Nest Building, Again!

Earlier this Spring we had a pair of Mourning Doves decide to nest on our patio. I *really* didn't think they would finally settle there, but they did, and produced two little "dove-ettes" who thought living with us was grand. After all their nesting site was under the patio roof, protected from the glaring sunlight and out of the way of rain! But, after they officially were able to leave the nest we had one of those high wind days and their former nest was now in my flower bed. Not to worry, I see them hanging around the sprinklers in the front flower beds and they seem to be happy living around our house.

Well, that was okay until last week. We went to Tucson for the week and when we came back the doves had decided to build their new nest atop my patio ceiling fan. (This photo was after my Sweetie brushed most of the twigs off the fan housing. Squeeky-Wings is wondering where it went!) We knew this because the sticks and twigs were covering our patio seating area. I got a couple of photos, but after my husband had pretty much cleaned up the detritus on the ground.

After some discussion with my Sweetie I convinced him to allow me to relocate the twigs to a new, more acceptable area on the patio. He agreed. However, the Doves (who I affectionately call Squeeky-Wings) seemed to understand me initially, and went to investigate their new location, but ultimately didn't like it as well as the fan housing.

I know these Doves are very persistent when they like a nesting location. So, we have had the patio fan running on low ever since last week. Hopefully Squeeky-Wings will get the message.

Happy Birthday, America!!

I love America. There's no denying it. I've travelled to Europe, South America, the Canary Islands, and though these sites are beautiful and different than the U.S.A. they cannot compare somehow. I remember returning from my first trip abroad. I was so glad to get back to American soil I could have kissed the tarmac at JFK. I do appreciate America and all it stands for, good and not so good. We are a nation who wanted to be self-governing and made tracks to do just that. Thank you founding fathers!

Well, our picnic was cancelled, unfortunately for us. I was looking forward to visiting with our friends and enjoying the 4th celebration, but they were called out of town for the birth of their very first grandbaby. Who can compete with that?

In the meantime, my Sweetie and I worked around the house and spent time together. We rearranged my sewing room and moved my loom to the living room (not many choices in my little home) and now I have some more space for sewing.

Here I am at my machine. I've also included a photo of one of the fabrics I used to make patriotic Florence Nightingale scrub hats.

Stop by my Etsy site and check out my other patriotic hats.

Preparing For The 4th!!

Today, much to the pleasure of my CoCo, I was baking a zillion peanut butter cookies for our July 4th picnic.

Of course that means that nearly a quadrillion were eaten by CoCo and myself before they made it to the cookie jar. (Not so good). But, it was a productive morning nonetheless. This was the first time I made an entire batch in my convection oven. I was pleasantly surprised. I used the round pan that came with the microwave for the cookies. I made parchment circles to line the pan with and they baked wonderfully. I was able to get 14 cookies to a pan. That's about how many I'd put on a rectangular cookie sheet in the regular oven. And, it wasn't hot in the house and I had only the one pan to clean up from the oven. I'm sold.

I thought you'd appreciate some photos, you can almost taste them!

Simple Acts Have Global Impact!

Who knew that a simple software registration would turn into a opportunity to tell someone across the globe about my Etsy shop? Not me!

So, there I was dialing the 800 number to register my software. A nice enough gentlemen, Leo (though I expect that's not his *real* name), went through all the necessary steps to authenicate me, then paused.

Yep, he called up my Etsy shop to see what on earth HospitalHats was. It was rather unnerving to have someone a half a world away read the descriptions of your female Florence Nightingale scrub hats. After all, I only made that call to register my software!

A friendly discussion ensued. Leo told me that in India the normal blue paper hats were worn by surgical personnel. He thought it was rather humorous that someone would go to all the work of making attractive scrub hats, though he liked them.

Who knows, Leo may be my sales rep for the Indian subcontinent in the future. Go Etsy!