Randomness

Look at all the orioles that stopped by to feed!!!*

~ Thank you for all the comments on my turtle rings (on a post a while back). I am making one for Dee of Cherry Obsidia, who left the first comment. She lives in the UK, so I get to learn how to convert her size P to a US size. Also, she is a lampworker and jewelry designer, so she will have a nice critical eye. I've made a few turtles and I'm now deciding which one to turn into a ring.

*~ So about a week ago we were at our daughter's softball game and our next door neighbor sent me a text and he was freaking out because there were FIVE Baltimore orioles on our feeder. He said he was running to get his camera. I of course didn't take him seriously because we had yet to attract even one orange bird. He eventually texted back to say they were "impostor" birds LOL. I figured he just didn't know his birds. So about an hour later we get home and my husband walks over to the window where we can see the feeders, and he says something like "I think we got some orioles!" Now we're all excited and running to the window. But after further inspection, we realize they are impostors! Fake birds! We hear laughing coming from the basement steps and our son comes up, laughing his head off. Apparently my dad had been secretly contacting our son to find out when we wouldn't be home (during the softball game, as it turns out) so he could drop off some fake-but-realistic-looking orioles. It was our son's job to position them on the feeders and the fence and in the garden (there was a whole flock!). Very nice. You got us, dad. And you really got our neighbors.

~ Summer tip: While most adults probably prefer to eat watermelon cut into nice little cubes or scooped into neat balls with a melon baller, kids (and kids at heart) much prefer to eat it off the rind. So if you're having a summer barbecue with both kids and adults, I suggest you have two options for eating watermelon and see who picks what.

~ I finally bought Bitter Apple (thank you for the suggestions!) to hopefully deter our cat Bert from chewing on cords. The final straw was when he bit through the mouse cord while my husband was using it. The cord must have been hanging down under computer and all of the sudden it didn't work, so my husband pulls the cord up and it was bitten in half. That cat is very sly.

~ Our poor dog is afraid of thunder. But poor us - we've had thunderstorms the last two nights and he keeps running from one side of our bed to the other, checking to see if anyone will let him in. Usually he sits in the shower to wait them out. I'm now wondering if Thunder Shirts really work - anyone try time on their scared pooches?

~ Now that my kids are out of school for the summer, my torch time has taken a dive. The kids go to bed much later, so I don't really torch after dinner. What I need to do is have some early morning torch sessions, when the house is quiet.

~ I showed no willpower today when I bought whip cream (the kind you spray from a can). It's not for ice cream - I plan on using it on iced coffees (once the temps go back up above 70).

~ I planted green bean seeds in the garden the other day. I also planted Kaleidoscope Mix Carrots - hoping to have purple carrots to show off in a few months. How cool would that be?

~ I will definitely do Murrini Monday this coming Monday. I don't know what my problem is lately - I just haven't been blogging a lot. But I love Murrini Mondays, so if you have any suggestions (beads you've seen that show off murrini), just let me know!

Our daughter turned 8 a few days ago. See that cake? It's a half-sheet cake that feeds about 40 people. We have five people in our family. So we invited the neighbors. That made a total of eight people eating that cake. Five days later and the cake is just about gone. We love cake.

Have a great weekend!!!

Bird Watching

My parents have a whole bunch of bird-feeders in their yard, and this year they have been attracting Baltimore orioles. These birds are a brilliant shade of orange, so it's no wonder that the way to attract them is with orange slices. Apparently the orange slices lure them in, where a nice cup of grape jelly is waiting for them to eat. This set-up can be as simple as half an orange nailed to a tree with a small dish of grape jelly next to it. Or, there are feeders designed with orioles in mind that have spots for two orange slices and a cup for the jelly in the middle. My dad set us up with one of these (after my attempts to lure an oriole with my own handmade version wasn't working), as well as a finch feeder and a feeder for suet logs.

It's only been about a week and a half since we put the feeders up and we've had great luck with the finch feeder. Here are a male and female goldfinch on a date at our feeder:

And here is a house finch on the feeder just this morning:

We still haven't had an oriole stop by, so last weekend I went to my parents' house to check out their birds. There were so many! I saw finches, woodpeckers, bluejays, a hummingbird and a Baltimore oriole:

The hummingbird was way too quick for me to get a photograph of it, but boy was it cool! Our kids are really enjoying the feeders, too. We look out the window every time we go by now, checking for birds. And we aren't the only ones:

Do you have feeders? What kind of birds do you get?

I'm still working on my bird beads. This little red hen is too chubby to fly up to the feeder, so she's just waiting on a lounge chair for someone to feed her.

This SALE is for the Birds

The birds haven't exactly been flying out of my shop. So to help push them out of the nest, I've put them all on sale. Every bird, including chickens, is now $10 - now that's something to tweet about! I think I'll go tweet about it right now! To see more of my "cheap" birdies, visit HERE.