“Happy, sad, and hopeful” was the sequence of feelings I had over the events in my garden yesterday.
Happy
I saw a flock of birds sitting on a small cold frame in my garden, and quickly got out the camera to take a picture. It was through a window I should have cleaned ages ago, but when I uploaded the photos, I didn’t worry about a bit of blur. I was just very happy to see that most of the birds were crossbills. I hadn’t seen crossbills in my yard for a couple of years, and they don’t stay long when they do visit.
Their odd crossed bills are unique, and I find the way they walk, similar to the way parrots walk, endearing. So I was happy to see these birds.
Just behind the cold frame is a Florence fennel plant that has gone to seed, and the wind has knocked many of the seeds onto the top of the cold frame. Those seeds were the attraction for the crossbills.
Two of the twelve birds I can spot in the picture are some other kind of songbird, but the rest are crossbills.
Sad
I took several pictures and then the birds were spooked and all flew up. It seems there were many more in other parts of the garden, and as the flock took off I heard that sickening thump of a bird hitting a window.
I was shocked to see a female crossbill hanging onto the garden fence, presumably after hitting a window. I felt heartsick.
What to do? Go pick her up and keep her warm? It was a chilly morning. But maybe that would freak her out more and she was already traumatized.
Leave her alone? I just wanted to help. But would I do more harm than good?
I felt like a shallow reporter, taking pictures of a tragic situation.
It looked like she had taken quite a hit to the head. A drop of blood clung to the feathers behind her eye. At least the blood wasn’t pouring out. It seemed to have stopped.
The crossbill held on without moving for at least ten minutes. I thought she might be dead. But then she moved her head a little bit. Another five minutes went by and I worried about the chill in the air.
Hopeful
Suddenly she flew up to the top of the fence and sat there for about five seconds. Then she took off into the air, and flew into the safety of the thick branches of the nearby fir trees.
I hope she’ll make it. My worry is that her flock is not to be seen, but I hope she can call them back or somehow find them.
When we were kids, my brother and sisters and friends were delighted when a load of topsoil was delivered to backfill the edges of our new house that was in the final stages of construction. We would run to the top of the mound of dirt and then challenge each other to push us down and replace us, with taunts of “I’m the king of the castle, and you’re the dirty rascal.” (It was a good thing my mother didn’t hear us talking like that.)
Crispin is the king of the castle here, but he has no challengers at the moment. The new load of firewood is perfect for him as he snacks on one of the walnuts he has stashed away.
Owl photo by neighbour, R.G., of cougar video fame.
It was just another ordinary evening, until I went to open the deck door to cool the house a bit. The colours were amazing. I had to remind myself to close my mouth, stop gawking, and run for the camera.
Next time you have a fish dinner, you may not even have to go fishing first. The meal is all served up on your new placemats.
I worked on these for many days, and when it was time to do the last step, I must have had that “horse to the barn” feeling and rushed through the corners when I was putting on the binding. Don’t look too closely. They are not neat and squared off.
BUT, I had a lot of fun making up these placemats, cutting out the shapes and finding a fabric that would serve as a reasonably close match to their colours in real life – not that you’d ever encounter the Darth Vader fish in real life. Each piece is first ironed on with some slightly sticky white webby material called Steam-a-Seam. When you peel off the fusible material, you iron the shape onto the place where you want it to be and then sew around it with your choice of stitch. Mine was a blanket stitch that grabs the edges every second stitch.
I doodled around with my free-motion stitching (which just means you can go in any direction by moving the material around – not just forward and back when the machine does the steering) and was able to put some scales on some of the fish and lines on their fins, and make the pupils and irises of their eyes.
In the background, I see two strips of material from the Captain’s old jeans, one light and one dark, to make up part of the water, and a light blue denim shirt for the top layer of water.
In case you were wondering, I do know that an octopus has eight legs, but he’s sitting on one of them.
That strange creature reminded me of one of my favourite Ogden Nash poems:
Now the placemats are all done, it’s time to use them when we set the table. I wonder who will get the first big blob of greasy gravy on them?
If it’s YOU, beware.
Darth Vader of the Sea is watching.
