25 December 2013 - Season's Grebelings

Season's Grebelings!  

Clark's Grebe

Of course, I'm wigeon you a Merry Christmas . . .

Wigeon - decked out for Christmas in fine breeding plumage

And have a Sappy New Year! 

Red-naped Sapsucker

21 December 2013 - Happy Solstice

I hope everyone out there is joining me in welcoming back the light!  Here's to longer days and shorter nights, albeit a minute or two at a time. Just the thought makes me quite joyful.

The forecasters even got it right. Snow. More snow and bitter cold.

I managed to injure my right knee and right shoulder. I have wonderful neighbors who kept their blowers busy with their own driveways and just added mine on to the task with each additional snowfall.  They are a gift. My neighbors have become my community. 

I was pretty much a home-body all December. It hurt my shoulder and knee to drive (yep, an automatic transmission is looking better all the time) so I stayed in. Even staying in I was able to add another bird to my list! After a second snow storm of yet another 12 inches, the birds were taking over the yard and cleaning out the feeders. 


 
There are feeders on three sides of the house so I always some birdy thing to see. I was watching the birds squabbling over the suet when a little downy flew in. 

 










He landed on a small tree and just clung to the trunk for the longest time. I finally realized it wasn't a downy at all, but a red-naped sapsucker!  

I had been told there were sapsuckers in this area, but this was my first sighting! I certainly had seen signs of them, they leave horizontal rows of holes behind. 

My yard birds are a great source of amusement for both me and the cats. The boys like the big birds. The magpies and quail cause them to natter until their jaws must hurt. 

When there is a hawk fly over, many of the quail will take refuge right next to the house. 

It is not really a safe spot for them. Adding to their terror, the cats go nuts when this happens.

I have a regular flock of six to eight Steller's Jays that show up every day to hit the suet feeders. I am particularly fond of these birds. Big, bold, brash and noisy. What's not to like? I spend too much time trying for the perfect picture. Haven't taken it yet, but I'm working on it.  

I am enamored of their spiky crests and the gorgeous blues. If I could only get one to sit still in the sunshine.

After David made and installed the new feeder hanger with the squirrel guard (it works!) it didn't take the jays more than a day or two to figure out that they could stand on the platform and eat from the feeder. It must be a nice change from swinging madly while clinging on the screen. 

Jack always said, "If you feed them, they will come." Last year we would get so excited if a towhee showed up. This year we have about ten working over the underbrush. They are fast, flighty and shy. 

They prefer scratching in the dirt.  There is a tiny patch of dry dirt under the wisteria and they spend a lot of time scratching in there. 


I always know where they have been by the mess they leave behind. 

I think of them as my tiny gardeners.




 
The hawks are still using my yard to shop for groceries. Yes, I know they need to eat too, but it sure hurts when their hunting scares the birds into my windows. While a hawk was hunting quail, I lost three of them to broken necks on the windows. The hawk didn't even have the decency to take one of those but continued on after live prey, and got it to. 

I was telling David about my plan to get some cheap or hopefully free Christmas trees on Christmas Eve. I thought I could put a few in the back yard for the little birds to use as a hawk shelter. 

This last weekend we had rain, freezing rain, ice, then snow. David brought me a big pine bough that had broken from the weight of the ice.  It is a start!


 


In addition to the snow and cold, the further into the month we got, the worse the inversions. 


Early on, the air was crisp, clear and the stars glittered. The crescent was so bright it lit up it the rest of its circle.  

Fast forward a few days and we were looking at the moon through a haze of pollution. Euphemisms are used here a lot. The weather people talk about haze and fog.  Apparently it is not politically correct to call it smog or pollution.

A couple nights later I happened to look up just as the moon was crowning the pine tree beside the house.  

I am continually surprised by how many interesting things there are to see no matter where you are or no matter what you are doing. I saw this while on a routine trip out to the garbage cans. Truly, the word I live by is circumspice.

Near the end of the month, the inversion was so thick, that as the full moon rose it looked green, then orange. 

