76 Trombones

Yes, it’s my birthday again.  And it’s a gorgeous sunny deep-blue-skied morning here in the upper left chamber of the heart of Texas.   A little earlier the yard was full of at least 76 birds (a big flock of cedar waxwings overlapping a flock of robins, and if there wasn’t a band with 76 trombones in a big parade, I was hearing the music in my head.   There’s a chocolate cake (HEB bakery) awaiting my attention later.  Grass is greening up, and in the south horse lot it’s pretty green, and two horses are nibbling away at it (nibbles, because thanks to them it’s VERY SHORT.

 

44 thoughts on “76 Trombones

    1. It’s been lovely. Quietly lovely. I needed to get a whopping load of work done today, and did, in peace and quiet, and I’ll be in bed as soon as I answer posts here.

  1. Happy Birthday! Just want to tell you on your day that I personally am thankful for you! Your writing has made an amazing difference in my life in lots of ways. It isn’t just the novels, it is also reading the posts on the Paksworld blog years after they were written, (thank you for keeping that alive); following your conversations on Facebook, and now here. As Dorrin cleared the well and brought healing to the vill reading your work has helped clarify my thoughts and renew my passion for the call I perceive in my life. Glad there is music and cake on your birthday.
    I hope you can virtually feel the big birthday hugs I’m sending your way.

    Leslie

  2. Happy birthday. At our ages, every year is an achievement as you well know. Enjoy your chocolate cake and blow out all the candles. We should all be particularly proud of our aniversaries this year. We worked for them.

    1. In the end I had TWO pieces of the chocolate cake! Two long calls with friends, one of whom I haven’t been in contact with for a long time (I didn’t realize she didn’t know my address or phone number until she finally asked another friend.) We knew each other in college.) Thanks for your birthday wishes.

    1. Yes, it was that kind of day. The sunshine, the blue sky, the wild plums starting to bloom and spread their perfume, discovering that the scarlet buckeye buds hadn’t been nipped hard in the freeze (the viburnum buds and some of the oaks were.) Elbow bush breaking out in pale yellow.

    1. Good day indeed. Turned the horses into the north lot for the first time this spring…until after their supper, that is, when they found the gate shut again and stood by it, gazing forlornly into the lost paradise of clover. They’ll get a few hours in it tomorrow, too, if the weather holds.

  3. Happy birthday and hope spring brings all you want after the winter you just had.
    Life here in the UK might start returning to some sense of normal in another month or two. We had a flock of redwings in the bushes just outside my window last week eating (totally pigging themselves on) ivy berries. Spring flowers now in full bloom – it’s the yellow time of the year. Primroses, Daffodils (many varieties from tall white to miniature deep yellow), Celandines, Forsythia, Mahonia and Yellow Cornus all out in the garden.

    1. I need to find a field guide to UK flowers. Daffodils I know from pictures, but what does a Celandine look like? I should Google, but I’ve been busy on other stuff.

  4. A belated Happy Birthday! Glad you had what sounds like a perfect day, may there be many more, birthdays and perfect days both.

  5. (Huh. This app apparently purges out all the emojis I usually include in a birthday greeting – imagine it festooned with musical notes, equines, food and drink, (chocolate! Ice cream!…) spring flowers, presents, fireworks…)

    1. Maybe you could just create a new account and post he name here. I’m sure your friends will quickly share it. – getting f/b themselves to actually help or do anything is hard.

  6. It’s very late but…many happy returns of the 7th, may the sky shelter you and the earth support you. And congratulations on the gradual recovery of your knitting fu. My bees send their best springtime wishes. 🙂

    1. Thanks…I’ll take birthday wishes early, late, or on the day. The return of knitting fu has been lovely…both of the blue socks (first pair started and then quit when I couldn’t get the heel turn right) are now on the foot, gussets having been achieved (on the second sock, this morning). The ribbing of the first sock looks like someone just learning to knit (re-learning, as it was) but the second pair, started earlier this month, has nice even ribbing, hardly any errors. Picking up the gusset stitches went far more smoothly than I expected. Got both socks reconnected and onto the foot in one week, and hope (!!) to be finished in another week or two. Meanwhile, the brown pair will get 2 rows of ribbing a day each–not enough to be boring, but enough to make progress so when the blues are done, the browns move into the front. While I’m on the heel flaps, I’ll start the pair after that (not sure of color yet…I have SABLE amount of yarn, in a variety of red, blue, green, turquoise, purple and other combinations, so it’s “Hmmm…” time. I need to knit the dark colors in summer, when the light’s better, but I also need more summer short socks (much quicker–no 40+ rows of ribbing). I wore more holes in the two pair I had darned during the Big Freeze.

      But NewBook also needs hours a day, the horses need more time (they’re getting unsocialized except with each other), and I’ve got other must-do stuff as well. Where are my 48 hour days that nobody else has access to 24 of???

    1. The ponies are doing well, and as they explained to me yesterday (running around, bucking, playing “wild stallions of the golden West” with mock combat) they are not interested in human-horse cooperation beyond food, more food, cookies, admiring comments, water, more food…etc. Rags will accept a little brushing some days before he tears off again; Tigger has decided that dreads become him, and though I’m an occasional source of cookies, I’m entirely too likely to have a rope and halter in hand, so…No thanks, Mom, I’m off to the distance plains where–looky, right there–is a deer/goat/cow/invisible spook excuse–now watch me zoom away! It took me fifteen minutes or more yesterday to get Tig to accept his cookie, and most of that was watching Pure Mischief teasing me. Maybe…ok…NO (whirl and run)…well actually…maybe if you don’t LOOK at me…OK…sniff-sniff…GOTCHA (a 180 on the hind legs and a prancing circle with the snakey-neck thing. (I was on the other side of a fence, with my arm through the openings, cookie on flat hand. I did have a bandage on one finger (burn last weekend) and he’s decided the stickum smells bad…or that’s his excuse.)

    1. For future reference if I ever get my connection unscrambled so I can get back to FB…and (predictably) when I’m not there for some reason, when I disappear, look on my own sites (esp. here) for both me and the reasons for things. OK?

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