Projects and Cats

Been a busy  couple of weeks.  I've been helping set up a pre-Columbian pottery and textile display at the Museum of Fine Arts on campus (that will get it's own post when I take more pictures)

Meanwhile, it's been awhile since I showed the projects I've been working on.  The prettiest is this shawl for a friend to wear at her wedding (might wear it as a shawl, might pin it in her hair as a veil). It's a handspun fine wool/silk and weighs about two ounces.

 

 

 

On the other end of the "pretty" scale is this scarf--a little over half finished now.  Store-bought yarn for this one.  Each color represents 5 degrees of temperature--so it was pale blues and purples in January and February, and oranges and reds now.  More yellows and greens than it would have normally been because it rained for about 6 weeks in a row and it kept the temperatures down a bit.  I knit one line a day--so it should be finished by January 1 and show the year in temperatures.

 

 

Now that Ella the Hawk is more-or-less trained, the next step is to teach her to get into a carrying box--that's going to be a challenge.  The first challenge was that we didn't have a box for her.  Normally we carry the birds in dog crates, but she's so big that a dog box big enough for her to sit upright in would be too big to carry.  There are falconry sites where you can order hawk boxes, but they're 1) expensive, and 2)  heavy.  I found a site that gave instructions for making one out of coroplastic (the sheet plastic used for political signs).  One sheet of recycled plastic, some tape, and contact cement later and I have this:

 

 

Unfortunately Ella doesn't seem to like it as much as RiverSong.

 

 

I was asked to put up a couple of dresses for display at the Lemoyne Art Gallery.  That would usually be an easy thing--but one of the dresses was from the 1890s and was impossibly tiny, so I had to build a display form for it.  I didn't take a picture of it undressed (it wasn't very impressive) but here's the finished product--and another picture with me in it for scale.

 



In a May post I mentioned that I was going to keep track of my reading--that's three months, and have I posted a single book?  Oops--here's the catch up:

The four books in the Tiffany Aching series by Terry Pratchett.  Like all of Pratchett's books, it's fluffy on the outside with a serious undercurrent.

"A Tramp Abroad" by Mark Twain

"The Forgotten Planet"--a rather cheesy 1950s science fiction

William Shakespeare's "Last Hope."  Utterly brilliant.  The concept is "how would the Bard write Star Wars as a play."  Elizabethan iambic pentameter--and kept the Star Wars flavor.

And some reading on pre-Columbian Textiles

And now some cats:

Apache took it in stride when we tossed a paper bag onto his basket on the counter.

RiverSong managed to wiggle between Bob's feet when he was sitting on the floor.

 

 

And Pookha and Nazgul on the Art Shelves, gazing at . . . . ?

And They're Off

We knew it was time for the tiny wrens to fledge--take their first flight.  For the last two days the parents have taken to sitting outside the nest, holding bugs and chirping loudly.  I thought I had better get a last picture -- and as I stuck the camera in the box one of the tiny puffballs ducked under my hand and flew to a nearby tree.  Although it's a not the usual variety of "flying."  I've seen this before--I guess it's flying because it's airborne.  But I usually regard a bird flying as a sort of horizontal thing--head forward, tail behind, wings out to the side.  The first flight of a baby wren is more vertical--head up, tail down, beating the air with tiny wings.  Kind of the bird version of a dog paddle.

I felt bad for a moment, but both parents immediately flew to him, and he got his bug.  Within the next 15 minutes they had lured the other two out.

Good luck, little guys.

Tiny Miracles--Look Before They're gone

Been rather busy the last couple of weeks--several programs for the museum, prepping for a pre-Columbian ceramic and textile exhibit (more on that later) and still working with the hawk.   But one still must take time for the little miracles of life.

The wrens who usually nest on the back deck were late this year.  I thought perhaps we wouldn't have any--but then I spotted the nest.  I have a dismantled pet carrier out there on a table, with the lid askew on the bottom (yeah--cleaning that up and putting it back together has been on the "things to do list" for awhile) and she tucked it inside there.  It's in an awkward position for viewing--I have to stick the camera in there, snap a shot, and then look at the picture to see what's happening.  It's amazing--almost like time-lapse photography.

On  July 1--my first sight of eggs (look at the very front of the nest).

And here's mother wren hunkered down on the nest.  Obviously I couldn't stick the camera in her face, so I had to back off several feet and use the zoom.  She looks a bit grumpy.

On July 7, my first shot of a baby bird.  OK--so some miracles ain't too pretty.

 Then I got busy for a few days and forgot to go stick my camera in there.  Well--not really--but I would remember after the sun was going down and I didn't want to disturb the mother on the nest.  I have to sneak a quick shot while she's out getting bugs.  I was shocked when I took the picture--I thought it had only been a few days, but it obviously had been quite some time.  I double-checked my dates--and it was five days later.  From the little guy above to this one--in five days.  I can't quite believe it.  I think there are three crowded in there.

If you zoom in a bit, you'll see a strange scaly thing in front of the baby.  The mother decided to decorate the nest with a bit of shed lizard skin.  If you zoom more and look in the back, there's a peacock feather.  She is into interior design.

