Springtime is on its way!

This morning when I got up, I looked out the kitchen window to see what the party scene was like at the bird feeders. Juncos all over the place! Those birds are so feisty, you should see them arguing! :)

Scrub Jay, image found on Deric Bownd's Blog

We're getting new birds every day now! A few days ago I heard and then saw a Scrub Jay! Two days ago I saw one of our favorite birds, a Nut Hatch! We like to call them "Hut-Hut Birds" because they land anywhere on the feeder and run all over it, including straight down the sides of the feeder. They look left, right, run this way, grab a seed, and zoom off again. They remind us of the SWAT team in The Blues Brothers!

This is a Hut-Hut Bird...er...a Nuthatch! I got this image off the web because I can't find a good one from our collection.

Today as I was grinning at the Juncos, I saw a Lark Sparrow and then a House Finch! House finches are such beautiful birds with their fiery breasts! Below are a couple of pictures we took a couple of years ago.

Isn't this a beautiful bird?! Although I believe it's a House Finch, it could also be a Cassin's or Purple Finch. They are so similar I can't tell them apart.

I couldn't resist putting up this image too! "This is my seed!"

This is a Lark Sparrow, an image I found online. The one on our feeder was shoveling food into its beak as fast as it could!

Reality Check!

I just love this line from one of my all-time favorite movies, Mister Roberts: James Cagney has absolutely lost it over something Henry Fonda does and yells at the top of his lungs to the miserable crew of the USS Reluctant, "SOUND THE GENERAL ALARM!" (click on the link to hear Cagney in all of his glory, but better yet, RENT THE MOVIE, it's quite possibly my favorite movie!)

I woke up today and realized that a month and a day has passed since I stopped playing WoW, and you know what? I have very little to show for it. Yes, I learned how to use InDesign and I'm going through a Photoshop tutorial...I built a website mockup, I designed a pamphlet, and I did many hours of copywriting for the website we're doing for our veterinarian too.

But let's face it. If my ass was kicked to the curb...could I get a job as a graphic or web designer? NFW*. I have no current portfolio. My skills are still weak from not using them for 5 years. I lack the confidence to march in like I usually do and just TAKE any job I want. That makes me feel really uncomfortable and worried.

I think this hit me over the past couple of days as I was working on my "About Me" page for our upcoming website. I cobbled together my resume and I think what happened was that it finally hit me that we need to get our asses into gear, NOW. Our original plan was to do our veterinarian's website and then immediately get another one going, and then fairly soon after that, we'd be advertising on Craig's List and getting our foot in the door. But our vet is very flakey and we've just been schlepping along, me much moreso than Steve. He's actually been learning TONS of stuff and getting more confident and skilled every day. But me?

I'm a Blogging Junkie! *cringe* It may be a little better than WoW, but come on. I've been wasting valuable time.

So today Steve and I talked and we came up with a very good plan to build our website portfolio in the next couple of weeks.

I guess it's a good plan because I have a new website all mocked up and so does Steve! YAYYYY!!! I feel a LOT better. I'm going to try to get a new website mock up done every day or at most, two days, so that we'll have a bunch of them to add to our portfolio and within a couple of weeks, we'll have something to show people and we can advertise on Craig's List! If we want to get out of our failing business, we need to get our butts into gear!! We're so excited that we're finally moving forward again!

*No Fucking Way

Movie: 12 Angry Men

When Steve and I found out that Sidney Lumet, director of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, started his movie directing career with 12 Angry Men, we simply had to watch it. I'd seen it a few months ago when Steve was away on a trip but he'd remembered how much I enjoyed it, and I was very happy to watch it again.

Some of my favorite movies (Stalag 17, The Philadelphia Story, Arsenic and Old Lace, etc.) take place in only a few rooms, and are adapted from plays (12 Angry Men takes place in only one room for 95% of the movie). What you get is extremely strong character development and interesting performances because the actors can't do much else to sell the movie in such confined space. Now dial back the years and make the film black and white where you have to depend on lighting, angles and close-ups to make the movie more interesting along with the actor's performances. If this is done well, you end up with a movie like 12 Angry Men.

