Matrix fish

Matrix fish

All Tuesday fish – because they’re even better en masse

The best way to cope with a need is to meet it.

Whether the need is:

• your baby’s
• your patient’s
• your partner’s
• your public’s
• your populace’s
• your customers’
• your parent’s
• anyone else’s
• your own

- the best way to cope is to meet it.

The only question is to decide if it is need, or only want. If it is need, no further puzzling except working out how to meet it. And in very many cases that’s straightforward.

It is sad that this is not obvious to everyone.

Greenfinch with a headache

It’s not often we get to handle a wild creature, but yesterday i did. She was beautiful, vulnerable, and about as long as my thumb. And she felt like dragline gossamer.

As i was gazing out at the white rose bush that has just come into bloom (no pix of that since it’s a bit buried by yew at the moment), something swooped off the fence STRAIGHT AT ME (so it seemed) and went thunk. It was so sudden, i ducked.

And there was a hen greenfinch beak-down on the patio, panting a little (wouldn’t you?), having left a couple of feathers stuck to the glass. As she panted her whole body gently lifted and sank, tail and wings rigid, with no voluntary motion. Pitiful. But clearly she was still alive.

UPDATE Sorry if updating makes this post appear twice in your feedreader, but the position needs clarification. Here with no attempt at scale is a diagram showing how she was stuck. It’s not detailed, but it does capture the indignity.

This happens occasionally, something to do with the trees’ reflection confusing the poor things, though they seem to be doing it less than they were a few years ago – possibly the stupid ones are being evolutioned out? Anyway, most of the birds that fly into our windows either die immediately or recover quickly.

By the time i got out there (with, of course, instructions to Catdog not to follow) she was breathing less perceptibly. Birds don’t cope well with shock. But just in case, i lifted her under the shrub that’s in the corner (methinx it’s Hebe pinguifolia but don’t take my word for it) and left a small scoopful of birdseed just in front of her beak. The thinking was that predators and chill would be less likely to find her, and she may feel like some sustenance when she came to.

Here’s the best pic i could get, given the awkward angle. Conscious, by human standards – meaning her eyes were open. But not exactly compos mentis when i took this.

And a little while later – nearly an hour, iirc – my eye caught a movement upwards from that corner and there she was on the fence again. At least, someone was silhouetted there, and it was the right size. And the space beneath the probably-Hebe was vacated. Encouraging.

I do hope she didn’t get going while still in too much of a daze, and fly into a car or a cat. But it’s nice to feel she had a quiet place to think about whether she was ready to re-enter the fray. Life is hard work for finches.

Btw, don’t think i spend all my hours gazing at the roses.

Midsummer bat

Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Well, a little bit afraid maybe?

It’s not Hallowe’en, and the yarn isn’t red. This is therefore a Midsummer Bat.

The pattern is at SweaterBabe, which does quite a nice e-letter, and a blog, as well as its site full of patterns for both knitting and crochet, of which half a dozen of each are free.

I knew i’d forget about this bat if i waited for Hallowe’en – would probably remember on Guy Fawkes’ Night and end up getting round to it for Christmas.

I so HATE weaving in ends, that you’ll notice i haven’t. This allows one to fly the bat into people’s faces as a Midsummer spooky fright (how far can i take this incongruity?) – or i’m thinking of making several and using the ends to tie them into a Christmassy chain…

OK, you have spotted them – my desperate attempts at a pretext for saying the approximate half-hour i spent on this was a sensible way to spend my time.

Perhaps it was. It was tricky, not enormously so (SweaterBabe call it ‘easy intermediate’), but fiddly enough to be good practice. Can i use that excuse?

I have made myself an arthritis aid too – i’ll try and photograph that after i’ve woven in the ends  ;0)  and tell you how, and why. Really, really simple.

And ALSO this morning I made a rose from CrochetSoirée in the same red, which was so quick that rolling and sewing it took longer than the crocheting. That photo didn’t come out.

(Be honest. Did i scare you?)