped on my head during our walk on New Year's morning - Sam said it was good luck......I say it was good luck he was the one that didn't get pooped on. Saw a warning sign on the Hwy 101, which runs along the coast, down at Humbug saying "Wild Cows"........we never did figure out were they cows that got loose and were running wild or if they were wild partying cows. And, just as I thought, I am on the cutting edge of being a US curling fan (the sport of curling) - there were 2 mentions in the latest AAA magazine, an article on gloves in the latest Piecework magazine that were originally worn for curling (friend Nadine told me about it, I have yet to pick the magazine up) and at Running Y Ranch in Klamath Falls to the east of us they are giving curling lessons and plan to start up a league this year (Nadine also told me about the article in the local paper mentioning it).

I had high hopes for working in the studio all day but I've had a relapse of my cold and feel plain old worn down so have been working on adminstrivia instead since that takes so little effort. UPS was just here dropping off 80 pounds of wool that needs to be measured out into bags, labeled, put into inventory and relisted in the etsy shop......that's not happening today either.

I made fun bird seed ornaments for gifts this year and have found their the perfect way to feed the birds at the beach cottage. My past experiences with bird feeders over there was having the raccoon raid them during the night or having them blown to bits by the wind over there when they'd swing and hit the tree limbs. These hanging ornaments work perfectly - I can put them on flimsy enough branches that the raccoons can't get them and the birds love them. I found the recipe in Taste of Home magazine.

 Here is one of the birds enjoying the seed, my friend Yvonne thinks this is a thrush. I had 4 different types of birds eating on the see ornaments that day. Sorry the picture is only so-so - I took it from across the room through the window.

Start with some bird seed, some cookie cutters, approximately 4" in size, gelatin, ribbon, a baking sheet lined with waxed paper or foil, non-stick cooking spray, 1 1/2 cups of birdseed (although I found that I needed to add anywhere from 1/2-1 cup more to soak up the gelatin solution.

Tie the ribbon into loops, instructions say to use 12" lengths but this time I made them longer to go all the way through the ornament. Place cookies cutters on lined baking sheet, spray inside with non-stick spray.

Mix 2 packets (1/2 oz) of unflavored gelatin powder with 1/2 cup of boiling water, stir to dissolve, add to birdseed mixing to coat all of the seed. This is where I'd start adding more seed to make sure the mixture wasn't too watery. Mix until it's stiff but sticky.

Press the mixture into a cookie cutter halfway up, put ribbon across.

Then cover the ribbon with seed filling to the top of the cookie cutter.

Here they are all done - this was two batches of the recipe, some of those cookie cutters are pretty big. After a few hours push each ornament out of the cookie cutter and set back on tray to dry, flipping every so often for 72 hours or until it's hard. Hang ornaments in the trees. These make fun gifts packaged in clear cellophane bags.

I don't know if anyone else has been having trouble uploading pictures to blogger but I've not been having fun trying to get them in my post. I think it still has to do with the new Explorer which blogger isn't supporting yet. Two weeks ago they wouldn't load at all, now they'll load into Picassa but then won't load from there. I finally switched computers and was able to get them up - not all our computers have updated to the latest Explorer.

Slow weaving.....

I only got the first scarf woven on the warp this afternoon. I wove one heart motif, hemstitched and then started to weave again and could see that there was something wrong in the draft. I guess when downloading .wif files they need to be checked over carefully just like patterns in books or magazines, errors do happen. So, I shut everything off, took the laptop to the desk to figure it out. Took a while since I don't know the software very well yet but I straightened it out and got back to weaving. I didn't really mind terribly since it was a good learning experience. I also figured out why I only have 3 full hearts and half hearts on the edges.....I threaded the point twill starting with harness 1 instead of harness 24.....yeah, wasn't paying attention to the draft when I set up a point twill threading in the software for threading purposes....oh well, still am happy, live and learn. Sorry the picture isn't great, chose a color very close to the warp for a subtle effect.

This is the handspun I've been working on - this is the first 8oz spun, have another 8oz to go. It's hard to tell in this picture but each ply is a different shade of olive. My spinning looks different spinning on the electric spinner, gradually I'll get 'the feel' to get the twist I want.

This picture isn't very good - took it through the kitchen window but it's a huge pileated woodpecker. I hear and see them all the time up high in the trees but this one was almost at ground level. I tried to quietly open the door to sneak a picture from outside but he flew off as soon as I did.