This movie is about 12 jurors who have to agree one way or another, whether or not to find the defendant guilty of a murder. That may not seem like an movie worth watching, but it's really good! Since I'd seen it before, I got to see how Steve reacted to each scene which was fun for me, and I got to study performances differently now that I knew how everything would turn out. 12 Angry Men is one of the very best classic movies out there and if you haven't seen it, check it out!

Movie: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Wow. What a movie!! There is a reason why Roger Ebert placed this at #3 for his favorite 2007 movies! Before the Devil Knows You're Dead was filmed like Pulp Fiction, in that the time line is out of order. This must be a very difficult way to tell a story without hopelessly confusing viewers, but this one worked perfectly. The actors were awesome, the directing couldn't be topped, and the plot was great. It's a story about a robbery that goes wrong and gets worse with each passing hour. Tense, exciting, scary, and disturbing, we were riveted to the screen from beginning to end. We were amazed to find out that the director, Sidney Lumet, was 82 years old when he worked on this movie, and it's no surprise as to why it turned out so well. He's the man behind such fantastic films as 12 Angry Men (his directorial debut!! OMG!!), Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and many others.

After the movie, we watched the Making Of featurette and all I can say is that Sidney Lumet is AMAZING! Steve and I were blown away by this talented, humble, extremely gifted man and really enjoyed hearing him talk about how he made the film. Really interesting and well-worth watching if you get this movie on dvd!

Between Storms

Today when I saw that it wasn't raining and the sun was shining through the clouds, I decided to go for a walk around the property. I wanted to bring only Zoe this time because she's so easy to dry off and doesn't get muddy. I grabbed the camera and got a few pictures to share! Enjoy! By the way, about 30 minutes after we got back, it started pouring again!

It's been raining so much that the stream that runs down to our seasonal pond is more like a creek than a stream right now!

Goofball Zoe is checking out the edge of our overflowing pond.

This is our bloated pond, full of froggies just waiting until nightfall so they can have another rave party!

I did it! I did it! I took an extreme close-up with our new camera! This droplet measured about one eighth of an inch in diameter! (Click on "extreme close-up" for a zoomed in view)

I thought the moss and fungus on this fallen tree was very cool looking!

There are many granite outcroppings on our property and moss loves to grow on it. The vibrant green colors are so beautiful this time of year!

Another view of the moss on the granite with a manzanita tree and Zoe in the background

Water flowing down from the hillside shining on a mossy granite outcropping.

Oh Those Fornicatin' Froggies!

Tonight I walked down to our gate to put a Netflix movie in the mail for pickup tomorrow and as I walked down the road with my little flashlight, I thought how peaceful it was. The cool breeze on my face, and what was that sound? Off to the right, a deer ran off into the trees from where I surprised it. Then, I found it difficult to even think because I was approaching our seasonal pond and omg...the cacophany of froggies calling out for a date was deafening! It makes me laugh, they're so LOUD! About a month ago, Steve and I walked down to the pond at night and sat by the edge of the water to just listen to the frogs and toads advertising for love. Steve recorded their calls on his iPhone and was able to transfer it over to the pc so I could share it here! I just love frogs. They're so cute and when they croak, their vocal pouches get so HUGE! Frogs RULE!

Here's a picture of one of the Pacific Tree Frogs that is partying down at the pond. This cutie pie was on the side of our house one evening a couple of years ago. We find them in our shop, our garage, and once we even found one in the kitchen!

Canadian Geese are so Cool

Today I got to spend the afternoon clearing brush and several times while I was working, I heard the sounds of Canadian Geese calling as they were flying by on their way to or from the Rogue River, where they spend time in mid-migration.

This beautiful image of two Canadian geese was taken by Gert Paasen

I always stop to see if I can spot them and they invariably bring a smile to my face. I love to hear them calling, and it's wonderful to see them forming a V as they fly along. Today I saw two pairs and a single bird. To me, hearing them as they fly over our property is very special and tranquil and I always feel so lucky to experience this. They are a symbol of this wild place in which we live.