Dig Out the Quilt - Autumn is Here

Saturday morning of my 3-day weekend - woke up cold and stiff as an antarctic popsickle. I've hesitated to put the down quilt on my bed but I think it's time to get it out of mothballs. I climbed out of bed, stiff-legged it into the hallway and shivering, switched the thermostate from 'cool' to 'heat'. The heater turned on, I was thawed out and I think I'm going to live. Hurrah for Autumn! About time it got here. Of course had I looked out the window at my Hawthorn tree I would have seen it's Autumn. Love those scarlet berries. Going to be a bumper crop this year so the Cedar Waxwings will be eating like birdie royalty.

Got a call last night from buddy Don. He was passing through town today on his way to visit his friends in Auburn. Expecting company is always good for a nice kick in the arse towards house cleaning or, as in this particular case, decluttering. One shift of the Lazy-boy recliner and suddenly my living room was in Feng Shui shape, feeling open, airy and even brand new. If I had company every week I bet I'd be able to convince myself I'm living in a palace.

Don asked if I wanted to go off birding this afternoon but I'm totally in low gear - again. Opted to stay home this weekend and do some garden work. For the record, I'm taking bets if garden renovation will actually happen and the good money is not on me, it's on the weeds.

Another Mini Hen Party!

Rick Codina has taken off to south Texas and unlike me, he’s not going there to bird, he’s going there for his 40^th (!) high school reunion. I had a look at his high school year book and he hasn’t changed at all. I mean it – he’s a tad older than I am but his hair is still jet black, and naturally so. Not at all fair really but what’ya gonna do?

Anyway, with the rooster out of the hutch, Nancy thought it might be fun to hold a mini-hen party in preparation for the one all of us hens will be going to in December. So Robyn, who is also a devoted Harry Potterhead, and I met at Nancy’s for dinner and a movie a la' Netflix -Becoming Julia. It wasn't a total hen party as there was a young cockerel in residence: 15 year old Adan. Being his usual sweet self meant the old hens weren’t even tempted to peck his eyes out or anything.

40th Annual Native American Day Celebration

The Color Guard at the Opening Ceremony


Only worked 3 hours; spent most of the day doing my docent thing on the north lawn at the State Capital. I worked the cash register for theState Indian Museum. We had SIM t-shirts, mugs. Also we had working facsimiles of Indian pump drills (left photo) and elderberry clapper sticks for sale - great crowd pleasers, especially at only ten bucks each.

But oh how I sucked at the cash register! Normally I have no problems at all, but at the end of the day the cash register showed that we’d made $10K, though that must have been in Pesos – in real $ we made a little over $400. Yikes! I guess I was a tad distracted chatting with the visitors and watching the wonderful traditional dancers.