The Wordsmith's Forge

Today is partly sunny, mild, and breezy.  The grass is still wet but it's not raining anymore.

I fed the birds.  I've seen bluejays, doves, robins, and house finches.

I took pictures of flowers in my yard. 

Also, my partner Doug spoke with someone who confirmed the presence of bobcats in the area; the guy owns a large piece of riverbottom land for hunting and has plentiful bobcats there, likely on the same river system as the reserve.  :D

EDIT 5/3/21 -- I planted the barrel garden with moonflowers, nasturtiums, multicolored snapdragons, white snapdragons, regular petunias, and antique climbing / trailing petunias.

EDIT 5/3/21 -- After supper I pulled grass off the septic garden.  I was hearing rumbles of thunder then and more now.  We're supposed to get some rain tonight.

EDIT 5/3/21 -- A small quantity of pea-size hail has arrived with the thunderstorm.  I note that it is hailing much more often in recent years than it used to.

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Today's Adventures
Birdfeeding
Today's Smoothie
Birdfeeding
Community Building Tip: Lunch
Leaky Pipeline Bingo Card 5-1-21
Poetry Fishbowl Report for April 20, 2021
Unsold Poems for the April 20, 2021 Poetry Fishbowl
Bingo
Birdfeeding
Category 6 Isn't Enough (98 comments)
Coping Skills: Walk
Birdfeeding
Birdfeeding
Six Bluejays


Poetry in Microfunding:

There are two open epics at present.

"The Trail of Hope" opened and closed quickly, so you can read that in full.  After the End, some Cherokee people walk from Oklahoma to Tenneessee.

"The Hobbomak" launches the Bear Tunnels series.  Emma and Jesse explore the images on the walls.

"A Celebration and a Consolation" belongs to Polychrome Heroics. Keira comforts her mother after the breakup.


The weather has been mostly mild here. It rained yesterday. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large flock of mourning doves (including courtship behavior), a large flock of grackles, a flock of sparrows, a flock of 6 bluejays, a few robins, several house finches who are draining the thistle sock, a pair of cardinals, a pair of brown thrashers, and a squirrel. While out hiking we saw a white-breasted nuthatch, heard a barred owl, and saw a probable bobcat track.  Currently blooming: daffodils, blue grape hyacinths, violets, tulips, lilacs, yellow bellflower, white trillium, redbud trees, purple allium, white allium, lily of the valley, butterfly weed.

We went out hiking at the Grand Prairie Friends reserve today.  The wildlife diversity was excellent.  :D  We saw a white-breasted nuthatch, heard many woodpeckers and other birds, and heard a barred owl.  Walking the south river trail, there were multiple patches of mud, so I watched for tracks.  Mostly I saw human and dog tracks, some deer, but the most exciting was a probable bobcat!  The tracks were deep and crystal clear, much bigger than housecat (unless someone's Savanna Cat got out, which seems unlikely), rounded toe prints with no claw marks, and no feathering from foot hair like a lynx would typically leave.  The fact that there were dog tracks with clear toenails two feet away made the cat tracks all the more conclusive.  Here is a good comparison of different track sets.

Today is cloudy and mild, occasionally drizzling.

I fed the birds.  I've seen bluejays, doves, sparrows, a pair of brown thrashers, and a small flock of house finches.

Today we made a smoothie with:

1 cup orange strawberry banana juice
1 cup Brown Cow vanilla yogurt
1 banana
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 cup ice

The texture is thin, the color bright pink, and the flavor delicious.  :D

Today is sunny and mild.

I fed the birds.  I've seen 4 bluejays, several doves, a robin, and a squirrel.

For my current set of tips, I'm using the list "101 Small Ways You Can Improve Your City.

70. Take a person experiencing homelessness out for lunch. "Listen to their story. A lot of people just want to be heard or seen as human. I think it would be emotionally very hard to be ignored or overlooked the way our community is in San Francisco. How did they lose their housing? It's often unexpected. San Francisco’s homeless population is diverse and ever-changing. Some people lose their housing because they went through a medical bankruptcy after a partner became terminally ill. Some are veterans who fought in our wars. It's always interesting, and then you start to understand the sheer scale of the problem and how difficult it is to keep people housed in this city, with all of their idiosyncratic financial or medical needs." — Kim-Mai Cutler, columnist at Techcrunch

dialecticdreamer is hosting Feathering the Nest for gentle fiction. Leave prompts, get ficlets!

As soon as this is posted, I’ll start outlining the next Aether Roses bonus story, and work on it in between prompts. If I reach a total of $150 in tips, I’ll post a 7500-8000 word story as soon as I’ve checked it for typos and html goofs. That doubles the words produced, and gives every participant at least one more story to read, and meets my criteria for providing good value to my readers.

Here is my card for the Leaky Pipeline Bingo Fest over in allbingo. It has several different categories. I have made a mixed card. The fest runs from May 1-31. (See all my 2021 bingo cards.)

If you'd like to sponsor a particular square, especially if you have an idea for what character, series, or situation it would fit -- talk to me and we'll work something out. I've had a few requests for this and the results have been awesome so far. This is a good opportunity for those of you with favorites that don't always mesh well with the themes of my monthly projects. I may still post some of the fills for free, because I'm using this to attract new readers; but if it brings in money, that means I can do more of it. That's part of why I'm crossing some of the bingo prompts with other projects, such as the Poetry Fishbowl.

Underlined prompts have been filled.


LEAKY PIPELINE BINGO CARD

Native Americans	uncertainty / job insecurity	women / girls	support network	QUILTBAG people
black people	food science	being outnumbered	emotional first aid	failure analysis
teamwork skills	mentors	WILD CARD	emotional labor	feeling out of place
gengineering	lack of support	sexual harassment	Earth sciences	meaningful choices
inventors	artificial intelligence	futurology	activists	inclusivity

 Based on a donation from Anthony & Shirley Barrette, I have posted the remaining verses of "The Trail of Hope."  See the tribe's new home!  I'll get to work on posting the rest of the notes next.