Another baby bedroom step

8.V.07 - MoM

I am already loving the new bird feeder, The first bird I saw that found it was a male cardinal and it was in full, bright sunshine -- really spectacular. I think they may have a nest in this area, as I had seen him occasionally back here earlier. I always have them at my front feeder. Before the day was over, I had a pair blue jays. I am afraid they are trying to raid the phoebe nest on the drain pipe at the corner of the room. Later, the bright yellow finches and a chickadee were all visitors that I saw today. There were robins but they prefer pulling worms out of the yard. There were at least 3 squirrels racing around and only one tried to climb the post but the varmint guard took care of that. Will be watching to see if it decides to try to jump down from the roof. There was much continued action at the wren nest on the deck outside my bedroom -- in and out of the "chimney" on the top of the "house." The male builds 3 nests, then his mate chooses which one appeals to her most. Will know one of these days. Their song is really piercing and early in the morning, but I love it. I will post a picture of the new feeder set up soon.

I was unhappy yesterday when I had so much trouble reading the funnies print and especially when I couldn't find the magnifying glass that would have helped. I haven't found the glass yet but I was greatly relieved today, when my eyes were back to normal and okay for reading again today.

I finally got myself in gear in the early afternoon and did some more work on my bedroom chaos. I am back to tossing a lot of the stuff piled on the sofa, cocktail table and floor around it, condensing it, then take some more stuff off shelves to sort and toss, until I get it down to a reasonable amount. As I think I may have said yesterday, a lot of it is done while sitting on the bed, so it isn't as tiring as it might be.

Tonight, my dinner was easy -- my leftover cheese enchilada and some refried beans, then finished with ice cream.

Since my bad leg continues to give me some trouble at night, I don't sleep as well as I used to so I am yet again going to try to get to bed at a decent hour again as I still like to start the day early.

I hope your winds and fires will die give up. There was much about all the various Florida problems on today's news on MSNBC. It was perfect weather today here. Hope some of it comes your way. We drove around your "circle" and I can see how it would be a pleasant place to walk under good circumstances.

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This letter was from 6.I.86, over 3 weeks earlier than the one I just finished quoting.

Dear Sandy and Bob,

Late again with the birthday greetings and the check. This time you can blame Chris because he sent us the computer books and I got very interested in finding out what Basic was all about and time got away from me. With books I was able to get a print-out of the 200 words I had put on the German language program disc that Computerland gave me last spring. So, belated best wishes!!

This winter has been much more satisfactory for snow. While we did not have a true white Christmas, we had residual snow on the ground and so much frost that lasted all day it seemed like one. On "2nd Christmas" it did snow and since then we have had many snows with only one small melting period shortly after Christmas. The snow is very fine here and takes a long tome to amount to much but we have about 18" on the ground. It has stuck to the trees and everything looks so pretty. We were between snows on Sunday and I took a batch of pictures. Hopefully, I will have the one for next year's card. During our last winter in Meiringen I took a whole roll of the church during a pretty snow to use for the next year's card, but by then we had moved.

I don't think we were shopping much at our little Sepp Berka grocery store yet when you were here. The Wontrobas took us by there and introduced us to the young Berka who runs it and told him we would like to special order things from time to time. When I really began to look at what they had tucked in a small store I found a lot of good American brands of things that we like and they have been getting some other things we had been going to Munchen for. He does not speak any English, but so far I have been getting along with my limited German. He asked if we wanted to order a fresh turkey for Christmas. We have not been interested in having one here as they are all large, frozen and either from Hungary or Rockingham, Virginia. These were to be fresh and we could get one about 7 or 8 pounds and they came from France. It turned out to be wonderful! Not only one of the best turkeys we have ever had, but one of the best cooking jobs I have ever done on one. I know you seldom cook a stuffed turkey, but if you do, but sure to do the cheese cloth bag. Sew up an end and one side of a piece of cheese cloth, put it in the turkey, fill it with stuffing and just pull the whole thing out when cooked. All of the stuffing is there to put in the dish and it saves digging it out of the nooks and crannies for serving. I still put a little plotch in the neck part just for looks.

We had a super Christmas with Champagne and crab, of course, and some nice presents. I now have a little gold quartz watch (Pulsar) that doesn't have to be set ahead 3 minutes every day as my old Timex electric did, a fur hat that is flattering, pressure cooker, and some joint things like a projector for slides and some nice sized field glasses for DoD's hiking and my bird watching. The wool plaid robe I made DoD is a success and quite warm. It was that very expensive English wool. [I am wearing that watch right now and have been for quite some years again, after wearing the one that made bird songs, that I wore here for a few years.]