The latest flap

I seem to have birds on the brain.  I'm not sure what caused it.  It could have been the turkey, or my brother-in-law's Thanksgiving visit.  He's a college ornithology professor. My condition may have been exacerbated by a trip to Costco this morning where I found two small birds walking around in the baking-supplies aisle. 

I've always been a big fan of birds.  I think it started during visits to my grandmother's house as a child.  She was also a fan of birds and fed them all kinds of treats in small aluminum cans she wired to the back fence.  My mother continued the bird-feeding tradition by putting peanuts out on our front wall for the bluejays.  But this came to a halt when they started showing up earlier and earlier in the morning and pecking on the wood siding.

The other day I looked at my stash of fiber (so generously offered by my friend other Marcia) and thought, "I could make some really wild birds out of these bright colors!"  A couple of great thing about needle-felted birds is that they eat hardly anything at all and they're not likely to make annoying banging noises on the side of the house.

So Thanksgiving was nice, and you'll never guess what I did....well, after all that cooking stuff was done.  I taught the family how to needle-felt.  This included Big City Girl, my brother-in-law (sometimes referred to as Uncle Birdie), and my nephew (College Guy).  Mr. Gadget opted out.

BCG made a Christmas ornament with a heart design, Uncle Birdie made an ornament with a raven (the subject of one of his many theses), and College Guy made a holder for his cell phone.

The Friday after Thanksgiving was a beautiful day here, so we all piled in the car and took a ride up to the old hotel.  We knew it wouldn't be open, but it's interesting to see anyway, and it's a pleasant ride.  As we were walking all around and peeking in the windows, a woman from the renovation group drove up with a friend and she opened the place up so we could have a short, private look-see.  It was almost all decked out for the craft show (coming up this weekend).

On our way back to the house we stopped off at the local indoor go-kart track.  Mr. Gadget had decided to treat everyone as a surprise.  So they all suited up and drove some laps.  I decided not to partake.  Instead, I served as the designated coat-and-cell-phone watcher.  I've had lots of practice doing that and I thought it best that they not trust their stuff with anyone else.  Besides, I knew they'd all be really sore losers.