Friday's Hunt v 4.13

I am actually doing Friday's Hunt on a Friday again!  This is not because I'm not busy - I am crazy busy, but I am taking a brief break.  The prompts this week from Eden Hills are:  Starts with M, Cloth and Everyday Things.

Starts with M
One of our cats is Mitten.  He is a long-haired cat whom Marc adopted from the SPCA before I met him.  His name used to be Mitch, but I didn't think that suited him, and he became Mitten.  Marc always just calls him Kitty in any case!

Mitten is de-clawed.  I know that makes a lot of people upset, but considering the costs Marc incurred for the damage Mitten did prior to the de-clawing, I can understand why he did it.  A lot of curtains and furniture were damaged beyond repair, not to mention wood trim in the house needing to be repaired or entirely replaced.  A scratching post was of no use in stopping the behaviour.  I have to say, having an indoor cat who is de-clawed is very beneficial to the furniture!  I did try using the soft claw caps on Izzy for a while, but they would come off within a few days no matter how many times I glued them back on.  She would just work at them and chew them off.  It was pointless, and she caused a lot of damage, but nothing like Mitten did when Marc first owned him.  Mitten really is a beautiful cat and I am quite fond of him.

Cloth
I do some weaving, as some of you know already.  Weaving on a loom is a way of making cloth.  I recently did a piece of weaving that was testing the results of different weft yarns (side to side yarns) on the same warp yarn (back to front yarn).  The pale green is the warp.  The three sections of weaving are each done with a different weft.

This section was done with a chenille blend yarn.  It makes a lovely cloth that is very soft.

This section was done with a brightly coloured variegated yarn with some gold sparkle to it.  The pale green weft is more visible in this cloth.

This section was done with a novelty yarn that has a lot of texture.  It creates a completely different cloth from the other two samples.  You really don't see the warp in this one.

It is amazing how the same warp yarn can be used to create such different types of cloth.


Everyday Things
Before I talk about everyday things, I'm going to have a little rant about the word everyday.  As a person who writes for a living, and a person who loves language, I am very frustrated by the misuse of the word "everyday" as a substitute for the words "every day."
 
Everyday:  an adjective to describe things that are commonplace, mundane or ordinary
Examples: A hurricane is not an everyday occurrence.  Doing the laundry is an everyday activity.

Every day:  an adverbial phrase meaning each day
Examples:  I eat at least 5 vegetables every day. I am glad I do not have to do the laundry every day.

So, in one sentence:
Doing the laundry is an everyday activity, but I don't do laundry every day.

An easy way to tell whether you are using "everyday" properly is to try replacing "everyday" with "ordinary" and see if the sentence still makes sense.

Doing the laundry is an ordinary activity.  Makes sense.  Thus, use everyday.
I don't do laundry ordinary.  Makes no sense.  Thus, use every day.

There is a lovely wool and fibre shop not far from me that has a motto "Create beauty everyday."  I cringe every time I see that motto, which is included on her business cards and on a beautiful hooked rug on her website.  I know what she means...but it's an incorrect use of everyday.  She means "Create beauty every day."  The phrase "Create beauty ordinary" makes no sense.  I wish I could fix it!

Anyway, on to "everyday things" which as we all know means "ordinary things" and not things that we do every day...

Autumn is upon us, so leaves turning shades of red and yellow have become everyday things.  I love autumn colours, but I am not looking forward to winter.  Here are some everyday autumn sights from my yard.

Virginia creeper on the arbour.

Maple leaves turning colour

I love the not-so-everyday heart in this everyday leaf!

And here, just for fun, is some everyday laundry, which I don't do every day!

 

Friday's Hunt v 3.22

It's time for Friday's Hunt again.  Today I am hunting to find time, as usual.  It has been a crazy busy week with working until midnight most nights.  I have a bit of respite from work this coming weekend but the weekend itself is busy with cleaning and organizing my former home in Nova Scotia to get it ready for the real estate market.  Then it will be back to the grind on Monday.

Fortunately, I managed to take a few pictures for today's hunt.  The prompts from Eden Hills are:

Starts with V
Vermin starts with V.  The term vermin usually refers to animals or birds that cause a significant nuisance.  This little raccoon probably falls into the vermin category in the minds of most people.  It is a significant nuisance because he (or she) eats my bird seed and damages the bird feeders.

On the other hand, I think this is a really cute example of vermin, despite it being a nuisance.

There's a look in its eye, as if to say "What....I wasn't doing anything?  Why are you staring at me?"

See?  I'm just doing my exercise routine.  Nothing to do with the suet feeder.  Nope.

Usually this little vermin visits after dark, but on a very wet and rainy day earlier this week, he/she was there earlier in the day while there was still light for these pictures.

