Christmas 'Hoopla'

The other day Meggie tagged me to play "Christmas Hoopla." Here is how to play:
1. List 12 random things about yourself that have to do with Christmas.
2. Please refer to it as a 'hoopla' and not the dreaded 'm'-word. I suppose that refers to the 'M'eme list.
3. You have to specifically tag people when you're done. None of this "if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged" stuff is allowed...then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people you tag is really up to you -- but the more, the merrier to get this 'hoopla' circulating through the blogosphere.
4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible.

OK, Here goes.....
1. I love the Bing Crosby version of "White Christmas."
2. I hate that Christmas has become so commercialized.
3. I would love to take a week off before Christmas to stay home and enjoy getting all my Christmas stuff done: baking, cards, decorating, etc.
4. When we were little my Mom sewed matching Christmas outfits for me and my sister and I ended up ripping the tie on my blouse at the Christmas pageant at church--Mom was pretty mad.
5. For the past several years, I have always made a batch of homemade lefsa for Christmas dinner.
6. The worst Christmas gift my husband ever gave me was a shotgun.
7. The best Christmas gift my husband ever gave me was a pair of diamond stud earrings (I wear them every day)
8. I love eggnog (the stuff you buy in the dairy case at the grocery store).
9. I used to have real Christmas trees, but got tired to having to secure them because every cat I've ever had has insisted on climbing up them and tipping them over.

Can you see Penny in the tree? (And the 2 brown lines running out of the tree above and below Penny are the yarn I used to secure the tree to the railing so it doesn't tip over)

10. The biggest monetary Christmas bonus I ever received was $1000.
11. I usually compose and print a Christmas letter every year (but haven't started a letter or even cards yet this year)
12. I actually like fruitcake.

I know everyone's busy right now, but I would like to "tag" Mary at "Mary's View" and Trixie at "Trixie's View" to play the Christmas Hoopla game. Come on, ladies, do you have time to play???

7 Random Things

I was tagged a few weeks ago by Lisa at Greenbow and again the other day by LauraHinNJ for the 7 Random Things meme.

So here are seven random (or weird) things you may not have known about me:

1. I am a numismatist (so the next time you see that commercial on TV you will think of me). I have the US Coin Map framed on my dining room wall (only 5 more to go!) I'm collecting the Presidential Dollars. I have a handful of wheat pennies laying on my dresser, I have a Mercury dime that's mounted so I can wear it as a necklace, and I always examine what kind of coins I get as change before putting them in my purse.
   
2. I have gone to Wal-Mart in my pajamas.
   
3. I drive too fast--usually at least 5-8 mph over the speed limit, because I know the cops usually don't stop people if they're only a little ways over the limit (at least they haven't gotten me yet!)
   
4. I'm fascinated with tornadoes. I have a collection of tornado videos. I read books about tornadoes. When I was still living at home, our house sustained minor damage when a tornado struck my hometown in 1976. I have seen a real tornado (but it didn't touch down or do any damage).
   
5. I dream in color and sound (sometimes about tornadoes!)
   
6. I have heard wolves howling in the wild.
7. I spend way too much money on my backyard birds. I've been keeping track for the last 6 months and found I spend almost $100 a month on birdseed and mealworms.

As with other meme's, there are some "rules:" Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog. Share 7 random or weird things about yourself. Tag 7 people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I'm going to "break" a rule and not tag anyone since it seems everyone's pretty busy with holiday preparations right now. Thanks for tagging me, Laura. It was fun to do this ahead and actually have a post "saved" in advance and just pop in some pictures today.

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On an unrelated note, I heartily "approve" of the package that arrived in my mailbox today containing a Christmas present to myself.

The classic black t-shirt.....favored by self-respecting bikers (and bunny lovers)

And my own autographed copy of "Disapproving Rabbits"

The pictures and captions in this book are adorable....and yes, Mom, I will bring it along at Christmas so everyone can read it!

Bluejays--The Movie

This is the reason why I go through 100 pounds of peanuts in the shell every winter. Who needs TV when you've got bluejays?



These guys are loud and boisterous, but I know there's no way they would ever be trusting enough to take a peanut out of my hand, so the "Brave Birdie" award will remain with the chickadee forever more.

