Early morning orchids and a good day

 Early this morning the orchid posed against her outdoor friends.

Handsome Son came over in the afternoon and we had newly baked chocolate walnut cake and tea for his early birthday. Also a card I drew for him and a check. And the highlight, a hummingbird, first in two years showed up, for a few minutes.

Then he went off to a concert and I tuned into an online yoga session from AARP. Nice instructor, who had got into bridge pose halfway through the session, suddenly froze! 

At first I thought she was overdoing the time until I realized the screen was frozen. Chat went wild with questions and concerns and I suggested everyone could feel free to get out of bridge pose before they locked up that way..

Then I abandoned it no sign of fixing, and joined other friends in an online audio pod. 

Very tired today after recent exertions. So this is an abbreviated post. Happy day everyone, eat cake. Advice from 

Ted and Big Ursy

And Madame Floof 

Recovering now

Yesterday reminded me that nowadays a full day might be followed by a tired day. But I did make a start in threading the new giant heddle, with a setup taking advantage of the heddle blocks. 

The reason I like the big heddle is that you can do so much more than with a small one. I can thread with more choices of width than with my tiny handcut one, size of a credit card, or my 10", though they're more manageable. 

Notice that blogger suddenly centered this section, no way to change it on a tablet? That's because it entered a picture in the wrong  place, and I had to delete it. After a bit, it resumes my preferred left blocking.

 

And this is the first cotton warp I've used in ages, so much easier to thread and manage than the wool I'm working on for the skirt panels, because cotton slips about easily and doesn't try to get into knots when you're not looking.

People who've been asking about the loom, the top picture  shows the backstrap loom parts in a box waiting to be assembled again. Rigid heddles can be used in all sorts of contexts, not just in the rigid heddle dedicated loom, which I gave away anyway, in favor of the lovely simple back strap. Some people would never part with their rhl, but I didn't like it so much. Different folks, strokes, etc.

After a lunch of hake, fried with panko breading, steamed carrots and chard, I braved the now prevalent no seeums, and sat out, rewarded by seeing the first hummingbird in two years, just a split second before he darted away. 

The bees are diving into my butterfly bush, lovely scent, just a few inches from my face as I was  reading Jane Parr.

And I pulled the morning glory out of the Japanese maple, because it was dragging it out of shape, and reorganized it around the shepherd's crook. Here it's hiding behind the last plant Gary has to retrieve, that cactus on the crate there.

Lovely,  if brief, time before I had to retreat and rub anti itch on all the bites. 

Gary is trying to winnow  and visited yesterday with ideas. I agreed to free cycle some items for him, declined to store cardboard boxes from appliances, explaining I'm trying not to let more stuff in! He's cool with this. 

Yesterday elsewhere there was a bit of chat about clothes, some people happily wearing the same things daily, others changing up. I like to wear a different outfit every day, including many days when I don't see anyone to talk to. It's a bit of pleasure each morning, choosing which skirt or pants, which top, just to please me.  

I know some people take other people's presence or absence into the equation, but I don't mind that.  One of my friends, same age as my son, once said, but you're older than my mother and she wears the same sari all the time, how come you look different every day, I mean, who's looking? Which cracked me up! 

Happy day everyone, wear what you like! Some people own several of the exact same outfit, to save time deciding, some would be a bit bored by being identified by their personal uniform. It occurs to me that having to wear the same hated uniform five days a week for seven years at school might be playing into this picture for me.

Can't upload my daily Ukraine picture, so Slava Ukraini anyway!

The waters recede

The floodwaters are slowly receding. Trees down, still many roads closed or only one lane open. I did get one errand done, to the local CVS which actually had the things I needed. 

I didn't try for the library, since too many roads either partly or totally under water. My needs can wait a day or two. People are trying to get to work.

This morning as I was making tea I glanced out of the kitchen window and there was a hummingbird busy in the Russian sage. It didn't have a twig in its beak, but it still seemed quite biblical and cheering. Closest hummingbird sighting I've ever had.

And the robe is done. I will gradually do seam finishing on the inside, probably flat hemming  lace, since the terry is too thick for felling or French seaming.

Anyway here she is! See how the pockets work. So it's ready in case the weather ever gets cool. This is a much better use of the fabric than a quilt backing that might never happen.

And the beaded figure almost has a completed head, 

seen here in the workbox. The facial expression looks different depending on what angle you see it from. 

Then I needed a bite for supper and haven't had pasta in a while. Didn't feel like a red sauce, so I thought something along the lines of an alfredo white sauce might be good.

Many subs of course. I fancied blue cheese rather than parmesan, didn't have cream, used whole milk, but I did have garlic and Irish butter and parsley. No fettuccine, but I fancied farfalle anyway, butterflies. Or bowties. These are the real Italian ones from Misfits. 