Week's Favourite
My favourite picture this week is courtesy of Mitten, our cat.  He was nestled in the shelving unit inside our closet - when Marc opened the closet door, he found Mitten comfortably sleeping in there. He called me up to take a picture and Mitten stayed in place for this cute shot.

Here's the overall view of how he looked when the closet door was opened.  Funny cat!


Inch
I'm excited to say that it is moth season again!  I'm always interested in taking pictures of moths that visit our screened-in porch.  I leave the light on overnight and it tends to attract moths who rest there and I photograph those that remain in the morning.  This moth has wings that are just about an inch across (from top to bottom as seen in the picture below).  It is the Northern Thorn moth (Selenia alcipherea) and it visited my porch this morning.  Hooray for the start of moth season!

Bunday Blog Business

The female hoomin bean (FHB) was away this weekend - seriously, almost all of it.  She was at someplace called a fibre retreat and she took the wheel thing and the yarn things and the sticks for playing with yarn and she just left, without me, and didn't come back for two and a half days.  I do NOT approve of this sort of thing.  Of course, the male hoomin bean (MHB) fed me and took care of me and gave me proper attention, but it is the duty of the FHB to wait upon my needs at all times, and I did not give her any authorization to go away for any length of time.  I swear, I get no respect around here.

Fortunately, the MHB eats a lot of bananas, and that is a very good thing, because I am a big fan of all parts of the banana.  When the MHB eats his banana, I invariably get treats, which is as it should be.  He does have the bad habit of making me stand up for my banana treats, and really I should get them when I'm lying down, because I deserve to be waited upon, but I get so excited about the banana that I can't help it.

I am also very helpful with the FHB when she has crackers and cheese, or toast, and she leaves crumbs on her plate.  I assist with the washing up, by ensuring that there are no remaining crumbs.

For some reason, she has called me "over anxious" about getting to the crumbs.  I am not over anxious.  I am dedicated.

Of course, with the FHB away, and the MHB being my main source of interaction, I had to seek out back-up sources.  This means....yes, that silly looking furball in the picture below (no, I'm not talking about the wooden duck), was the target of my affections this weekend.  I'm sure glad that the FHB is home again, because Mitten was not my idea of a good companion.

Next weekend things should be back to normal, thank goodness.  Disruptions in my routine are definitely not welcome.  I almost forgot to keep my ears clean.  I hope you haven't forgotten...

Friday's Hunt v 3.11

Yet another busy week and a day late on Friday's Hunt.  We actually went out for supper last night, and I forgot that it was St. Patrick's Day, so we had to wait 1.5 hours to get a table, and by the time we got home, it was too late for blogging.

Our prompts from Eden Hills are:  Starts with K, Week's Favourite, and Drink.

Starts with K
My father recently took on a restoration project of one of my mother's well-used kitchen knives - one of her favourites.  It is a good quality Sabatier knife, so it was worth fixing.  It was so well used that the wooden handle finally gave up and cracked.  My father began the project by removing the blade from the broken handle.  You can see the blade has been sharpened many, many times by its rather tapered blade angle.  It's a very good steel so it has held up to many years of sharpening and is always as good as new!

My father then shaped most of the handle, and drilled the hole, before cutting the handle to length. He had to purchase a special bit to accurately bore the hole into the end grain of the hard-grained wood he used for the handle.  That type of bit is usually used for making hand-crafted wood pens, such as fountain pens.  Here's the handle before being cut to length, and you can just see his planned shaping line.


He the put the blade back in the new handle with epoxy putty to glue it into place, and made a small hole at the outer end of the handle so that any excess epoxy had a place to squeeze out. He later filled that hole.

The final shaping and sanding was followed by 3 coats of polyurethane.  What a great job he did! My mother's kitchen knife is ready for many more years of reliable service!

Week's Favourite
Marc did some repairs to one of the bird feeders - the plastic perches had broken this winter - probably a combination of bitter cold making the plastic brittle, combined with squirrel activity!  You can see in this shot where the squirrels also chewed around the feeder openings.  Marc glued some new wooden dowels in place for new perches, since the birds couldn't perch any more.  I took this shot of a squirrel back at the repaired feeder.  I think the wood perches will hold up better than the plastic ones.  I love this shot because it really showcases the red coat of the squirrel - he just gleams in the sunlight.  I enjoy their antics at the feeder.

Drink
Pippin and Mitten share the same water bowl, although they don't drink at the same time.  Pippin also has a water bottle in his crate, but he seems to prefer the bowl.  I've noticed that he sometimes puts a foot into the water first - not sure why he does that!  I doubt it makes the water taste better!

We used to use a plastic orange water dish for Mitten, which worked well until Pippin joined us.  He thought the water dish was a fun toy.  He began picking the dish up by the edge, and dumping the contents.

Not very helpful!

Now they both drink from a heavy glass dish - Pippin can't tip it over and they both drink happily from it.