Quite something to see, actually. 

 As it rose higher in the sky it turned quite orange. Would have made a great Halloween moon. 

We definitely need a solution to the pollution.

I did not cut the yucca stalks before winter set in, so they are quite showy against the snow. I still get people stopping in the driveway to gawk at them. Makes me laugh. 

It is unexpected to see colors like these  bursting out of a snow bank in the winter. Most fun.




 

2 December 2013 - Thanksgivukkah Part 2

While Robin was here we did a lot more than spend time in grocery stores, cook and eat. After I showed Robin Antelope Island, she took me to The Leonardo. She had seen an article in the AAA magazine about an exhibit that looked interesting. Trust me--it was!
The magazine said if you are in SLC don't miss this installation. We both thought it was new so we had to laugh when we found out it was a permanent installation and had been up for two years. 

This work is called The Hylozoic Veil and is amazing and beautiful. It is a sculpture, an environment, and an experience. It hangs over the lobby and moves up and fills the space over a three story escalator. It is made of paper thin white plastic and at the same time looks like a wild chandelier,  a ferny forest floor or even part of an undersea coral reef. 

The Veil is motion activated-- a person walking by could trigger one or more large feathery fronds to wave, which then sets other pieces off. These are very languid movements. 

Scattered throughout the piece are glass vials that collect carbon dioxide or trap particulate pollution in the air. You can see some the flasks at the base of the fronds here--there is a yellow cast to the water being collected.

It is almost alive, both an art and science project. We spent a lot of time on each floor checking it out from underneath and above. The pictures don't do it justice.

The Leonardo also had a large area called The Lab where people were on hand to teach kids all kinds of interesting things -- both crafts and science projects. 

Robin and I were really taken with some window art displays made with colored paper and held onto the glass with cling sheets. Great for a stained glass effect. That gave me all kinds of ideas. I may have found a new way to keep birds from flying into my windows. 

One of the best parts of the museum was the cafe. Robin and I went in for a sit and a hot drink and ended up with soup. I think it might have been the best soup I have ever had. I had a serious soup swoon going on. I need to go back!

Robin and I also hit Modern Display-- a store neither one of us had ever been in, but it is an icon in SLC. We were both astounded at the quality and quantity of seasonal ornaments and lights. All these years I thought this was a place for retail stores to purchase furniture, displays and store decorations, never dreaming it was open to the public.  I have a mental note to go back and see what happens in there during the  rest of the year.

A stop at Ward and Child just down the street from Modern Display netted Robin a lamp that she has been wanting ever since she saw it last year. Better yet, it was on clearance. Good deal for everyone. 

Speaking of keeping birds from flying into the windows, we spent an evening making 3-D snowflake chains to hang in the living room window. My hope is to discourage fly throughs.  Need a couple more, but they seem to be working. 

Robin left for home today-- and she got out just in time. Big snow storm is predicted for tonight and tomorrow. 

30 November 2013 - Family for Thanksgivukkah Part 1

Robin came out a week before Thanksgiving for a long visit.  It was great! She was able to change her flight to come in about the same time I arrived home from Maine. It was quite a surprise when my phone rang while I was waiting for the shuttle to the parking lot to find out she had just arrived as well. 

We spent the first weekend in the shop. I had to finish the August page for the annual Monks and Friars calendar. Robin worked on an impromptu book made completely of found objects in the shop, even including some sorts of type. I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures of it.

I was pretty happy with my page. I used type in a curve for the first time.  It took quite some time to get the type locked up, but it worked!  I also carved a catfish--my second attempt at carving a linoleum block. The page took four passes through the press. That works out to treadling the press 11,200 times. That is probably the reason my hip and/or knee gets sore after a long press run.

Here I am considering my options when I could not get the second run to line up correctly. Then I discovered the type wasn't locked up tightly enough and was about to fall out of the frame. Talk about just in time. Whew!


