Crystal

I have been the care taker of my mother-in-law's crystal for a number of years now. However, I was not taking the best care of it. At my old house the crystal was in the top of my cabinets in the kitchen. It was dirty and dusty and didn't look very pretty. So Wally wrapped it all up in paper and moved to the new house, but left it in the boxes in the kitchen. Today, Sarah and I opened all the boxes and washed all the crystal. Since it is crystal, we did it by hand. This is one of the reasons it had not been cleaned for a while. I'm a dishwasher kind of gal. Having Sarah help did make the task go more quickly. I am grateful for her help. Here are two photos of what the crystal looks like now. And here is the artsy fartsy shot. I couldn't help it.

I think when we get things more under control here, I will look into some sort of cabinet to display the crystal. It seems a shame to let all that loveliness hide in a cabinet.

Forest Neighbors

As many of you know, we have moved into our new house. We are still moving things from the old house, but we are sleeping and eating in the new house. The new house is on an acre plus of land, and it is in a heavily forested area. We have lots of trees, so we also have lots of wild life. We have seen deer, wild pigs, racoons, opossums and lots of birds. Yesterday, between trips to the other house, Wally and I were eating lunch at the new house. All of sudden, Wally called me to look out into the backyard. This is what we saw. If you can't see too clearly, here is a closer shot. Now our fence is 6 feet tall, so you know this is a big bird. We have seen lots of vultures out here, but never this close up. They are usually on the side of the road or gliding on the air currents.

What you can't see in this picture is the blue jays dive bombing the vulture. I don't know if there was a blue jay chick on the ground or what, but the blue jays were having a fit. They were squawking and carrying on and trying to get the vulture to move. The vulture just stood there and looked around. He was not moving. Finally, Wally went out into the yard, and the vulture decided to leave. It took off and went flying over the pine trees. We saw it circle around a few times, but the vulture did not return. Then the blue jays decided to dive bomb Wally. Ah, the joys of living in the country.