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Category Archives: Birds
wordless wednesday
thanksgiving 2020
I had a five day long weekend for the US Thanksgiving holiday and it was delightful. I can’t deny that my morale and productivity in my home office was at a low point in the days leading up to it. Five days off and now it’s Monday morning and I have the glad feeling that I’m ready to be back at my desk. I have to-do lists to make, emails to read, documents to review, and meetings to schedule, and I’m ready for the push through to the end of the year, where I’ve scheduled even more time off.
Miss L was at her dad’s for the holiday so it was just me and Brandon. We’d originally planned our family holiday celebration for the weekend, and invited Brandon’s cousin and girlfriend over for Wednesday night drinks, but with the three-week “pause” instituted by our governor, in the end, no one really wanted to meet up. This was fine with me as it gave me the ideal sort of holiday for an introvert and just what I needed, really. Hopefully Covid cases go down in upcoming days and if not then at least I’ll have the feeling that I’ve properly isolated to see my family over Christmas.
So Brandon and I were in our own little holiday world. We cooked our turkey and had a candlelight dinner and he made his special family dressing. Unfortunately the only photograph I got was of the pumpkin pie I made. I was very proud of this as I love pumpkin pie and I feel now like the true embodiment of “teach a man to fish” (although my mom’s pie is still the best).
We went for runs and long walks and bought nothing on Black Friday.
I had spectacular afternoon naps with the cats every day, and read and knitted a bit. We drank lots of Malbec and stayed up late watching the latest season of “The Crown” as well as “The Miniaturist” and “Vienna Blood” from PBS (all ‘recommends’). I didn’t worry at all about what I ate or drank but tried to temper it by getting outside daily for fresh air and steps.
I’ve explored some new and fun ways to present turkey leftovers since we had a 14-lb bird and despite our best efforts we did not eat our required 7 lbs each on Thursday. We tried these recipes and all received thumbs-up from Brandon.
Cranberry Turkey Crescent Ring (from Pillsbury)
Pot pie (from Two Peas and their Pod – it’s written for chicken but is great for turkey, too. I’ve made this many times with both chicken and turkey and always a crowd-pleaser.)
Turkey Monte Cristo (from Martha Stewart. We actually got lazy and skipped the French toast step here and just grilled it on the stovetop like a classic grilled cheese, with some good bread, and it turned out absolutely yummy.)
I hope everyone had an equally relaxing weekend and we’re all ready for the push to the end of the year. What’s on tap for this week? We will get our Christmas tree up, and I have to go into the office one day, and I have to meet up at the bank with some of the Girl Scout moms as I’m taking over the role of troop treasurer for this cookie season (whyyyyyyyy do I do this to myself argh). I also have a late work call with Japan one night. I’m still looking forward to being back on a more normal schedule. Oh – and we’re supposed to get SNOW later today and tomorrow!
As Garrison Keillor used to say, be well, do good work, and keep in touch. xo
friday five – early october edition
- I had a good old -fashioned sick day on Tuesday. Having a home office means that even when I feel less than 100%, I usually end up logging on and working for the day, simply because the commute is manageable – if I can make it down the hall, I usually feel like I should get to work. But Tuesday I had a migraine of the sort that I haven’t had in a few months, with dizziness and difficulty focusing. I slept all morning, woke up and ate some lunch, and then went back to sleep. By evening, I was feeling a bit better, and by bedtime I felt the relief of impending normalcy. I felt a little guilty for taking the day off but it was the right thing to do.
- We’ve officially started our month-long “21 Days of Halloween” horror movie marathon. This concept was born a few years ago when I felt disgust over the “25 Days of Christmas” schlock on some Hallmark or Lifetime channel and decided to spend the month of October swimming in the macabre. I quickly realized that 31 days of horror movies – and then 25 days of horror movies – were unsustainable for a healthy mental outlook. 21 days is a sweet spot of reveling in the morbid and decayed whilst still maintaining a productive and optimistic energy level for day to day social adjustment. I’ve decided not to do the periodic posts of detailed reviews of our viewing and will instead post a list of our full viewing for the month on Halloween, along with a few starred reviews. So far, I’ll tip you off that we seem to be favoring the 1970’s horror genre which means heavy on the moody and atmospheric (albeit slow-moving) narratives.
3. We decorated the lawn – Miss L did a nice graveyard of styrofoam tombstones yet I could not bring myself to take down the Biden sign so perhaps sending the wrong message? The same day this photo was taken, the wind picked up and blew most of the tombstones over so I have to go back to the drawing board with embedding them more firmly – any tips?
