Showing posts with label Turkeys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turkeys. Show all posts

Sunday, February 26, 2023

The Lull Between Storms...


 The sun is dancing off the icicles making a fairy-tale light, but the light and the allure are deceiving.  


We are just digging out from a major storm that dropped ~15" of snow Wednesday afternoon and Thursday (ALL day Thursday)...and another 3-4" on Friday.

The ubiquitous turkeys who aren't graceful enough to fly to a tree for left-over fruit and seeds are left scavenging the gravel in the drive. (And they seem none to happy about it.  Then again, turkeys never seem to be happy.)

And there is another storm moving in tonight - this one promising to bring more snow...and ice. 


Yup, that's exactly what I'm thinking.

Storms, like pregnancy, bring out a nesting instinct in me...which, inevitably, leads to comfort food.


The consumate comfort food - mac n' cheese...on the decadent side.
 
 Then I made some bordelaise sauce and the smell of it simmering all day was like a blanket wrapped around me.

The wait was so worth it.
{Pommes Alligot, Asparagus, and Strip Steaks with Sauce Bordelaise}

And I baked some bread...


...and cheesecake.
{It may look a bit "naked"...I did add homemade caramel topping and fresh whipped cream eventually...but couldn't resist a taste test. Trust me, no one would have missed the caramel and whipped cream.}

If the storms keep coming, I will need a new wardrobe.

Nesting, at least for me, also involves some sort of handwork. Since my hooking mojo is still on its walkabout, I took solace in my needle and thread.


I think I am pleased with both the linen and floss choices on this piece.
Perhaps the fog is beginning to lift?

And since no proper hibernation is complete without a book, of course, I've been reading.


This author is new to me, but she captivated me with this tale with her beautiful and melodic prose.
The tale begins with a little girl who is brought into an ancient inn on the river Thames on a dark midsummer's night, most surely dead.
But, by magic or miracle, she lives.
Three families stand at the ready to claim her as their own but, she being mute and amnesic, cannot explain what happened or to whom she belongs.
The book is a mix of fiction and fairy-tale - of just the right kind in "my book."
I enjoyed it more than I initially thought I would, and its messages, like many rivers, run deeper than one first believes.

*************
Lulls are a good thing....

Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Flights of Angels and Turkeys...

I'm in another one of those funks.
This funk, though, is different than my other funks.
Who'd'a thunk there could be so many kinds of funks?

My "typical" funk is that I don't feel compelled in the least to pick up a needle, a hook, or anything of that ilk.
This funk, however, is, as I said, unique: I want to create and I actually pick up my needle and hook and such, and I start...but then careen quickly off the rails.

Nothing...and I mean absolutely nothing, pleases me.
The linen choice is wrong, the floss colors are wrong for the linen (and, often, both the linen and the floss are wrong), the color plan doesn't work as I thought for the hooking, the finishing technique isn't suiting me...
You name it, I will count the way it displeases me.

So, I have accomplished nothing - other than add to the land mass of the ever-expanding Isle of Misfits and Castaways.
Start over you say?
Oh, but I have...over and over and over.
Colors changed, fabrics changed, techniques changed, projects changed...until I reach "that point" - the one I call the Marly Point of Inflection:
I have gone too far to rip everything out and start over - or I have started over too many times to start over again - and I start to seriously consider a bonfire in the backyard.

I really can't remember anything I've completed in the past 6 months or more so I have little to share with you in that regard.
But...I did force myself to finish this piece even though, again, I am not pleased. 
I will not tell you how many different floss choices were started and frogged, replaced (often with ones I had already tried and ripped out), and I am still not happy but I did not want to risk weakening the linen further.

It is called "Flight of Angels" by MommaLovesYouGB, a designer from the UK.
Her original design had crowns where the angels are on mine to commemorate Queen Elizabeth's passing, but I loved the verse and stitched the modified version as a remembrance of my mom.

{Stitched on 40 count "Natural Brown" linen by Wichelt, 1 over 2, except dates, which are 1 over 1.}

The back is based on a portion of a design called "Handprint On My Heart" by Heartstring Samplery.


It's done and that's all I'm going to say.

In other "flight" news, I have been invaded by turkeys.
Flocks and herds of turkeys.
Snowdog used to keep them at bay, but now they have free and unfettered range.


This is just a small fraction of them.  
They have taken up residence in copse of pines that borders our property line, venturing out many times during the day to overwhelm the front and side yards.



It is disconcerting as I can hear them walking on the hardened snow even when I can't see them...day and night...like an invisible army marching endlessly to battle.


It is even more disconcerting when I absent-mindedly walk outside realizing too late they have paused their eternal march and taken up foraging operations and they then take flight...the whole company of them.


The airborne division they are not - I am certain there are not many other birds more ungainly or noisy in flight than the turkey 


And someone really should tell them they need to work on their camouflage routines.

* * * * * * * * * * *
I hope those in the grips of winter storms and bitter temps stay safe and out of harm's way.