Rockin' Robins

This is the time of year when the Brazilian pepper berries are ripening and coincidentally the robins are migrating North.  A novice might think that was just a happenstance.  But not if you live on the barrier island in Vero Beach.  When the two circumstances encounter each other, you have--drunk robins.  The berries are ripe and ferment in the warm sun, the robins arrive and are starving and spy those red beauties.  Voila, a strong cocktail that produces robins flopping around everywhere.  As a resident, you learn to recognize the symptoms and plan your driving for maximum avoidance of the birds who are rolling in the roads and on the verges.  Not a pretty sight!  But in Vero Beach we have learned that, just as in the North robins are the harbingers of spring, so drunken robins are the sign that spring is just around the corner.  Welcome, drunk robins!

This arrived from the pillow finisher on Monday and it is gorgeous!  The fabric exactly matches the paler green in the palm fronds and I really like the double insert idea. 

I've been making good progress on Gunther.  There was a big golf tournament in Arizona that I spent Saturday and Sunday watching and stitching.  I realized Sunday afternoon why I was happy to be so sedentary--I had caught the 3-day crud!  Went to the shop on Monday and sat at the stitching table.  Macy and I cautioned everyone that I had a massive cold and not to approach me--Macy would assist them.  Every one of them ignored us and insisted on showing me their canvas, color selection, fiber selection.  After that experience, I decided to stay home in bed on Tuesday.  I don't want to be the Typhoid Mary of mid-coastal  Florida! Today was better, but my voice was still a little husky. 

That horn took forever to stitch in the basketweave, but I think that was the appropriate stitch.  I liked that paler gold for his epaulets but I'm not so enamored with it as the paler color in the horn.  But I will learn to live with it (i.e., I ain't taking it out!).  I did the blue area in the criss-cross Hungarian with silk lame braid.  And then added the French knot in Kreinik's balger metallic.  And my guess was right--I couldn't do the topmost French knots because the spaces are hidden under the stretcher bar.  So I didn't end off that strand and I'll finish it when everything else is done.

Went this morning for a bone density test.  Have to laugh remembering my last test when my gp talked with me about the results.  I quote:  On paper, you really look good (with a sound of surprise in his voice).  Then, because my bones are really good, I mentioned that it was probably due to my having grown up on a diary farm and drinking lots of raw milk as a child.  He quietly commented that perhaps heredity had also made a contribution.  Oh, really?  

EDIT:  When I went to stitch on Gunther tonight after posting tonight's blog entry, I realized that the blue fiber used in the criss-cross Hungarian is silk 'n ivory, not silk lame braid.  Totally different look, I think.