4. The hummingbird feeder is finally down, washed, and stored for the winter. I have fallen in the the rhythm of refilling the feeders and birdbath every morning (after nightly deer and raccoon raids). I can usually hear the chickadees in the trees waiting for me to finish up, flitting with delicate and inquisitive flutters and sawlike calls, but the other morning it was an entirely different sound in the neighbor’s tree – a restless, shifting organism made up of a hundred birds. I was barely inside when the dark cloud descended on the feeders like a gang of rowdy drunks at a free bar. European starlings – probably 150 of them, and it only took them a few minutes of tussling and gorging to clean my feeders out. There were a few more the following day, but I think they’ve finally moved on, to the relief of my typical crowd of sparrows, cardinals, titmice, jays and finches and cardinals.
5. I’m still working on my Halloween socks but had a setback this week. I’d turned the heel and was working on the gusset and feeling not happy with the heel flap, which was done in-pattern (the Minecraft sock pattern by Heather Cox, available on Ravelry). In addition, by time I started on the gusset, I had somehow forgotten that the pattern was written for circulars and I was using double-pointed needles. This resulted in mistakes and so I had to rip back anyway, so I decided spontaneously to rip the flap all the way back and instead of doing it in-pattern, replace it with a simple slip-stitch heel flap. I think I’m going to like this better but I did lose a couple of days on it.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I’ll be busting on my socks, taking lots of naps, and reinforcing my tombstones against gusty autumn breezes.
Obligatory reminder to vote blue: it’s good for the economy, according to Moody’s and Goldman Sachs, and reduces the likelihood that your governor will be the target of a domestic terrorist extremist kidnapping plot!
five things friday
- I get a lot of “standard bird” visitors to my feeders – sparrows, downy woodpeckers, chickadees, cardinals, finches, etc. – but this week I’ve been excited to note a “newbie”. I get white-breasted nuthatches but I’ve been seeing many red-breasted nuthatches this week too! Apparently, they are going to be a more common sighting in the Midwest due to poor cone crops on spruce and fir trees in the boreal forests of Canada.
- I’ve been watching Sandy by the Lakeside’s vlog for awhile now and was thrilled to snap up one of her large project knitting bags during her last shop update. They sell out fast and I am so happy with it – super fast shipping and beautiful workmanship. I can’t wait to cast on some new socks to put in it.
- I finally got library books after almost six months without. I’ve been solely relying on Kindle reads and old paperbacks and finally had a couple of “must-reads”. My library will return to a limited in-person service next week but in the meantime, the curbside pickup was very convenient.
- I’ve had a hormone headache all week and since it was also the first week of remote learning school, the timing was not ideal. Miss L is very independent and very efficiently navigated all the new technology – I was only called on to offer tech support a couple of times. I feel very thankful for all of the hard work that our teachers and school staff have done to start the kids off with new platforms, build relationships, and manage stress levels. I also feel enormous gratitude for a kid who loves to do things on her own. The tech has had some issues and glitches this week, and we’re still trying to manage our wi-fi connections here – we currently have all 3 of us at home and trying to juggle bandwidth for work, school, and Tour de France streaming (ahem BRANDON ;)) But all in all, a solid start and now thankfully the kids get 4 days off over Labor Day to recharge.
- I think I finally have a day planner that’s going to work for me. I started out the year with Hobonichi and they just didn’t work. Too small. Not enough space. I’ve learned that an electronic calendar paired with a simple notebook works best for my work organization and I got a big discount on a Commit30 planner for the remainder of 2020 and a new one for 2021. I love the construction, the layout, and the size of the days even in the compact version (although I did get a full-size for 2021). And yes, fun stickers and colored markers do motivate me.
Very happy now to have a holiday weekend to try to shake this headache and enjoy my birds, library books, and knitting. Wherever you are I hope you also have a peaceful and recuperative weekend! xoxo
bountiful
And now, Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer. I worked from home for a few days last week to finish out Miss L’s last week of summer holiday and the windows were open, the breeze is cool and the skies are so very blue. The cicadas grind in the trees and it’s my favorite time of year.
Brandon has been working in Miss L’s old room to paint and put up his map collection in preparation for it to become his new study. He’ll be building shelves next. We hit up the hardware store for some supplies and I stocked up on finch socks because the little golden birds have already stripped my coneflowers.
The cooler temps have meant that the windows are open for sleeping, and on Sunday night I was awakened twice by a loudmouthed little owl in the yard – I Googled the call in the morning and identified it as an Eastern Screech-Owl. I’ve had them in the yard before, but I don’t usually hear them at night, so it was kind of a treat for geeky birdloving me.
