Saturday, June 15, 2013

Murder of Crows

We do a lot of (ok, some) stuff around our house in town to foster the presence of Little Brown Birds. We have a couple of bird baths, bird houses, I hang short yarn ends on the shrubbery in the spring for nesting materials, and I know for certain they help the chickens eat their food. We don't put out feeders any more just because of the cats in the neighborhood, but we did for a while.

I don't know all the types of Little Brown Birds in my yard, but my Mother-in-Law tells me most of them are Juncos. I especially enjoy one particular bird house on top of the swing. Every year we get at least one bunch of bird babies out of it and I can see it from my bedroom window. I love waking up to their song, and I sit on the edge of the bed and watch them for a few minutes before beginning my day. It's such a gentle way to start the morning - especially after years and years of waking to an alarm clock at O-dark-thirty!

This is my favorite birdhouse.


And here are this years' occupants patiently waiting for me to move away from their home. Such a shy young couple!


Yesterday afternoon I heard the familiar raucous cawing of several crows in the yard. Noooooo! I ran out and looked and three or four crows are flying around the top of a redwood tree. They're being dive-bombed by a couple of mostly ineffectual Little Brown Birds, but the crows won out. While I was frantically trying to get at the pellet gun, they proceeded to kill and eat the contents of that nest. Not sure if there were hatchlings or just eggs in there. They were just about done by the time I located the tin of pellets and gone when I finally had the pellet gun loaded and ready to put some sting in their butts. Murder of crows, indeed. They probably flew right back over to the nearest fast food restaurant and ate stale french fries out of the dumpster for dessert. Or some flattened, dried out road kill lying in the street. Nasty birds.

I've heard that crows are smart and that they can remember an angry face for years. I hope they remember this angry face and make our yard a no-fly zone. But I'm ready now and the loaded pellet gun is leaning by the door.

It was a little quiet this morning. Luckily, the crows stopped at that one nest. They didn't get at the eggs in my favorite birdhouse. Maybe I'll hear them sing tomorrow.


Friday, June 14, 2013

Yard Sale Footstool Redo

I've been without wheels these last few days because Hubby is away with the truck. I'm in easy walking distance to a little corner market and I have everything I could possibly need anyway, so I'm enjoying the quiet time. We had such beautiful weather over the weekend I decided to take a peek at Craigslist Yard Sales to see if there were any close by. By happy coincidence there were! My trusty True and I walked to one of the sales in the neighborhood and guess what?! I finally found it! (Not the sale, silly, the thing I've been looking for.)

I've been looking for a small simple footstool to prop my feet on in the evenings. I didn't want a big ottoman or anything that'd take up too much space, but this little guy was just right! And at $2.00 I couldn't walk away without it.


Just right except for the ugly factor.

So I decided to fix it. Make it pretty. Replace the grubby blue crushed velvet with something . . . more.

So I took it apart.

Eek! That's MY mannish, garden ravaged hand? 



Just undid the four corner screws that were holding the top to the stool and pried off aaaalllllll the staples that were holding the different layers of coverings on it. When I got down to the cushion, I was pleased to see it was still in pretty good shape. All I need is a new cover.

I decided to crochet one from a pattern called Retro Circles by Adele at threebeansinapodcrochet.blogspot.com.au .  Just love this variation on ye olde Granny Square!


The Retro Circles were joined using the Simulated Braid Join pattern by Carolyn at Gourmet Crochet. You can see it here: Simulated braid join.


Then I whipstitched the new crocheted piece directly onto the new muslin I'd already stapled on and re-screwed the top piece to the footstool.


And here's my new li'l footstool!




Isn't it cute? Now it matches all the blocky wooden things and funky homemade things I have in my house. And it's just the right height to rest my tootsies on. For $2.00 (and a nice afternoon walk), plus another few bucks for the fabric- and yarn-stash stuff, I think it's a pretty good deal!