It turned out well. This pasta needs 14 minutes' boiling, they weren't kidding. The sauce is lovely, garlicky, pungently blue cheesey. Thick enough to cling.

Didn't last long. This used all the sauce, and there's another bowl of cooked pasta ready for a different sauce on a different day.

Here's what's accompanying my beading and cooking, audiobook

And my Austen festival is still going, on Kindle, Lucy Worsley

Stacey Abrams finally arrived on the Kindle

Waiting pick-up at the library are the Sonya Philips sewing book, and DVDs of  Grace and Frankie, 

only just heard of the series, yes, not quick on these things, thought I'd try. Because Lily Tomlin, you know. I can't bear her co-star, so we'll see. But there's also Sam Waterston, so there's that.

I think we're all set here.

You just missed her!

You know those annoying birders who insist on telling you about the birds that were here last week that you missed?  I have become one of them.  But I do have a good excuse.

Several times this week, I happen to have been home, and to have looked out at the patio about four o'clock.  And to have seen a female hummingbird working over the red lantana plant on the fence.  She stays about ten seconds, tops, so seeing her is a feat, and taking her picture an impossible goal.

So I just wanted to show you this is where she was a minute ago!  she's so beautiful.  Works over every single flower on the red lantana, before swooping away high into the pine tree out back, perhaps to rest or clean her beak.  I'm particularly glad about this, since I'd observed that on the few occasions when I've seen hummingbirds on this street, they have been about five feet from the ground, and in search of red flowers. They used to come to my cardinal flower out front, a wild volunteer not there this year.

So I figured that the planters on top of the fence would also be at the right height, and I got a couple of lantana this year, for the red color. I don't like red in a garden, too hot, but I figured this was a different situation.  She seems to approve, showing up several times already.  I know it's female, because there's no red bib.

And what I see is what seems to be a disturbance in the air, then I focus and realize it's Mrs. H hard at work on the lantana.  

She inspects the whole array usually.  Spiderwort? no, and alyssum, no, then wild phlox, nah, wrong color, but ahhhh lantana, just the ticket.  She reminds me of a picky customer at a buffet.

Speaking of picky customers, I know I swore never to eat squash again, after the glut last year, but oh well, a friend stopped by with fresh summer squash from a farmer's market south of here, and well, steamed, buttered, peppered, salted, it's supper in summer. Just look at the colors, that golden and ivory and touch of green.

Last night was a lively meeting of the Socrates Cafe group, with many interesting thoughts about judgment, whether it's good, and if so when, and what kinds there are, and so on. So today, I simply rested and enjoyed a day of practically nothing, except being so glad about where I am, and how things are, and how luxurious it is to have summer days when you can choose to do nothing.

Not strictly accurate, since I did help a neighbor cut down a huge tree branch that was lying on my roof, and spent  a while lopping off all the small branches once it was on the ground. 

Then I arranged for the friend who brought the squash to take the trunk part home for next winter's fires, cherry being a lovely firewood. And got an incredible number of bites in the process of all this.  I guess the mosquitoes consider me a special delicacy, worth going out of their way to sample. There's probably a mosquito gourmet guide book about this.  And I did go to the library in the next town to get a reserved book before it went back to the main libe.  Other than that, though, quite otiose!

I'm reading one of the Isabel Dalhousie books, by A McCall Smith,  hence the sudden use of an unusual word. She, the professional philosopher,  does this, then agonizes over whether it's fair or proper.  And whether anyone can judge anything, and if so, when. She really should come to our Socrates group, would fit right in.

Why it's good to just sit there sometimes or wander about

Last week I got finally around to thinning the pachysandra on the patio, found to my amazement a couple of lovely box planters, buried, the thinning long overdue, now planted with petunia and some shrub, and sitting on the fence.  A lot of tangential activity to that simple need to thin the pachy.

Then yesterday and the two days before, the big reward came -- first sightings in years of a hummingbird busily attending to the petunias.  Flying backwards as they miraculously do, hovering at a terrific rate, just there for a few seconds.  But I was out loafing and reading at the time and that's how I caught sight of her.  Three days in a row.  No pix, no time!

Then today, in the midst of turning out the kitchen, thinning out pots and pans for freecycling, washing the shelfy things that have been there years, amazing how much they needed doing, heavy labor,  I found cachepots and thought I should check if they needed occupants. 

Anyway, I took a break and wandered outside in case I needed to bring any houseplants to occupy them yet, fall seeming to be rushing in, and there, after three years of tlc, the dieffenbachia has thrown a flower!  

I didn't even realize they could. Noticed yesterday what I thought was a new leaf, but here it is opened up, and it's  a lovely surprise of a flower.