Sadly, our girl Pot Roast has had some digestive issues – we think related to the cheap wet food that Emmett and Sarge feel absolutely passionate about – so there have been some messes to clean up, mostly in the middle of the night in the most inconvenient places. I’ve switched her to a Royal Canin for sensitive tums and hope that will help, otherwise it will be a trip to the vet for the littlest gangster.
shameless
We rounded out our long weekend with a Tigers game on Saturday night and wonder of wonders, they actually beat the Twins and we got to see a couple of home runs! Before the game, we had burgers, beers for me and Brandon, and a milkshake for Miss L at Lovers Only. I tried the Impossible Burger for the first time and probably would not have known it was not beef, except then I tried Miss L’s Classic Smash and there was a difference. We agreed that for convenience and proximity to Comerica and ease of in-and-out, Lovers Only can’t be beat, but the milkshakes at Royale with Cheese are much better. And I will always rank the olive burger at Checker Bar highly!
I did some meal prep for the shortish work week – overnight oats with some frozen blueberries and a quinoa & white bean skillet for lunches. Also a sweet potato which I’ll pair with black beans and kale later this week.
Sometimes it’s nice to go away for a long holiday weekend but I like this kind, too, where we just stay at home.
I am hoping that everyone in Hurricane Dorian’s path is safe and sound and if they’ve chosen to evacuate, that they’ll be home again soon.
spring break part II
Miss L’s Spring Break was mostly rained out but hopefully between a Painting with a Twist activity, roller skating, and a couple of movies at the downtown second-run theater (Rogue One and Lego Batman), she wasn’t too bored.
We kicked things off with Mexican.
We love board games. And by “we” I mean all of us.
There was, however, a LOT of time spent in pajamas.
The swans are nesting at Kensington and the rookery is full of cranes. I can watch their nests all day – they’re like something from another time, enormous shaggy piles of sticks and twigs, with prehistoric birds rising from them and circling.
We went to the library and I always end up reading her books as well as mine.
She has, of course, already requested another Disney trip for our Spring Break next year, so I guess I will start saving my pennies again. 🙂
in which there are birds and some other things.
you can’t see her, but she’s there.
As I write this, the rain thunders down outside and creates rivers in the street, sweeping up all of the yellow pollen and driving white and pink petals from the flowering trees. It is spring in Michigan and everything is exhausting because the world is green and growing as fast as it can. I can almost feel it; suddenly there are things where no things were before, hostas and dandelions and weeds galore, wildflowers and strawberry leaves and wild mint. I am mowing, hacking, weeding, moving, and sweeping as fast as I can but I can’t keep up.
Cardinals are one of my favorite birds and I have always felt something very symbolic about them although I can’t tell you exactly what I think they symbolize. There was a meaningful cardinal in the Pamela Dean ‘Hidden Lands’ series but I couldn’t tell (or can’t remember) whether it was good or bad. I have been moving backyard furniture and tackling one small garden patch at a time and as I’ve done this, I’ve noticed a pair of cardinals circling nervously. They perch on the overhead lines and in the lilac trees. In the evening, I can hear their silvery chirp through the screen door and when I walk back to the den, Sarge is crouched staring at them. And they are staring back from a very close place, the wood rack or the back of a lawn chair. That chirp can be kind of maddening when you are hearing it for hours straight; I feel like I have two new roommates who are loud and unhappy with everything I do. I see Papa Cardinal blazing red in the long damp green grass, I hear Mama near the birdfeeder. I was in the front lawn pulling dandelions and there they were again, hovering over me in a slightly unnerving fashion.
Of course they are not harbingers of any sort of doom or glory (or maybe they are) – in this case they have a nest built in one of the cedar trees tucked up against the side of the garage and of course on weekends when I am passing back and forth, unwashed, in my Detroit Tigers hat and beat up Chuck Taylors, I am too close for comfort, poor little things. I would love to inspect the nest more closely and take some pictures but I will restrain myself and instead be hopeful and excited that at some point soon there will be a clutch of cardinal eggs hatching basically on the other side of the wall from where I sleep.
Spring is TIRING.
A couple of other notables. Awhile back I read an article about dry brushing and ordered a brush from Amazon. It never showed up. The other night I was at Whole Foods buying a slice of pizza (I have a problem) and looking at a bottle of wine for a friend of mine who had a significant birthday recently. I decided against the wine because honestly that friend is kind of a jerk but came away with the pizza and a dry brush from their health and beauty aisle. The Whole Foods health & beauty aisle always makes me feel like inner peace and wisdom can be attained from applying one or six of their exorbitantly priced essential oils and buying an orchid and burning a $12 joss stick and I am a sucker for ALL of that. (I also ended up going back for the wine, thinking that just because my friend is a jerk doesn’t mean that I have to be, and quite predictably, I ultimately wished I’d just drank the damn thing my own self. PEEEEPLE.)
So anyway, the whole dry brushing thing is all kinds of awesome. I have incorporated it into my whole new morning routine, in which I wake up earlier than I used to, have a leisurely cup of coffee, meditate, dry brush, and get ready for work. I have been enjoying this so much that it actually makes me want to get up early. And if nothing else, even if I haven’t found inner peace and wisdom, my skin is velvety soft.
in which i have a saturday.
