Very welcome visitors

We hung up our hummingbird feeder a week or so ago and the birds immediately started coming. Today there were several of them out there- in March! How exciting!



Then a pileated woodpecker showed up right outside our side window two days in a row, between our house and our neighbor's. David saw him first both days and we all hovered around the window watching him. I took a bunch of pictures and was thrilled! The next two days we watched out the window at the same time we'd seen him the other two days but he has't come back. Click on the picture to see a closer view.



A friend gave us these eggs on Easter Sunday. They were beautiful! They came from her chickens this way, too. I kind of thought she was kidding, but did a bit of research and found Easter Egg Chickens. Who knew?? Not this city girl. The eggs are really delicately colored and it seemed almost shameful to crack them open and scramble them.

I do hope you had a wonderful Easter!

Acts of Kindness

I recently pledged to take part in a Pay It Forward gift exchange. After responding to her challenge, I received a beautiful painting from Anita Davies (see below.)



It is based on the concept from the movie 'Pay It Forward' where three acts of kindness are carried out without expecting anything in return. Each recipient of those acts of kindness then selects three different people who they, in turn, then do an "act of kindness" for and the process repeats over and over, spreading kindness in an ever-widening circle.

If you are interested, here's how it works:

Email me your land mail address, with 'Pay It Forward' in the subject line. thebrashers1@bellsouth.net

Please remember that you must be prepared to send three acts of kindness to other people when you do this.

I promise to create a small gift for the first three people who email me requesting to participate in the 'Pay It Forward' exchange.

I will announce the three people here on my blog.

The three people must then post on their own blogs promising three different people an act of kindness gift.

Sorry, you must have your own blog in order to participate.

Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for me to create and mail your gift.

Gifts can be anything that is handmade or painted by your own hand.

Pileated Woodpeckers and Roosters

The day after I posted the last update we saw a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers come to the tree nearest the kitchen window, then fly to the back of the yard. They hung around that tree for about ten minutes, during which time we all three stayed glued to the window and kept passing the binoculars back and forth. How wonderful! The night before we sat outside and observed the beautiful lunar eclipse. :)

Since then we've had a quiet two weeks of school, fishing, and enjoying the outdoors. Today it turned cold, however! We woke to snow flurries and wind, and the temperature never got above 43. For this Alabama gal that is quite cold!



Our neighbors have two very colorful roosters, and they wander into our yard occasionally. They rarely come close enough or stand still long enough for me to do more than brief sketches, but I love seeing all the color on them! I'm going to continue to try to capture them in my sketchbook and enjoy the process. What beautiful birds!



Last night I roughly sketched my grandmother's very pretty bread board. The sketch doesn't do it justice, but it's got a ring of carving around the edge. I keep it because it was hers, but I don't use it. :)

I haven't done any actual painting lately, but I sure have been enjoying sketching!