10 Days Till Christmas

So I've gone 3 days without doing a post....it's such a weird feeling....it's like I can tell something's wrong, but I just can't put my finger on what's missing in my life and then I realize how much I miss my blog and being able to spend time with all of my blogging friends! We started our first overtime weekend today and I worked from 5-10 AM. I'll take tomorrow off and then hit it hard again starting Monday. This afternoon, though I had some time for some work and some fun (I'm saving the fun till last!)

The temps were in the upper teens this afternoon, partly sunny, and very little wind, so I decided to try hanging some laundry outside.I've been wanting to do this all winter, but it's been either snowing or too windy the last few weekends I've done laundry. The weatherman says tomorrow is going to be nice like today, so the laundry hopefully will freeze dry overnight and I'll have good smelling clean clothes to fold tomorrow.

I'm making progress on my Christmas gifts. In the picture below (from L. to R.) is a stocking cap for my nephew in California, a sock for my office mate (a second one still has to be completed), and the goofy-looking thing is a ball cap earwarmer (my own design).

I saw something like this (made in fleece) in a catalog and actually figured out how to adapt the design to a knitted pattern. Here's how it works:

The opening in front goes over the "bill" on your ball cap--the lower part keeps your forehead warm and the upper part holds it in place on your cap. I've knitted it so it's wider in the back part to also cover that hole in the back of a cap to keep that spot on the back of your head warm too. I'm planning to get this pattern typed up in early January, so if any of you knitters would like to try knitting your own for the "ball cap wearers" in your life, let me know in a comment or e-mail and I'll be sure to send you a copy.

OK, now for the fun.......can you figure out what this is??

I brought home an empty apple juice jug from my stop at Wild Birds Unlimited today and while I was rinsing out the jug and the cap, I realized the cap would be perfect for holding mealworms in my hand and feeding chickadees.

I'm afraid I'm getting obsessed with feeding these little birdies, but it's just such an amazing thing to have them be trusting enough to land on my finger and eat a worm!

YIKES!

Snowy Owl (photo taken November 8, 2005 on a garage in a residential area of Rochester, MN) CLICK TO ENLARGE!

It finally hit me today that it's only 2 weeks till Christmas and the only decoration I have out so far is a flag on my mailbox! It's also only 2-1/2 weeks till the end of the year at work and things are already getting kinda crazy there too.

So, I'm going to have to make some adjustments here at home in order to get everything done and unfortunately I think it's going to mean less time for blogging (at least during the week). So my posts for the next couple weeks are going to become a little sporadic. I will try to check in to stay in touch with what everyone else has going on, but don't worry if you don't see a post from me for a few days, because I'm probably trying to finish knitting a pair of socks or a cap in time for Christmas!

This One's for Mary

Sorry Mare, but I just couldn't resist!

Backyard Brushpiles

Richard has a Fox Sparrow in his backyard and Larry has a Fox Sparrow in his backyard......I wanna Fox Sparrow in my backyard!!

To encourage a Fox Sparrow to check out my backyard, I decided to create some new brushpiles this morning. Even if the Fox Sparrow doesn't come, the other little birdies and bunnies will benefit from these winter brushpiles. I put them fairly close to the feeders so the ground feeding birds have a little extra shelter while eating, plus these brushpiles may provide a safe haven in the event of a surprise Cooper's Hawk visit.

First I chose my locations:

Backyard

Side yard

Front yard

Armed with the big, ratcheting lopping shears, I got started.....

I put some white pine branches down first. They make a good base and provide more protection for little birdie toes from the cold and snow below.

Then I just cut down and threw on a bunch of branches from a maple tree and some pin oak branches that still had leaves on. The leaves are nice too as they will allow the snow to pile up on top and give more shelter for the birdies when they fly inside the brush pile.

Here are the other completed brushpiles:

Backyard

Side yard

Don't they look nice? I think these brushpiles add a lot more visual interest to the plain white snowy backyard. If we get more snow and they start to get covered up, I can just cut some more branches to add to the pile. In the spring when the snow has melted, I'll just pick all these branches up and add them to the huge brushpile out in my wildflower patch. And I'm pleased to report that within 20 minutes of piling up all these branches....

....the birds were already taking advantage of them. How much more free fun could a person have outside in the middle of winter?

And to make things even better, I got to see a couple of surprise visitors today:

The biggest Ring-Necked Pheasant I've ever seen! (can't you almost hear that sparrow saying, "hey, leave some for us little guys!")

