Fireworks

I think the animals have finally forgiven me for abandoning them for camping. Ivan ignored me for several hours. He couldn’t keep that up, and finally had to come get some love. We got home before noon, and he wouldn’t talk to me until after 10:00 pm. Even after giving in, he was still hostile, angry, and short-fused for several days (more so than he usually is). Everybody was well cared for and stayed healthy for our whole trip! That was nice.

Sarita and I braved the sauna and walked over to the farmer’s market today. My 'greens lady' was not there! She’s the only one with organic greens, and though they are a little pricey, they are always fresh and gorgeous. I will have to go to the grocery store and try to find some before I have a mutiny in the herbivore room. They haven’t had greens for three days now, and though they like the other produce and eat it almost as piggishly, they really miss their greens. Their positive reinforcement has trained me very well. I love the squeals when I bring their nightly produce in to them, but I really like the extra happy noises and watching them try to balance on their two back feet while they stretch up as tall as they can get in an effort to get the greens into their little mouths faster. They are much better at training me than I am at training them!

I think that Fiona (the gray bunny) has recently grown to like sweet peas better slightly more than her greens. She gets excited and leaps around when she sees either, but if I give them both to her at once, she will always eat her peapods first. Or maybe she's like me and saves her favorite for last.
We did our own family night of fireworks the night of the third, instead of the fourth. My parents, L & H, and I watched while M lit it up. He only started our woodchips on fire once this year. We did them early, because M chose to work on Monday the fifth, so it made more sense to do them on a Sat. night than waiting until after the fireworks on Sunday like we typically do.

We had a typical, mellow fourth, except for one major problem. SyFy didn’t run the Twilight Zone marathon this year. It was a tragedy of epic proportions for me. I need warning before a change that major occurs! I felt ‘off’ all day. We went to my parents for a mid-day meal, where my fave aunt and her partner joined us, and we all hung around there until M & I had to go home and do our dinner-time critter chores. My parents & L came to get us to go to the fireworks. We weren’t sure if they were going to go or not, because it was raining and looking like more would be coming. Fortunately, the fireworks went on as planned, and there was no rain. They were a little shorter than usual (no $$ this year), but they were nice.


Libby, my mom's cat, spent most of the afternoon in my Aunt Bobbie's purse.

L enjoyed them and brought along a clay dragon she made. She’s made several clay dragons, and has kept some and given some away. Her favorite—the one she is taking everywhere these days—is Gretel. She’s been reading a book series about dragons (surprise!) made of clay who animate and can speak with the special creator (in this case, her). Gretel talks to her quite frequently and was asking her about the “flowers in the sky” during the fireworks. This is a very interesting phase.

She went over to play at H’s Monday afternoon. She was pretty excited, as she doesn’t get to go play at others’ houses very much, and because he was watching his grandma’s dog. I got a call from her an hour and a half earlier than I was planning to pick her up. She had been having fun, but then she dropped Gretel and broke her wing off. She was devasted and could barely keep it together. She just wanted to come home and fix Gretel and said she couldn't play or have fun until she was fixed. We picked her up early, and she ran to the hot glue gun and got her all fixed up. Whew!

Last night Dej came over and the three of us hung out and did a little crafting. I made a bracelet that was SO quick and easy, and since it's bright with lots of colors, it makes me happy. The girls both like it, and since it fits both of them, I'm sure they will be using it. I just used all of the leftover beads from all of our other projects. It's quite a hodge podge.

L made a necklace and created the cover for her tree journal. We used leftover cardboard (which I save for things like this) for the cover, and a heavy corrugated piece for the backing, so the journal is sturdy and easy to write/draw in. We put a spiral binding along the top, and ta-da...her tree journal is ready, so we can start her tree journal project this week. I thought the cover really turned out beautifully. She used her quill pen and india ink to draw all of the black stuff, and I was pretty impressed with the results. Those things are really tough to work with (at least for me)!