Baking and Birds

Made some wheat-free Samoas (the Girl Scout type cookie).  They were kind of fussy to make-lots of steps-but pretty darn good.

And the goldfinches have their summer colors now.  Here are two of them on our finch feeder, along with a sparrow.  The sparrow is the one with the wings flapping.  You can only see the wings.

 Here's our bachelor sparrow.  He set up housekeeping in our finch house and has been tirelessly singing and calling for an eligible young sparrow lady to come join him and start a family.  Poor guy, he's been out there for a couple of weeks!

Needles are Still Clicking!

I've still been knitting.  I decided I needed a really wide, long scarf to wind around my head during these nasty cold days.  We were in Walmart and I grabbed a couple of skeins of Red Heart (I know, but this one is pretty!).

I started out with this:

But I decided it wasn't wide enough so I ripped it out.  This is better:

Then I knitted, and knitted, and....well you know!  I ended up with a scarf about 68 inches long.  I have test-driven it many times this week and I think it was a good move in my part.  My other small fleece scarf just wasn't cutting it.  Now I'm starting leg warmers so when I go out and start my car after a closing shift at work my legs won't freeze.

I look a little loopy in this picture, but maybe it was my red nose.  I have yet ANOTHER cold!

All I did was cast on a bunch of stitches on #9 (US) needles in a multiple of four, and do a checkerboard pattern-K4, P4; next row P4, K4; repeat for two more rows then reverse the order.  It took about 8 ounces of knitting worsted.

Then my friend Lera sent me this pattern she had featured on her blog.  When I commented how much I loved it she e-mailed it to me-wasn't that sweet?!  I had to make one right away and I'm hooked (literally-it's crocheted).  This will go to a certain little girl, but I'm not sure if I'll give it to her now or wait til her birthday in April.  I'll be making more.

Isn't it just fetching?  Gracie will absolutely love it.  It came with instructions for ages newborn to six years so the possibilities are endless!

On a sad note, the fisherman that was lost when his truck went through the ice was found dead a couple of days ago.  My prayers are with his family.

Here's an eagle picture hubby took on his last fishing trip:

Oh, and I got sort of a promotion at work.  I will be a core associate in the Linens department.  The department manager actually approached me about the job, and after thinking about it and being reassured by her that I can get time off for my trips I took it.  I got a nice raise and my hours will be set-no Sundays and a mix of day and evenings.  I will have a 3-day weekend every other week.  Can't believe my luck-plus now I can fatten up my IRA-haven't put much in there for a while.

Some More Spring

The robins are a hoot. This one was sitting in our aspen tree singing his lungs out. I think he's looking for a girlfriend.

Yesterday he was cleaning out our rain gutter. Every now and then I would see showers of leaves and debris raining down on our deck. We figure that he was moving the leaves to find bugs. Stan got the ladder out and looked to make sure a nest wasn't being built. That led to his getting the hose and sprayer and cleaning out the gutter. THAT led to him shivering in the house soaking wet because the wind kept blowing the spray right back on him!

The Birds Think It's Spring

We had a flock of Red-Winged Blackbirds at our feeder yesterday. They have the most distinctive call.

I scared them off, so my pictures are kind of scarce-most of them show them flying away.

The good news? According to my Weather Channel Desktop it's supposed to be 77 degrees on Monday. Maybe the mushrooms will grow.

Spring

There really are signs of spring, if you look hard enough. Stan and I took these pictures of the Dark-eyed Junco today. They've been hanging around our bird feeder this week cleaning up dropped suet and sunflower seeds.

I don't know how long they'll stay around but we'll enjoy them while they're here.