grackle crisis

today i was trying to sit on my porch to work on a carving, but there was a grackle crisis.

it seems there is a grackle nest in the tree in front of my house.

because a little one, not yet ready to fly, seems to have stepped out of the nest and was hiding in my bushes.

and crying piteously for food.

...which nobody would bring it because i was sitting there.

so the parents and assorted other grackles sat in trees making a racket and the little baby sat in my bushes wailing and the other fledglings in the nest heard their sibling and also set to wailing so i decided today was not my day to sit on the porch and apparently now the little one is being fed under my bushes and only occasionally cries to be fed.

that little guy is now MOTIVATED to learn to fly.

hope is that thing with feathers.

stuff to play with

i am done with my sewing project. these days i am also practicing guitar, which is a thing i have not done in a long time.

here's a thing i spent a while playing with this morning. i hope you will like it. headphones recommended, or at least good speakers.

then i wasted some more time taking some intelligence tests. i turns out i'm moderately smart.

and for no particular reason, this:

day twelve

today is day twelve of Sewing The Jacket. it's going to be nice, though, and i will probably not have to do a large scale jacket sewing for the rest of my life. i'm planning on making some adjustments here and there as i may acquire new patches that i like better or are more important, but for the most part, i am not looking to get a lot more patches.


these two are my most recent additons:

they're earned from adult training. i think older scouts can also earn these but the real importance is for adults because you have to be certified in these things to take your scouts camping.

well. that was a nice little break. i have to return to the sewing.

duct tape thimble

i don't own a thimble.

and today is day nine of the sewing project. and by "day nine",  i mean it is my primary activity. this is partly because the fabric is stiff and the patches are hard and partly because i'm fussy and need to do everything so it goes on straight and partly because i am sucky at sewing so it takes me a long time to do simple tasks.

these days i have also been doing laundry, picking up after myself, cooking meals, and doing dishes. also cleaning up after the monumental mess i left myself in the month of april.

and also working out a little.

in short, i am trying to get my stuff together.

and then i will go camping.

and here is my thimble.

closing tabs. again

i was going to write you a real post today, but i just have too many tabs open.

i will tell you that i am on day seven of a sewing project that i mean to tell you about later, but it's camping season, holy honk, so we'll see how that goes.

anyway, while i'm sitting here sewing, i am looking at a lot of interwebs.

and now i have tabs i want to close.

i'm a musician by training and trade, and more specifically a composer, so how we translate different ideas into music is always of interest to me. here's an interesting concept where a guy does this with maps.




i was sick for the month of april and at some point i just needed food i could unwrap and eat without getting out of my hammock. enter bars. there are a lot of bars on the market, but someone gave me an Rx bar and i was like WOW. this thing totally makes me feel like i have eaten food and yet it's not too much trouble to eat and i don't feel sick afterward.

but they're expensive. so i was interested to see a recipe for a facsimile thereof. i haven't tried them yet, but it's on my list, especially because camping food.

i think this here video of what goes on backstage at the met is cool.




here's a map that explains a lot of the hostility for education in red states.

and while we're at it, take a look at an interactive explainer/simulator on the challenges of getting a child an appropriate education in the chicago public schools.


you probably need to be cheered up now.




and if that didn't work, try this:

do. not. yield.

stuff, stuff, and more stuff.

my house looks like some untidy person has been living here but not picking up after themselves. if you look carefully the untidy person can't be bothered to load the dishwasher or pick up random food wrappers, but yet all the camping gear is neatly maintained and stowed.

my excuse of course is that even in my month of sickness i managed to prepare for scout meetings and go camping because dammit, one is a responsibility and the other, well, if all i'm going to do is lie in a hammock and read and cough, i may as well be in a nice quiet forest.

i volunteered to do some girl scout trainings because we need more opportunities for girl scout trainings but that means i have to get some certifications and stuff and all sudden i'm going to be in places where one wears a patch jacket.

this is a thing where as your badges and stuff go out of date on your uniform, you still have attachment to them so you put them on a jacket and wear them around only i am not ever going to fit into the jacket i was wearing in 1976 so i bought a new jacket and am transferring all my badges and patches. even though my badges are all 1963 style, i have decided to place them on my jacket in a way reminiscent of the 1927 uniform, which i think is a cool look.

basically i'm a walking museum of girl scout memorabilia of my era.

i have a patch from the camp i'll be at in june that is older than the camp director. by a significant amount.

it's a lot of sewing, and activity i am not historically good at.

meanwhile, i was catching up on my rss feed today, and i read this thing, which i think you also should read.

amen and amen.

cough

i have been very, very busy doing something and have not been writing to you.

what thing, you may ask? coughing.

now THAT was a cold. actually, it was two colds, i'm pretty sure because is was just at that point where you think it's maybe over and you go to that festival you were supposed to go to only now in your weakened state you're exposed to the exotic germs of ALL THOSE PEOPLE and within twelve hours of your return home, you're SICK.

so here's my month of april:

sick
one girls scout field trip
sick
a festival weekend
sick
one night camping

and that brings us to the first three days of may, still sick.

ok.

now i can tell you about the interesting things.