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Month: April 2010

Wippity, Pickity, Snickity

I’m starting to suspect that my new bird book was ghost-written by Monty Python. I simply can’t read the author’s description of the Painted Bunting’s various calls without hearing the droll delivery of John Cleese in my mind: tida day-da tida day teetayta tita witee wi witato wee sittee, wippity, pickity, snickity See what I mean? I’ve got a good imagination, but come on!I’m not going to argue with classics such as chick-a-dee-dee-dee, bob white, and caw, but wippity, pickity, snickity? Maybe there is fine print somewhere explaining that this is how a Painted Bunting sounds . . . after…

Eggs from Easter Hens

Happy Easter to you! I hope you are having a fun weekend wherever you may be. I’m sure that I am having fun, although I have no idea exactly what I’ll be doing when you read this. I am not here, you see. Well, I am here now, but I won’t be here when this is published. I set the blog to automatically publish on Easter. So by the time you read this, I will be visiting my family – or at least a big chunk of my family. (We couldn’t all make it, alas.) The above eggs are some…

Still Life with Toy Soldiers

There are battles being fought in my sister’s kitchen. There’s constant combat,  and heavy weaponry. Military strategy abounds. I never know what to expect when I visit – except some interesting new tableau on her counter. My sister loves to decorate for holidays. To the insurgents, of course, this merely creates advantageous cover.  Meanwhile, I have become a domestic wartime journalist documenting guerilla attacks in the midst of all this cheery decor. War is never simple, but there is a mastermind behind all this – my youngest nephew. The photo above is a counter tableau created by me explaining how…