An answer

Debby loves dishes, too, and she asked this:

I love dishes too! Antique or new ones, and I feel like I have to collect mostly every dish/bowl/cup in the set. Do you have this problem too? I’m dying for the soup tureen to my china (Baronesse White is the name). And for the most part, I don’t really like soup! LOL

I’ve been lucky to (so far) avoid that problem, Debby. Although it’s helped along by me not really liking the shape of the Portmeirion Botanic Garden soup tureen that goes with my main set of dishes. At least most days. I rather like it today. Egads! But I have so many different sets of dishes—I have six sets of dishes, unless I’m forgetting one. Oh! Wait. Make that seven—that we’re rather over-run with them as it is. LOL I love it, though! It’s fun having different dishes to choose from, depending my my mood, what I’m eating, and the time of year.

Although… the main “problem” with the Botanic Garden design is that they keep coming out with new flowers. They’ll only have six flower patterns for each piece at a time, but they discontinue old ones, and release new ones regularly. The result of this is that, though I’m dreadfully behind, I have ten dinner plates, nine or ten salad plates, eight (or so) cereal bowls… and the flower patterns are all unique for each type of plate or bowl. You get the idea. It is fun, though.

Oh, and yes, I went and had a look. I love your dishes!

A statement

I wrote up the pattern for my Pinwheel Blanket in the wee hours this morning.

Test knitting is closed. If you wish to purchase my pattern, you can do so here.

An observation

We have kestrels (Falco sparverius, also sometimes known as sparrow hawks) around here. I just love these little guys. They’re a smallish bird in the falcon family, and help keep the small rodent and lizard population down. They have a pretty scream—Dave doesn’t think so, he just thinks they’re raucus—lovely markings, and are quite active around nesting time in the spring. They’re small enough that the mockingbirds will occasionally gang up on one and chase it away.

And they’re big enough to be able to play on the wind when we’re having a mild Santa Ana condition, like this morning.

Here’s another picture.

As Dave and I were watching this little beauty play on the wind this morning, I lucked out and got these pictures. Just after I took these he (she?) decided that he’d had enough of playing on the wind, put his wings all the way back, and dove as straight down as possible into a eucalyptus tree to rest for a while.