Friday's Hunt v 3.10

Well, it certainly has been a very busy time lately, and the fact that I'm a day late on Friday's Hunt is further evidence of the craziness of my work schedule lately.  I was working until almost 9 pm last night, and by then I was just too tired to write.  So, Friday....Saturday....whichever it is, here's the hunt!

Thank you to Teresa at Eden Hills for our prompts, which are:  Starts with J, Week's Favourite, and Bird/Wings.

Starts with J
J is a bit of a tricky letter.  There aren't a lot of easy topics for photography that start with the letter J.  Perhaps I should show you our cat, Mitten, who was stuck under a box that was overturned, and he sort of looked like he was in Jail!  Don't worry, he gets out quite easily.

My mother helpfully suggested jewelry, so here are a few pictures of some beaded pendants that I've made and sold.  I don't have much time for bead work these days, but I'd like to make some more of these in the future.  I really enjoy the challenge of choosing the right beads to work together into a cohesive look.  The colours make me happy!

Week's Favourite
Pippin really is a very photogenic rabbit.  With the rainbow-coloured backdrop of my sweater, I think this is a lovely picture, so it's my favourite this week.

Bird/Wings
I take a lot of bird pictures, as my regular readers will know.  I haven't taken many lately due to being busy, but also because there aren't many birds around right now.  There are the black-capped chickadees and the red-breasted nuthatches, but I don't see any others on a regular basis, except the pheasants.  I went outside to try to get a good bird picture today and it was bitterly cold.  The wind was blowing, making it even colder.  With the wind chill, it was -25 C, which is -13 F.  I was wearing my insulated coveralls, but I didn't put socks on, because I was still in my pajamas.  You can well imagine how cold my ankles became after a few minutes!  Only for you, my dear readers, only for you!

Anyway, I did manage to get a couple of bird pictures - not great ones.  I really wanted to get a wing picture, but I didn't have as much luck as I would have liked today.  I got a picture of a black-capped chickadee looking like a wee torpedo - just snapped at the moment in flight that his or her wings were folded in, rather than spread out.  It's kind of a funny shot - looks like a wingless bird!

I almost got another good shot but as you can see, the nuthatch was just leaving the frame in the lower right.


The feeder was in shadow and there was bright sun behind, making it difficult to get good pictures today. However, I did manage to get this single decent wing shot.  This is the red-breasted nuthatch again.

 
To make up for the lack of good wing shots, I give you this bonus shot of a ring-necked pheasant in the sun this morning.  His plumage is glorious.  You can see he's been eating a lot of the chicken feed I put out to help them stay warm on these cold winter days.  His crop is quite full!

Friday's Hunt v 3.07

I have been tremendously busy this week - feeling rather unable to keep up with everything at the moment.  Work is extremely busy, which it is sometimes, and I appreciate that, but it doesn't leave much time for photography and fun!

Our prompts today from Eden Hills are:  Starts with G, Week's Favourite, and Pink.

Starts with G
Goodness gracious, we've had a lot of snow!  Great, gleaming, glistening, gargantuan piles of it! Mostly accompanied by gloomy, glowering skies.  I'm getting very tired of it.  So is poor Marc, who is doing the snow shoveling because my arm is very painful these days due to ulnar nerve problems. Here are some images of our ghastly weather.  We think we might need a larger snowblower for next year, if we can fit it into the budget.  Or we might give up and sleep from January through March!

The route to the sheep and goat area was not easily passable when I opened the door earlier this week.  We've since had another couple of feet of snow, so you can just imagine how it looks now.  Carrying a hay bale through this from the garage to the fenced area is not an easy job.  The snow was at my hips in some places, and I am 5'10", so that is a very difficult path to navigate.

Here, just for fun, is a "find the GOAT" picture!

The snow has already covered the bottom of the bird feeder and the new tray feeder that Marc made me is almost covered.  Can you catch a glimpse of a little face peeking out in this picture?  Maybe the next picture will give you a hint.

Week's Favourite
I managed to capture this image of the squirrel taking seeds from the bird feeder.  I love the way he's hanging on, but looking in my direction.  You can see snowflakes on his face but he still looks like he's smiling.  Now you can go back to the last picture and see his little nose peeking up just at the bottom of the tube feeder, if you missed him the first time.

Pink
Pink is one of my favourite colours in the flower garden.  We are a long way from gardening season, so a pink cat tongue will have to fit the need for today!  Mitten the cat and Pippin the rabbit share this water bowl on the window sill, but they don't drink at the same time.  I tried, unsuccessfully, to get a picture of rabbit tongue.  Maybe another time!

p.s.  If you didn't find the goat earlier, here's a hint.

If you're still really stuck on the goat, let's zoom in a bit...yep....that's Lucky Nickel peeking through the snowy trees.