And here's today--two days later.





They'll be gone in the next few days.  I'm happy they were here again this year.  Miracles do not care about human schedules--they will happen whether we see them or not.  I'm glad I did.

Too Close for Comfort

During the biting-fly season we sort of let the garden get out of control.  Now that they've mostly abated, we were doing some weeding.

Sometimes when we're in the garden, we bring Godwin the Goose in with us.  She's elderly now (we
hatched her about 20 years ago) and normally lives in a pen.  But she likes to get out and have a change of view and nibble down the grass.

Then we got one of those sudden downpours.  Buckets of rain--soaked to the skin in seconds.  Bob started towards the goose to put her back in her pen so we could get into the house when it happened.  A flash of light, and a sharp crack.

We have a lot of tomato cages in the yard, many of the staked up with pieces of rebar.  There was also, for some reason known only to Bob, a very tall piece of rebar stuck in one of the beds.  There had been one day that he was going to take it down, but saw a dragonfly perched on it.  Dragonflies eat mosquitoes, so he decided to leave it up there for a hunting platform.

God bless the dragonflies, because I saw the lightening hit that rod, less than 20 feet from Bob.

At the time, we were too startled (and still getting soaked) to react--just grabbed the goose, put her away, and headed to the house to dry off.  It wasn't until later that it started hitting me that either of us could of easily been killed--even though Bob pointed out that with the metal fence around the garden, all the tomato cages, and various other pieces of rebar holding things up, we were in a sort of homemade Faraday cage.

Still . . . . .

LadyHawk

I've been working on quite an exciting "project" for the last few weeks.  The Museum got in a red-tailed hawk from a rehabber.  If I have the story correct, it was a classic case of bird vs. car.  Fortunately, she wasn't badly damaged, but her right wing now works awkwardly, and she's lost some vision in her right eye.  As she can't be released, we have her--and would like to use her as an education bird.

I was a)  excited, b) honored, and c) downright nervous when I was asked to be one of the people to train her.  I've handled hawks and owls before, but only after they've been trained.  Working with an untrained one would be a new experience.

There is a definite mindset you need to go into a cage with a potentially dangerous animal.  You have to be very alert, very focused, and yet very calm and relaxed.  It's almost meditative.

Training an education bird is also different from training a falconry bird.  For falconry, the bird is usually going to be handled by only one person, and in a controlled situation.  It can be done fairly quickly by only hand-feeding the bird (so it's get trained or go hungry).  Education birds have to tolerate a variety of people going in and out of her cage (the person who cleans the cage in the morning may not be the person who puts her food in in the afternoon, and multiple people will be handling her).  And later be able to remain calm while groups of people are looking and her and children are running around.

So it's a matter of taking it slowly--lots of baby steps.  First, a few days just hanging around in her cage.  Then hanging out by her perch. Each day going one step further.  Casually laying a hand on the perch.  Getting it closer.  Touching her feet.  Pushing one foot slightly off balance so she puts in on the glove.  Then the other foot--so you've got your hand on the perch, but she's standing on it.  Then the lift.

Of course, she would often fly off.  You chivvy her back to the perch, touch her feet, and leave (each session ends with the foot-touching, so she knows she had to be touched before you'll go away).

Then you start messin' with the jesses (the leather ankle straps).  Eventually comes the day that she tries to fly off--and can't, because you're hanging onto the jesses.  That's called "bating" and can be the battle royal with mad flapping and fighting and eventually hanging upside down--while you're trying to stay calm and a) not hurt the bird (high priority) and b) not get taloned (lower priority, but important).  At first it could take many long fighting minutes to get her back onto the glove.  She still bates, but you just lift her back up   (no bating pictures--it's a mad flurry when it happens).




Here's a close up to show why caution is necessary.  She has a tremendously strong grip, and has both cut off my circulation and bruised my hand through the glove.  And once or twice a talon has pierced it--not enough to break skin, but enough that I was praying she wouldn't squeeze any harder.

It's been four weeks since I started.  I can get her on the glove, walk around with her, let families (with small noisy children) look at her and take pictures, and get her on and off a perch (very important--she's a heavy bird and my arm wears out pretty fast).

It's been an amazing and exhilarating experience.  I am one lucky woman!

Whirlwind Visit

Brother Michael came to town for the weekend. As usual, it was a non-stop talkfest.  Michael is fascinated by anything and everything, and carries a little notebook to jot down the endless ideas.  For example--I was going to make waffles for breakfast.  Like pancakes and biscuits, waffles are best made with buttermilk.  The problem with buttermilk is that I don't really ever drink it.  So you buy a quart, use a cup, and the rest eventually gets fuzzy.

So I amaze the brother by pulling out a box of powdered buttermilk.  Not only is he jump-up-and-down excited (and grabbing the notebook) but immediately wondered if you could make crème fraiche with it [aside: crème fraich is a mild sour cream made by mixing cream with a spoonful of buttermilk and letting it set for a few hours].   I thought that the drying process would kill the active cultures.  He countered that dry yeast activates when you put it in water.  My stand was that yeast is a fungus, not a (friendly) bacteria.  Nothing for it but to go buy a carton of cream and try it out (I won that round--it didn't work).