Mr. Red-Bellied Woodpecker (the female has been a regular visitor for weeks now, but today was the first time I've seen the male)

A Great Gray Owl Story

I'm digging into the archives tonight to tell you a story that's almost 2 years old. Some of you may remember the winter of 2005 when the Great Gray Owls invaded northern Minnesota. For me, it was an event I'll never forget....and it all started so innocently.

I was still working at Wild Birds Unlimited then and had been hearing a few stories about this owl irruption, but hadn't been paying much attention. Then one Saturday evening on the NBC Nightly News, I saw this story about the owls and featuring Sharon Stiteler. Oh My Gosh, I could barely function the rest of the evening! First of all there were these huge numbers of owls (practically in my backyard) that would never be seen again in my lifetime (according to the story) and secondly there was the Birdchick! I was amazed to actually see this young woman who was so interested in birds (freakishly so, according to her website). It was almost like getting permission to "come out of the closet" so to speak. If this cute, young woman could go on national TV and be so excited about birds, then I wasn't going to hide my feelings anymore either.....and the rest is history.

So anyway, I talked my spousal unit into a couple weekend trips up north and were disappointed to see only a few owls. I don't know how we got on the subject, but one day my sissy and I had a brainstorm and decided that the two of us should try an owl trip together. So we took a little time off work and went up on a Thursday afternoon so we could get an early start looking for owls on Friday. We stayed at a nice (and inexpensive) motel in Moose Lake and used that as our starting point. Since I had already been up there a couple times, I was familiar with the roads to travel.

Following our usual birding trip agenda, we got an early start after loading up on snacks and coffee and headed out. It was cold that morning--above zero, but not very far. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon when we saw our first Great Gray Owl. It was actually too dark yet to even take a picture, but there it was....a good sign for what would turn out to be an incredible day.

We continued driving slowly down the country roads and stopped whenever we would see an owl. (A nice schoolbus driver even stopped on his route to make sure we weren't having car trouble.)

Some in trees.

Some on power lines and poles.

Some on fenceposts right next to the road! (I think Sissy was about 6 feet away from this owl when she took this picture)

The amazing thing was that we could stop the car, get out, and take pictures and these owls didn't fly away! I tried hooting at them and Wow, did that ever get a reaction. If they weren't looking in our direction, as soon as they heard me hoot, they would swivel their head around so Sissy could snap a picture.

We started seeing so many owls we were having trouble keeping track, so I pulled out my handy-dandy knitting row counter and clicked it every time we saw another owl. I can't remember the exact number, but by the end of the day we had seen over 70 of these wonderful birds.

And there were bonus birds too:

A Northern Hawk Owl

Bald Eagle sitting at the top of an evergreen

We had a blast on this trip and I'm glad Sissy came along with me because she was the driver while I scanned the landscape for owls. And even though we got to see all those cool owls, I think my favorite picture from the trip is this one:

My Sissy up to her butt in snow in the road ditch! She was going to try and walk over for a better picture and we had no idea the snow was this deep--it was March for cryin' out loud! She handed me the camera to put back in the car for safekeeping and I couldn't resist snapping this picture before helping to pull her out.

Some Completed Projects

I've been spending lots of time knitting lately. Not because I'm trying to get Christmas presents done, but because I'm a obsessive/compulsive knitting addict and there's not much to do outside.

I found a really great website that has HUNDREDS of free patterns and they're all sorted by category, so if any of you knitters reading this blog are interested, check it out at

http://www.knittingpatterncentral.com/directory.php.

You won't be disappointed! I've printed out probably 20 patterns already and will be knitting my fingers to stubs in the event that I ever try to complete them all.

Because I haven't posted any knitting projects lately, I thought you might enjoy seeing some pictures of completed projects.

Here are some dishcloths that will be going back to Robin (Bumblebee) in tomorrow's mail.

Poor Robin is a frustrated knitter. After reading her hilarious post about knitting lessons, I sent her a note saying I would be happy to knit her some dishcloths if she wanted to send me the yarn. A few weeks later, a package was delivered to me containing 3 balls of yarn plus a jar of Robin's homemade bread & butter pickles and a jar of her awesome wine jelly. I hope she likes these dishcloths.

