Thursday, March 19, 2009

Spring is here...happy vernal equinox tomorrow!


It's been a long few months since Christmas. I really do believe that January and February are my "down months"; it seems as if I'm stuck in the post-holiday doldrums for those long weeks. We've had many wet, cold days; tornadoes, snow, hail...you name it. Today, the weather is perfect, and warm. I worked outside a bit yesterday, feeling all industrious til the lawn mower (ancient) refused to start. Salvation came in the form of a man called Jeff, who will happily visit us every other Tuesday with his ridey mower and slay the grass dragons. I love to mess about with flowers, but mowing..ugh.
We spent this past Sunday in a merciless purge of the craft room. It had the blahs as well, and you could hardly walk for all the stuff piled on the floor. My fabric had gotten way out of hand, (what, me have too much fabric and may never use some of it? NEVER!) Now it's clean and lovely, with new shelves from a local organic, art, and fair trade shop Red Rain, which is sadly going out of business. Amy, the owner, made the shelves herself from a fallen tree. See them on flickr and read about the shop closing. Sad victim of this sorry economy and a couple of thoughtless local government officials who'd rather have a Baby Gap than a lovely local shop that was thriving in its own small way. The shelves look good in the craft room, and hold all the bits and bobs nicely.
We had a small visitor here at the Wren's Nest on Tuesday - a wren flew in through the open craft room window and caused quite a stir amongst the cats. We got the cats out of the room and I shut myself in with the wee thing, trying to convince him to go back out the window. He flitted from picture frames to shelves, even tried to cling to the hands of the clock, all the while his little beak wide open with panic. I felt horrible for him, and called upon St. Francis, patron saint of all birds and animals, to help us out and show him to the window.
"Look," I told the wren. The window's open, all you have to do is fly out. St. Francis, please show him."
The wren continued to bang into every box, basket and piece of furniture in the room. I let him be for a moment, and he finally settled on a grapevine wreath I have hanging from the ceiling. Oh, how I longed for my camera! The wreath has fairies and dragons and all sorts of little creatures hanging from it, and now it had a wren as well. He looked at me, cocking his head, and in desperation I pointed out the open window and said, "Right there! Fly out right there!"
He lifted up a bit from the wreath, and making a perfect, beautiful downward arc, went right out the window.
"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."
St. Francis of Assisi

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