Wednesday, May 17, 2006, 19:59
Hummingbirds!
The hummingbirds are here. They have been for about a week now. Usually we see them right around the first of May. It has been so windy this year, they arrived a bit later than usual.
But just like other years, the hummingbirds are not especially interested in the hummingbird feeder. Oh, sure, they come to the feeder, but they are polite with each other and don't chase each other away from the food. All of that will change later on in the summer. When the babies are learning to fly and learning how to find food, and the end of the summer draws closer, the hummingbirds become aggressive about the hummingbird feeder. They chase each other away and squeak and scold, and if Randy and I happen to be outside, we might get scolded, too. It is at that point I decide it is safer to take the hummingbird feeder down after dark so I can clean it out and fill it and hang it back up again.
So far, Sophie has not discovered the hummingbirds. She spends all of her spare time in the bedroom on on the chest-of-drawers, hiding behind the curtain, one eye pointed around the edge of the curtain, ears flattened, watching the cliff swallows who are only a few feet away above the window building their nests.
When Sophie discovers the hummingbirds coming to the window above the kitchen sink, I am afraid, if there are dishes in the drainer, I might have to clean up a few broken dishes. I would not put it past Sophie to jump into the dish drainer -- dishes or not -- in her pursuit of the hummingbirds.
That's one thing about our little gray cat, Sophie -- she is nothing if not enthusiastic about what she perceives as FUN! On warmer evenings, we have taken to keeping the lights off in the dining room so as not to attract moths to the window. One night Sophie was jumping up so high on the window because a moth fluttered outside, I feared for her safety -- not to mention the safety of anything sitting on or around the table.
Awning -- Since I bought my "craft sale awning" on Sunday, the weather has been too unsettled or too windy or too rainy to set it up. Monday it was windy all day with occasional showers and a few peeks of sun. Tuesday it was windy with occasional thunderstorms blowing up out of nowhere. Today the sun is shining but it is still WINDY!
Visitors -- Jessie, a subscriber to Rural Route 2 News from Alberta, Canada, will be stopping in my hometown on Friday! She and her husband are on their way to the eastern part of the state to visit relatives. I will see if I can find someone to take pictures of us with our digital camera so I can post them to the photo album. The visit will give me something to look forward to, seeing as I have a dentist appointment at noon on Friday. I lost a filling.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Monday, May 15, 2006, 19:28
Hunting for Canopies
"Uh-oh," I said.
"What?" Randy asked.
I had just opened a letter I had received Saturday afternoon from the lady who is coordinating the Cheese Curd Festival in Ellsworth, Wisconsin.
"It says here that vendors are required to have a canopied display," I said. "A canopied display that can withstand all kinds of weather."
"Canopy? What kind of canopy?" Randy asked.
"It doesn't say," I said. "It just says 'canopied display that can withstand all kinds of weather.'"
Two weeks ago I came across a listing on the Internet for the Cheese Curd Festival. Seeing as my books are about growing up on a dairy farm, I thought *Christmas in Dairyland* and *Give Me a Home Where the Dairy Cows Roam* and *Cream of the Crop* would be a nice fit with the Cheese Curd Festival.
It took me a week to actually get a hold of the lady who was listed as the contact. I kept getting an answering machine and didn't feel like leaving a message. If I left a message for her, then she would probably call me back when I wasn't in the house. Then she would leave a message. Then I would leave another message. And so on and so forth. I hate playing "phone tag."
After I finally talked to her, she then kindly sent me the information and the vendor application. Since the event is at a county fairgrounds, I was hoping the vendors would be inside, but apparently not.
"Let's look in the flyers in the newspaper tomorrow to see if we can find anything that might work," I said.
"Good idea," Randy said.
So, Sunday afternoon, we started looking through the newspaper flyers. The space available at the Cheese Curd Festival is 10 x 10 -- so it couldn't be something larger than that.
"I don't see anything that would work," Randy said as he turned to the next page in the flyer.
"Me, either," I said as I flipped to the next page of another flyer.
Of course, many times items that are actually in a store are not necessarily listed in the newspaper flyer.
"Let's go to town this afternoon and see if we can find something," I said. "The application has to be in by June 1, so if I'm going to do this, I need a canopy of some sort. Besides, then we can get horse feed and dog food, too."
Randy was game. So we headed into town.
At the first store we went to, I saw several really cute backyard gazebo-type-tent-thingies. Expensive, though ($350 to $500).
"You wouldn't want one of those, anyway," Randy said. "You'd need to take the air compressor and a tool box of tools to go with it and a crew of four -- and it would still take you four hours to set it up."
"Yes," I said, "I suppose you're right."
It was at the second store that I found what I wanted. A 10x10 awning.
"It says on the package that two people can put it up," Randy said.
"I'm only one person, remember? Although, maybe, if I'm lucky, I can figure out some way of setting it by myself," I said.
So, I bought the awning -- just shy of $100.
I was delighted to see that the oblong blue nylon storage case, which is almost as tall as me, has little wheels on the bottom.
"Let me take it out to the truck," I said, "so I can have some idea of what it is I have gotten myself into."
I grabbed the handle and off we went.
"Boy," I said when we reached the parking lot, "this thing is heavy."
"Yes, it is rather heavy," said Randy, who had dragged it up to the checkout for me.
"This probably isn't a good test, either," I said as I dragged the thing across the parking lot. "The parking lot slopes down to the storm drain, so it would probably travel on its own if I just held up the front and let it go."
When we reached my little GMC pickup truck, I pulled open the tailgate and heaved the front of the nylon storage bag up onto the back of the truck. Then I pushed. It slid right in.
"I have a feeling," I said, "that loading it into the truck is going to be the easiest thing I have to do with it."
"I hope not -- but I suppose so," Randy replied.
By the time we arrived home, the sky had clouded over again and it was spitting rain. Not to mention that the wind had kicked up out of the north again.
"I don't think we should try to put up the awning this afternoon," I said. "I don't want it to get wet. And I don't want it blow away."
"I can see it now," Randy said with a grin. "The awning sails off with the wind, and the next thing you know, LeAnn is running across the hayfield, chasing it, and then she throws herself on top of it to hold it down."
"Right," I said.
So for now, it is enough that I have the awning. We are going to have to set it up in the yard. And I am going to have to see if I can do it by myself. Then I'm going to have to set up my book display -- the whole nine yards. Table. Tablecloth. Books. Signs. Cookie jar. Because in addition to the requirement that you have a 'canopied display that can withstand all kinds of weather' -- you also have to send a picture of your display with the application. Along with pictures of the items that you are selling -- which in my case is going to have to be a book because I don't think a picture of a book is going to be much help to the selection committee.
I hope the Cheese Curd Festival is worth it!
LeAnn R. Ralph