Damn Bird!

A few weeks ago we had a bird come down our chimney. It was my day to sleep late and I was woken early by my husband. " I think...I know there is a bird in the fireplace, what do I do?" To which I replied, " you wait for me to wake up." He agreed and in a half hour, when I was awake enough to tackle the task, we put the children in the play room and opened the doors to the house. Mr. T with safety glasses and elbow high gloves removed the coffee table from in front of the fireplace, it was there to keep the children out, and comedy ensued. My husband had never encountered a bird in the fireplace before even though he had a fireplace growing up, and was at a loss of how to go about it. I remember about one a year would get into our stove growing up and the removal was always rather simple.

It was very comical, to see his strategy, but he wanted to try his way. In the end after about 10 minutes of attempts, he asked for my recommendations and the bird was simply caught and released out of doors.

The very next day the same bird was back in the fireplace, idiot bird. This he handled without my help as I was at the grocery. And I am sad I missed it, apparently it got loose in the house and there was a bit of a frenzy to get the doors open. MAT(Big boy) told me all about the fun when I got home. As I was unloading groceries I saw a Starling perched on the top of the chimney, it is her favorite place to sit (that is the pesky fellow at top). I started thinking "All right you, next time you fall down we are not going to release you. You are toast. You..." Then I heard some noise from the top of the chimney and it was not the adult bird I heard. I heard the squawking and squeaking of little birds.Ugh. Great that stupid clumsy bird made a NEST on the ledge of the chimney and it keeps falling down trying to tend it's brood.

Awesome. So it has been a few weeks and no there have not been any more Santa acts from that bird, thankfully. But now when I sit on the couch, ALL I hear is "SQUAWK, PEEP, SQUEAL" echoing down the chimney pipe. Blast those wretched birds. Feather out already and leave home.

Crafty goodness: Bags of sorts

So I in fact did decide to sew today, after many other projects and a bit of bird watching, I finally got motivated. On the list today was to make a new purse out of a moomoo I bought at Goodwill. Some XL super sturdy tote bags. And covertly some new bean bags, or Corn Hole bags thought I hate that name, for Nick because our old ones are in the garage and probably full of holes thanks to hungry mouses. And the tote bags are mostly going to be for the farmers market and traveling. I already have reusable grocery bags made of old up-cycled tshirts, but those are specifically for groceries.

Oh Reminder! Wash your reusable bags, apparently, as my local grocery bagger informed/tor me a new one, the news said that "reusable bags are a "Dangerous Hazard". Because people don't wash them and there is a strong cross contamination hazard and people are getting sick." Yeah if you buy blood meat and it gets all over your cloth bags and then you don't wash them, yeah you might get sick. But he was telling everyone NOT to use cloth bags. How about suggesting that they use washable bags, that is a much smarter solution. Ok reminder over, he just really irked me.

Anyway, rant over, here are pictures of the finished purse, It's reversible! The patterned fabric is a satin moomoo I found for 75 cents at the thrift store. What is left I think I will make an apron out of. And the solid green side was left over linen that I made Big's suit out of for his Uncle and Aunties wedding 2 years ago, I am a fabric hoarder, I know.

No giant tote bag or bean bags yet, forgot about the filler and ran out of co-operation time.