A few days ago I saw a bird outside my kitchen window sitting on the deck railing, so I thought to put some food out in this little glass pedestal. I was thinking enough to anchor it down with push pins so it wouldn't blow over and smash to pieces. Well, it wasn't raining when I engineered this brain storm....
Christmas gift for the birds... "Christmas Cake" suet block.
Christmas gift from Dad.
We had a Siberian Elm tree in our front yard that was probably planted in the 1960's. In 2003 we had to have a large amount of its limbs cut off because they had died after a harsh winter freeze. The poor tree looked horrible. In 2004 we had to have it completely cut down because we were worried that windy weather would cause a limb to crash through our roof. Our neighbor took a photo of the process of cutting it down hour by hour. The photo below is the first one he took before they started taking it down. You can see that it looked very freakish with so many of its lower limbs removed. It reminded me of a giraffe. Before the trim it was a beautifully rounded tree.
I kept a few larger pieces of the wood and we took them over to my Dad's to keep in his wood shop to dry out. This Christmas after Dad asked me what I wanted as a gift, I thought of something that would be easy for him to pick up. He lives just a few doors down from two kitchen stores and I told him that I would love to have a new rolling pin, one without handles. Funny thing, I have a rolling pin and I put it somewhere in my kitchen out of the way. One day when I needed it I tore this place apart looking for it and could not find it. I had to use a tall cylinder shaped Tupperware drinking cup. Then a couple of months later I came across it and thought, "There it is! Now I've GOT to remember that it's in this spot!" Then this Christmas when I needed it again, OF COURSE I couldn't remember where I saw it!!! And this kitchen isn't that big. So I asked Dad for a new one. Here they are!!
He visited the kitchen store and got measurements and made these for me! And they are beautiful!!
At first I thought they were from the elm tree we cut down, but after I opened my present to find these he said, "look at what's in the bottom of the box." And there I found a piece of the elm tree that he tried to turn on his lathe. Photo below:
Turns out that the elm wouldn't "turn" smooth like the maple that he used for my gift....
My first forced Paperwhite blooms of the season.
Happy New Year!
Flojo
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