Posts Tagged ‘bird’

Have you seen Snowball dance? Check out the original post here. You can see a long version here.

Marianne, Moonflower sounds like a dream plant! Huge fragrant flowers (6 inches) that glow under the moonlight. It thrives in poor, dry soil. (Can you believe that?) Just plant and enjoy. You can’t ask for an easier plant! :lol: And I can just go on Burpee.com and order the seeds! Yippee for Burpee!!! This is making me want to garden again. Just need to figure out where. CB and I used to do more gardening, putting fresh flowers around our unit. But we have a couple of ladies here that think anything on the property is theirs to play with. They move them wherever they want. They throw their old plants in our pots. One of them waters plants with powerful jets that always damage the delicate flowers. The worst is the sprinkling of chemicals on the plants. We just stopped bringing in new plants because they get killed anyway.

Oh Jane, they have Bleeding Heart (which I love too) on Burpee.com. :-) And they can be shipped to California! It’s out of season though.

Speaking of growing something…

I am letting my hair grow long. :lol: Possibly longer than shoulder length. I’ve never had my hair that long. So, what the heck. If I don’t like it, I’ll just have it cut, and maybe donate it to a charity. Will they take graying hair? :-) Let me tell you something though. I went to the store to get hair product to keep my stubborn hair tidy. Talk about a large selection of stuff. I was totally lost. Oh! And I got this:

SCRUNCHIES! No, not for my hair! :lol: I’ll be using these to replace the rubber bands tensioning devices on the Lendrum. Hmmm… but maybe I’ll save a few for later. :-)

These Yellow-Chevroned Parakeets have finally decided to stop and feed on the pods. I only managed to photograph a few of them. And it’s overcast today. This is the best shot of the bunch. I will try to get more pictures in the future.

Blogged with Flock

Yesterday I started looking for a different theme for my new WordPress blog. Not that I hated the style of the last one. It was just too darn difficult to read. For me anyway. So I searched and searched and found Subtle by Glued Ideas. It looked quite nice and compatible with WordPress Widgets. Yes, Widgets. Little blocks of codes that can be dragged and dropped into the sidebars. No source code editing. Just drag and drop. How nice is that?

That was just the beginning…

I started playing with different configurations, different add-ons. WordPress is so flexible that I keep finding things to experiment with. Things to learn. In other words, I got drawn into the world of widgets and codes. And here I am, still tinkering. The best discovery so far was from within the theme options. I was asked if I wanted to configure FeedBurner. Hmmm… FeedBurner. Sounded familiar. So I followed the link and paid them a visit. Wow! What a great service. Basically they take your blog feed and make it readable by most blog/rss readers. Plus they give you the option to immediately pin many popular services when you update your blog. Services like Bloglines, Technorati and Ping-o-matic, so that you won’t have to wait for them to come looking for something new. This discovery came just when I started noticing that Bloglines was having problems reading my blog feed. Probably because of the modifications. With FeedBurner, now I can feel assured that the feed is in a standard format and updated frequently. Plus I was able to merge my Flickr feed into the blog feed, which means that people will know when I add new public photos. AND, FeedBurner makes it easy to subscribe to a feed. I have it configured in the sidebar. Take a look and click on the icon and see how easy it is for people to subscribe to your blog. I highly recommend FeedBurner’s services. I think everyone should try it.

No, I am not being paid by FeedBurner. :lol:

On to something else…

My dear friend Mariko gave me a couple of bags of unginned cotton. Big bags. (Thanks Mariko!) I started playing with separating the fiber from the seeds. It is quite easy to do. Only a few stubborn ones here and there. I’ll probably all of it by hands and card it to make punis. Ah, the thought of that just makes me so relaxed. I hope that we’ll find a nice rental house with a nice backyard when we move norht, so I can sit in a comfy chair with a big basket of fiber to work with. :)

Unginned Cotton

Here’s a little fella that I’ve noticed hanging around in the neighborhood since last year. I think it’s home is not far from here. I like to whistle when I see it, and it always seems to be very curious and listens intently.

Unknown Bird

Unknown Bird

Unknown Bird

What happens when you have so much fun spinning cotton on a support spindle? Move on to a charkha wheel of course! I am really lucky that I can get my hands on a Journey Wheel Attache Charkha for a test drive. It’s amazingly fast. Serious.

Journey Wheel Attache Charkha

I spent hours last night getting familiar with this wheel. See that pile at the back? Yes, they are mostly mistakes. Fun mistakes (for now). It was so fun experimenting with drafting techniques. I definitely discovered a few things about the behavior of the cotton fiber. I also think that the Attache is too fast and too large for me. It spins at a ratio of 110:1. Too fast for my liking. Or maybe I just need to get used to it? The Book Charkha spins at a ratio of 70:1. I think that would be better for me. But I do worry about the lighter weight of the wheel. Will it stay put when I spin? I am also looking at Alden Amos’ charkha wheels. But I think I won’t consider any of them for my first charkha. I want something portable that I can travel with. I do fancy the t-frames and the banjo though.

Journey Wheel Attache Charkha Close-up

I mentioned that my first goal of spinning cotton is to weave a piece of fabric to use as an offering to the monks next year. But I think I am spinning a bit too thin here. The truth is that I have no idea what it needs to be for weaving.

Floss Silk Tree 1

How many birds do you see?

Floss Silk Tree 2

Do you think that these birds find it safe to be on this thorny floss silk tree?