Or, in my case, perhaps a ‘caturday’.
It still feels weird when Miss L is with her dad for the weekend and I have a full Saturday and a Saturday night without anything to do. I have a reflexive feeling of guilt about these times, and an almost subconscious anxiety that makes me want to sit at home and wait for her return. I’m gradually processing those feelings, and I’ve been dating, and I have things to do, and plans. But at heart I am still inclined to back out of social commitments and hide with the boys, which is exactly what I did yesterday.
Yesterday I spent my Saturday doing a few of my favorite things. It was a bit of a grand day for me because it was my first time running since January! I had a tibial stress fracture and spent the last nearly 3 months in recovery mode = no weight bearing exercise. No boot camp, no elliptical, no walking. I got to be very good friends with the spin bike in our workout room.
Last week, I was able to start with the elliptical and walking, and yesterday was my first gradual ramp-up. Run / walk intervals, 5 mins of walking and 1 min of running for 30 mins. It wasn’t much, but everyone has to start somewhere, and I have a 9-week recovery training plan that I am going to follow to the letter. I have new PowerStep Pulse insteps, a fancy shin harness, a new iPhone sport armband, and wireless headphones on the way, my gifts to myself for my return to running.
I picked Kensington for this run, and spent another hour after I was done tromping around looking at birds.
I swear, someday I will be the old lady clomping around the parks clutching binoculars and bird books. I know there’s something tweaked about me, that a day spent doing that is preferable to going out and socializing, but I was completely happy with my choice.
Everyone is sitting a nest these days, and the air is filled with the booming noise of the cranes nesting on the island in the middle of the lake, and the noisy chatter of red-winged blackbirds. The swan pair were quite domestic. She stood up to rearrange her nest and tenderly cover her eggs back up with fluff while her hubster looked on. The Sandhill Cranes seemed to be having some sort of dispute, however, as they kept the cold shoulder toward one another.
I came home, took a nap, which Emmett loved, and ambled over to Whole Foods for dinner… I am addicted to their pizza which is a sad and expensive addiction at $3 a slice, so I save it only for special occasions because 1 slice is never enough.
Sometimes, a Saturday night spent doing laundry and watching historical English programming (Wolf Hall, White Queen) is balm for the soul, and better than any night out on the town.
mostly catch up.
Every January and February, I lose my voice. I’ve noticed this phenomenon for the past several years. During the long, dark, cold days of winter, I pull back from interactions. I’m not mad or sad or depressed, really, at least not that I can identify; I just seem to need more quiet, alone time to recharge my batteries to get through the daily work. I don’t blog or write or talk to friends or family as much. I am just quiet and waiting for the sun to return, and with it, my voice.
Still, there is a lot that’s happened since the last time I blogged, so here is a quick round-up of life in suburban Elysium, mostly in pictures.
Brutally cold temperatures have forced school cancellations. Cabin fever sets in, and so I try to get Miss L out whenever the weather breaks for a short time. Fresh air, activity. Here is our take on the Stranger in the Woods – we call it Weirdos in the Backyard.
I’m trying hard to keep my backyard birds fed and watered. I resurrected the old heated birdbath that never had a proper pedestal, and put it on my patio table. It isn’t as popular as I would like, but I do try to make sure it always has a little water in it and it has worked admirably well at keeping it unfrozen, even during the coldest nights here. Many chickadees, finches of different types, dark eyed juncos, a pair of cardinals, white breasted nuthatch, downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, and the usual plague of house sparrows have been spotted.
Kensington Metropark is still our favorite place to wander, and feed birds by hand. One day, we got to see a special guy out for a walk. Ranger is a red-tailed hawk that was injured by a car and now serves as bird-in-residence. He can’t be let back into the wild due to his injuries, but they are rehabilitating him. Miss L and I got to pet his very soft feathers. He was quite fond of her hat. I told her he probably thought she was a big rabbit.
The winter light is moody, blue, sad, and beautiful.
Fat Tuesday happened, and genuine Hamtramck paczki. My hipster colleague’s girlfriend stood in line at the best bakery for paczki and he made sure we had a box.
Sarge scared us to death. Being the quasi-billy goat that he is, he ate something that didn’t agree with him (likely a portion of the rubber floor matting in the basement). Seriously did not agree with him – to the point that I thought we were going to have to say goodbye to our big fluffy bae far too soon. However, 36 hours in the Animal Emergency Center, IV fluids, antibiotics, several rounds of x-rays, and $1,400 later, he came home. He was properly aggrieved by his ordeal and spent several days sleeping.
Miss L took tender care of him. $1,400 was well spent to keep these two together.
After this exhausting month, Emmett & I are looking forward to March.
Six Ten 