Weekly Bird in the hand

Here is this week's things that I am grateful for:

Harold, my pet parrot.

• Fin, my brother in law who celebrated his 60th birthday this week.
• My friend Marion from Germany who is celebrating her birthday in her new home.
• My Vitamix.  I bought a Vitamix a few months ago and I absolutely love it.  I use it at least twice a day.  I'm loving my homemade hummus and just now, I made my own cashew nut butter!  And that is in between all the green smoothies I'm making with it!  Yes, it was an expensive machine - but it brings me a lot of joy!
• The fun of mixing paint colors!  (see yesterday's post)
• Meeting new friends and catching up with old friends.
• Getting excited about my sister and her family coming to visit in 2 weeks.
• Finding some unusual greens at a farm stand - including amaranth, sorrel, purslane....and then finding micro greens at the farmers market - including purple amaranth, sunflower, kale, beets, broccoli.  They were all so colorful with so many shades of green and purples.  A delight to the eyes as well as the taste buds.  It's made me want to try growing some of my own micro greens....

I hope you've had a colorful week too.

Oscar the Osprey finds Harold! - Friday's fascinations, facts and folklore

When we lived on Sanibel Island in FL, before moving to California, there were loads of ospreys to be seen. We even had them nesting in our garden and it was lovely to watch them. 

Soon after moving to Sanibel, I wrote a children's short story - never did anything with it, but it was all about Oscar the Osprey and Harold our pet parrot.  I was inspired to write it because shortly after moving there, Harold was on top of his cage in the screened porch area one day and a large osprey flew over the screen roof, very close to Harold's cage!  Poor little Harold was scared with this large shadow overhead and fell off his perch onto the floor! 

And so - I wrote this little story about how scary it is to move to a new place and not have any friends and how to make friends etc.  Yes, as you can imagine, Oscar and Harold became fine friends in the story.

Well yesterday, I saw that Oscar had come to see Harold - all the way from Florida!  I looked out of the window and there was Oscar on top of our willow tree by the pond!  He was looking as handsome as ever, perched right on the top.  After getting my camera and taking a few shots,  I, of course, told Harold he was here to see him!  Naturally Harold was very excited....but I can't tell you the rest because maybe that will be another little story one day!  The further adventures of Harold and Oscar - all about how to stay in touch with your friends not matter how far away you live!!

Oscar looks like he's had too much fun with Harold here - and is taking a little nap!!

What stories are happening around you today?

Experimenting

I've been experimenting all day today with lots of new stuff - not metal clay ...... and got nowhere! Guess it's time to quit for the day. It's frustrating as I actually had a full day to create but now have nothing to show for it...

When I think how much metal clay I could have achieved today, it makes it worse....but I guess I do want to try new things.....it's just that I want them to work perfectly the first time I try them :-DDDD

To cheer myself up, I'm wearing my little pin I made this week of my parrot Harold with a new pin back that I formed. It's holding up OK... This is my second Harold pin - and I prefer the colors in this one. I'll have to show them both to Harold and see which he prefers.

Good old cheery Harold.

Bird perch earrings

Poor Harold. I mentioned him yesterday - my pet parrot - and showed his photo to go with my "birdcage necklace".....well late last night I was on my computer reading other peoples blogs at around 11.30pm when I heard a big crash. I thought it was my husband falling over but then I heard a squalk.

I ran into the kitchen where Harold had been put to bed a couple of hours previously and he was flapping and making lots of noise inside his cage, under his bedtime blanket. I put the light on and tried to talk calmly to him as he was puffing and panting, his little chest heaving! I asked him to tell me what was the matter - but he just clung on to the side of his cage.....


I still not really sure what happened to .... I stayed talking to him for a while and tried to settle him down until eventually he stood back on his perch. I think what had happened was that he fell off his perch while he was asleep and got very upset about it :-( Poor little Harold.

Anyhow - in a way it was timely as I was going to show you my birds on a perch earrings. These birds are firmly attached to their perches so can't fall off when they doze off to sleep.......


Tough life being a parrot! Maybe I should call the earrings "hang on to your perch!"

Anyone can.......whistle

I love to whistle. I do it quite a lot actually. Can often be heard whistling a tune.....and on many occasions I have been told that I whistle like a man. What exactly does that mean? Is it a compliment? Should I be proud? Should I try to whistle like a woman? Who knows - but it doesn't put me off whistling.

And I have a great whistling pal in my pet parrot Harold. (He looks a bit fluffed up here, as I just woke him up to take his photograph! Sorry Harold!!) He sings too - but he does have a lovely whistle - including a very flattering wolf whistle!

So a couple of days ago I was trying to decide what my next "anyone can...." piece would be - and I had the idea that anyone can whistle. So here is Anyone. Yes, he/she looks like just an ordinary figure - just hanging out from the chain as a necklace. But Anyone has a surprise! Hold Anyone up to your lips and blow - and "Anyone can whistle"!!!

I build the whistle part first. I'd never tried making a whistle before - and it was fiddly to get the sound to hit the correct part to the make the whistle....but when the metal clay was dry, I blew into it and it did make a sound.....so then I added and moulded Anyone onto the front of the whistle! Then I hoped that in the kiln it wouldn't all collapse or shrink in an uneven way and no longer sound. But it worked!

For those musical types out there, Anyone whistles an E (unless you don't blow fully and then it's an E flat!!!!). It's a pretty sound too. A nice clear tone. Maybe this will become the new tuning fork!!!

Hope you like Anyone. I built another Anyone can.... this weekend too whom you'll meet soon.....

I'll list "anyone can whistle" on my site and Dawanda soon.