Monday, February 18, 2008

very brief tour of my back yard

and some food photos added later...
So I'm draining my hot tub to clean it because Keith's coming back from many days camping, and I see a tree waving around in the water, and the yard is full of birds singing (or twerping or whatever) and so I go in to get the camera.

The tree had gone still, but I dropped the stopper and pulled it out (which is what caused the motion before) and started making this little movie. I was surprised at how much bird noise there was.

There's the hot tub, and the lilac bushes that are starting to bud out (I drained most of the tub there) and then the wood pile and the truck and the sun reflections in my dusty lens, and then the trees I planted from seed (not those big Arizona cypress but the dead-looking-but-not-dead trees) and the stairs up to the deck outside and then the dog door, which goes through where a window was.

Not very exciting.

Then I realized I could understand what the birds were saying! Or at least I could extrapolate a likely message: "Hey, monkey—if you're awake and you're outside, why are the birdfeeders empty!? HeLLO..."





Above, breakfast bread pudding just before and after it sunk (they all do), made February 12 for Keith and Marty to take camping.
Below, decorating cupcakes with Mary Ann and Sarah Malkoff on Valentine's Day (they brought the cupcakes and decor).

5 comments:

Sandra Dodd said...

The shopping cart belonged to Furr's, which was the store before it was Raley's, so when Marty worked at Raley's, they told him to get rid of that one single Furrs cart. Instead of putting it in the dumpster, though, he brought it home. I used it in summer to move houseplants in and out. Now the store is Albertson's, so they REALLY don't want Raley's rejected Furr's cart. This information is provided for anyone who was tempted to think of me as a grocery-cart thief. And if I'm ever a bag lady, I have a head start.

Anonymous said...

That is such a cool reflection in your pool!

Christa said...

I simply love that truck. It looks so friendly and waiting to help.

Dawne said...

I love the yard tour... the visual and the sounds...I have a cd that has sounds like that...I had to pay $15 for..lol! I should make one for free since I get those sounds occasionally here.. not often without the sounds of traffic though! You could make a cd of it yourself...it's soo serene and joyful sounding! Great capture...I LOVE it!! Thanks for sharing it, especially now (for me) I am buried in 10 feet of snow--ugh! :0)

Sandra Dodd said...

At our old house we wear a few blocks from I-40 and after a while it just started to sound like running water to me. I have a friend who lives near the railroad and he stopped hearing the trains when he hadn't been there very long.

When my kids stayed with their cousins in the rural edges of a small town, the noises that woke them up were horses, dogs and chickens. They could hardly sleep with all that noise! It didn't help that my brother in law took them for a walk up in the hills behind the house and when they came to the skeleton of a coyote or something, he said that was one of the other nephews who went for a walk with him. I think Marty was scared for a year or two, of going for another walk with his uncle.

People get so used to the view, the sound, the climate and it's interesting that what is peaceful and homey to one is scary and foreign to others.