He's non-stop--the very definition of a whirlwind visit.  In fact, this is what my living room looked like when he left:

OK--this wasn't directly his fault.  Usually my guest room is occupied by furry guests (and Michael is decidedly not furry).  On the occasions that I do have human guest, the furred creatures get moved to Bob's room.   Now, Bob has a lot of . . . stuff.  And he's really good at packing it into every nook and cranny.  And, uh . . . I had to explain to him why Mike and I were on out hands and knees in the dark, with red flashlights, looking under everything.

They got out of their cage.  All four of them.  And there was nothing to do but start a fireman's brigade and get the . . . stuff . . . out of Bob's room so the little buggers wouldn't have anyplace to hide.  We eventually found them, and even got to bed by 1:00 a.m., and Mike decided it was time to return to Boston.

He left before we put the new art installation.  Actually, it's a collaborative effort between us and a turtle.  I was getting ready to pull out, and had to go around a large turtle who was laying her eggs in the middle of the driveway.  In theory, we could have dug them up and reburied them elsewhere--but her turtle instinct had told her that this was the best spot for her eggs, so who were we to argue?

Raccoons are always a problem.  They can smell even buried turtle eggs, and they're a delicacy.  So we staked a steel rack over it, with a dish of ammonia to sting those sensitive nostrils.  And a stake so that we remember it's there.  It takes about three months for turtle eggs to hatch, so we'll be dodging it for awhile.

Books and Projects and Mysterious Cats

Things have been kind of random for a couple of weeks, so it's time for a random post.

First-going to add a book feature to the blog.  I've always been a reader, but sometimes (OK, often) find myself just re-reading old favorites.  One, it's comforting.  But sometimes it's because I just can't think of what to read next.  I'm too cheap to go to the bookstore and buy books, and don't often get to the library.  I seem to have wide-ranging interests. 

I did break down and get a Nook reader.  Not a table computer, just a reader.  I know myself well enough that if I sat down with a table to read, I'd probably check my email, do a little web-surfing, and play Sudoko.  Nope--this one just reads.  What pushed me into it was the Gutenberg Project
(http://www.gutenberg.org/)  This organization is digitizing books that are out-of-copyright and making them available for free.  So far they have some 42,500 titles.

That's 42,500 free books.  And that's why I got a reader.

None of the books are on the current best-seller list--they have to be some 75 years old.  That's OK--I like the older stuff.  One thing my father and I have in common about our reading is that we enjoy rich description, something you find in older books.

Some of my recent reads:
Paul Gallico, "Love, Let Me Not Hunger."   It's hard to get a handle on this author.  He does children's stories.  He does cute stuff ("the Silent Meow").  He does the charming "Mrs. 'Arris" series (about the adventures of a rather spritely, not to meantion spunky, elderly lady).   He does mysteries.  And he does rather dark stuff.  This one is a strange surrealistic story about a small travelling circus that gets stranded in a little Spanish town, and the extremes they go to to survive, and to attempt to feed their animals.  It's heartbreaking and sad and heartwarming and just plain weird (we're not told exactly how the extrememly fat but rich Spanish woman they cater to for animal food kills the dwarf she took a fancy to--but we think we have a pretty good idea . . . .

Neil Gaiman, "American Gods."  Gaiman is another dark and complex writer. As people stop believing in gods, new ones take over.  This is a battle on earth between the new and old gods--that ultimately comes down to the beliefs of the people.

OK--not going to summarize everything or this post will get too long.  Just a sample:

An 1896 book on social ettiquette (a real book).   I just get a kick out of old etiquette books--they give such an insight to a culture.  And much still pertains--or at least I wish it did).

Some classics on the Nook--Around the World in 80 days, Silas Marner, The House of the Seven Gables, How to Live on 24 hours a Day (a 1920's self-help book), and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Non-fiction--an extensive reseach artile on opossums, a book on training hawks (I'm going to start training one at the museum),and several books on pre-columbian peruvian textiles (I'm doing an exhibit soon).

That's the catch-up.  The current reads are one of the textiles of Oaxaca (I'm giving a talk next month), another on textile motifs of Andean textiles, and another etiquette book, this time an 1860's Gentlemen's book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness.

OK--enough of books.  Some project.  I realize I've been weaving off-and-on (mostly off) for 10 years or so and have never made placemats.  Probably because I usually don't usually use them (I find it easier to wipe off the table than to wash a placemat.

It's baby critter season for my rehabber friend, so I made her some hanging nest bags for the baby opossums and squirrels (I also brought home 6 little possums yesterday--they'll be in the next blog post). I had made some little knitted bowls for baby bird nests but forgot to take a picture.

 

I'm also still spinning and knitting the lace shawl that was in January's post--only about 12 rows to go, but each row is some 500 stitches so it will be awhile yet.

To finish this post--RiverSong must have heard about the old trick of holding a flashlight under your chin to look mysterious while you're telling ghost stories. She struck her classic cat pose on her upper perch when the lamp below it was on.

And now I have to get out of here and go train that hawk.