Last spring my Mom asked for a new hat: maybe a nice white one she could wear to church and oh, could it have earflaps too? Here's Mom's new hat--this was another free pattern I downloaded. I had to revise the pattern to add the earflaps, but Mom really likes it. You can't see from the picture, but there's a fine, iridescent thread woven in with the yarn and it gives the hat a pretty sparkle.

Here's a really nice hat with cables all around. I saw this hat last week on Loribird's blog. She was kind enough to e-mail me the pattern. I really like the way this hat turned out! I think I'll give it to one of my nieces for Christmas.

Here's a little cabled half-mitt I downloaded from the knitty.com website archives. I really like this yarn, but I don't think I like this half-mitt very well. I don't like the way the top (around my fingers) has a tendency to curl back. I like mine to fit a little tighter around my fingers, so these half-mitts are going to be a Christmas gift to one of my co-workers, because one of the rooms we work in is kind of chilly all the time.

Here's a little red wool shawl I finished late last summer. It's been laying down in the laundry room waiting to be washed and blocked and I finally got around to that a couple weeks ago. I think this little shawl is quite pretty and it would be nice to wear during the holidays.

I've got bunches of UFOs (unfinished objects) still stashed all over the house, but so far this winter is shaping up to provide lots of quality knitting time in front of the fireplace, so I'm going to take advantage of that. Besides with all these new patterns to try and BINS of yarn stashed away.....well gosh, I'm actually looking forward to a nice long winter!

Live to Knit, Knit to Live!

A New Look & A Look Back

I decided to change my blog template (again!). The main reason for this is to get away from that bright blue border and go to something more neutral (and inconspicuous) so if I'm looking at my blog at work, people who happen to look over my shoulder might see it as another work-related document (or if anyone questions it, I can always say that I'm taking my break at my desk, right?)

It was a really nice sunny day today....not very warm, but the sun still has enough power to melt a little bit of the ice. Here's a look back at some of the bird activity around my house during our snowstorm on Saturday. Even though the weather bad, the birds were still quite active, gobbling up as much food as they could and taking advantage of the shelter available in trees, shrubs, and brushpiles in my backyard.

Poor Mr. Bluejay--good thing he's got his own "down jacket" to fluff up and stay warm.

I filled the blue jays peanut tray several times during the day.....they ate them all!

I haven't seen squirrels for several weeks, but the weather was bad enough to lure this fat little gray squirrel back to my yard.

My apple trees still have quite a few leaves on them. I thought this was a fun picture of my crow family lined up on a branch and trying to get out of the wind for a little while.

Mr. Cardinal shone like a beacon on such a gray and snowy day.

House sparrows galore!

This handsome little male house finch was a winter storm visitor too.

Plenty o' juncos too. I counted 38 at one time yesterday afternoon!

This Red-Bellied Woodpecker used the bottom of a birdhouse to crack some seeds and peanuts.

And Penny had an exhausting day watching all the bird activity right outside the window.

We've Got Ice!

Our winter storm has come and gone....we got less than 4 inches of snow, so not as much as had been predicted, but we did end up getting the ice. I hate ICE (unless it's in a margarita). The temps continued to rise steadily into the overnight hours last night and the snow eventually changed to rain. I called my mom early this morning because I wanted to make sure they weren't planning on venturing outside--after watching both my dogs flip over on the ice when they went out this morning and then me almost doing the same thing trying to rescue them. Mom said when she went to bed last night it was 34 degrees on her outside thermometer--not good.

We had at least a quarter-inch of ice on top of the snow....

.....and everything else including the driveway, the deck, and the birdfeeders.

Here are the "bird feeder ice removal" tools--a scraper for the tray feeders and a screwdriver to chip ice out of the holes in the tube feeders.

Cleaning the feeders didn't turn out to be as much work as I thought, the biggest challenge was getting to the feeders. Here's a short video so you can see and hear what a full-figured woman sounds like walking through snow with a quarter inch of ice on top....

Can you imagine the fear a little mouse under the snow would feel hearing something like that walking towards him?? FEE-FI-FO-FUM!!

There were lots of hungry birdies visiting my backyard today, but I was really surprised to see these guys......

Brown-Headed Cowbirds (guess they didn't get the memo!)

Also a hungry Cooper's Hawk.....hope it got a house sparrow.....I counted over 120 today for Project FeederWatch, so there are plenty to spare.

I'm doing the winter storm coverage kind of backwards, so tomorrow's post will be some pictures of the bird activity in my yard from Saturday during the snow.