Robin had never been to Antelope Island and because it is one of my happy places, I dragged her off to the island. That phrase "off to the island again" always makes me think of drinks with umbrellas. Here in late November, it was a bit too chilly for beach drinks, but we had a good time anyway. Because we could, we made a quick stop at Farmington Bay to see if there were any interesting birds. 

The first time I pulled over to look at ducks, Robin looked out her window and saw this little guy right beside the road--a smidge smaller than a tennis ball.  My best guess is a maybe a young muskrat. I will entertain any other ideas. 


It was a pretty hazy day--more smoggy than haze, but it did make it hard to see very far or very clearly. Trying to get pictures was even harder. But there were huge rafts of ducks. This is just a tiny part of the many ducks on the bay.

There were lots of Northern Shovelers, Pintail Ducks, Ruddy Ducks, Western Grebes and Goldeneyes. My guess is there were many others I couldn't see well enough to identify.  I could hear Marsh wrens and see them moving through the reeds. 

But the best part was as we were leaving and we saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree.  

At first I thought he was a golden eagle. He was backlit and with the bare eye and all the haze I couldn't see the white parts until I got him in the zoom. Even then he was far enough away that the camera barely could get him. 

Pretty exciting!






We moved on to Antelope Island.  It never disappoints.

 At a stop on the causeway, Robin ran down to the water to check out the drifts of dead brine shrimp. 

The tumble weeds were still blowing around the island, floating in the lake and otherwise looking picturesque. 

Robin also had to do a head-bump with the sacred white buffalo.

And yes, we did see the real thing. Quite a lot of them, actually. 

You would almost think this guy was the model for the sculpture. 

As usual, the landscape was stunning. No matter what the season is, there is something wonderful to see. 

 
We looked until our eyes hurt. But in all that looking there were some surprises--like a porcupine. At first he looked like a big messy nest in a tree, on a second look we realized he was indeed a porky.  We could only see his butt, but it was spiny. 

We also stopped to watch some large groups of starlings murmurating. When some of them landed in a tree I was ready. 

In the late afternoon the seed heads on the grasses glowed in front of the setting sun.
 

 There is something about the low, southern winter sun that adds a bit of magic to the landscape. Intriguing. Fascinating.

 













All too soon it got dusky and darkness descended as we drove back to the causeway. 

 All three sibs together, cooking and eating too well.  How fun is that? We had decided early on that rather than cook a turkey we would have duck. All of us like dark meat so it seemed like a perfect solution. We also decided not to go overboard with food to keep it simple. Hmm. Simple doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. 

David's idea of simple was two batches of pumpkin bars and a blueberry crisp. Not all at once mind you. 

Robin's idea of simple (?) included making sweet potato latkes to go with the duck. She got David involved in cooking the latkes.

Then later in the week her idea of simple was cooking up some bone marrow for appetizers.

 Here is the marrow, ready to spread on the fingers of toast and then topped with a fresh herb mix. David and I immediately reverted to five years old and were making faces at each other during the process. We should have been relegated to the kids' table, but another surprise? It was delicious!

Since my life is measured out in lyrics, there was nothing for it: I was obliged to sing Eggs, Eggs and Marrow Bones--at least as much of it as I could dredge up. I learned it from one of Pop's Richard Dyer Bennett records years ago. 

My idea of simple involved eating leftovers and not cooking at all.

Robin went foraging in the yard and made the centerpiece.




 


















Several days later, Robin discovered she couldn't stand the idea of not having any turkey at Thanksgiving, so she picked up a several packages of turkey thighs and cooked them. Do you know how big turkey thighs are? I made a double batch of fresh cranberry/orange relish and we totally forgot to eat it. Very odd. I am sure I will find many ways to use to up. 

Robin lit the candles each night and sang the Hebrew blessings. We let them burn down as the three of us played Scrabble and argued fairly good-naturedly over words. I'm still miffed that congo is unacceptable and Robin wants qi added to the two letter word list. When David had an unacceptable word he always was able to make it into something else even better. We each won at least one game.