Confirmed!
Last Monday I got a very important email from Clara Parkes: My confirmation for this year’s Knitter’s Review Retreat! I’m very excited to be going back for my second year of this lovely little gathering of knitters. (Here’s where I wrote about last year’s retreat.)
I made some new friends last year and we’ve been excitedly exchanging emails about our confirmations and which classes we’ll be taking, etc. I’m signed up for a class with Cat Bordhi about designing your own new stitch patterns. I just love how her brain works, so this should be a very stimulating couple of hours.
I’ve already purchased a small travel-sized humidifier to combat the incredibly dry air in the hotel, so I hope that will prevent a recurrence of the horrible sinus headache I got last year.
Clara says we’ll get details later about some other activities that will be taking place at the retreat — can’t wait!
My sister floating in Stony Creek Lake...so relaxed
Another kayaking adventure
My sister Deb was up for a visit last week and, naturally, we had to go kayaking. We decided it would be too difficult for us to load and unload our own kayaks without Eric’s help, so we just rented kayaks at the lake. It was Deb’s first time in a kayak and she was a bit nervous at first. But within minutes she was paddling around and having a blast. It was a beautiful day and we ended up spending almost 3 hours floating around, just chatting and watching the waterfowl.
Click to see them bigger and blurrier!
Birding
Speaking of waterfowl, I saw my first ever pied-billed grebes that day. I’ve been trying to keep my distance from most of the birds we see while on the water, but I really wanted to get a pic of these guys because I didn’t know what they were. This was the best picture I managed to get, but it was good enough to identify them when I got home.
We also saw the swan family again, and the blue heron. That’s one thing Eric and I didn’t anticipate when we started kayaking — it has opened a whole new birdwatching area for us. We’re really loving that part of it!
We keep a single hummingbird feeder outside our family room window on the deck, and get to watch a hummingbird there every day. But the other day, for the first time, there were two of them here at once. Of course they were fighting over the feeder, territorial little guys that they are. I recently saw a hummingbird documentary on TV that showed a yard with dozens of hummers buzzing around to a whole bunch of feeders. That made me start thinking about adding more feeders to our yard to see if we could attract more of them. Hmmm, it seems a trip to Wild Birds Unlimited is in order. I also want to get a fruit feeder to see if we can get some orioles and other fruit-eating birds. We’ve had such trouble with squirrels and raccoons raiding our feeders in the past that now we only put out 2 suet cakes and the hummingbird feeder. But I’m really feeling the urge to put out more feeders and try again.
Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve been reading the most fascinating book about birds. It’s called Bald Coot and Screaming Loon: Adventures in the Curious, Mysterious and Remarkable World of Birds. It’s a highly-entertaining compilation of little paragraphs and one page stories about birds and their world. I’m really enjoying it and will probably pick it up from time to time again after I’m done with the first read.
Ok, this post has already become too long, but I hope you enjoyed it!
