As Mario hinted out in his Home Back Home post, I have been working on a fixture for the plaza of the house. We have lots of birds that joyfully flavor the air during the day.
I wanted to have something that would invite the birdies to hang out and give me more opportunities to take pictures 😄 I wasn't sure what "that" would have looked like. Upon tapping a few buttons on my personal super quantum computer (I asked my love for leads)
He suggested using a branch that we cut a while when pruning some of the trees in the plaza as a base for the birds. A birth bath and a to make pleasant for other birds to join the party a stylish feeder.
Those days I have been feeling a bird myself, under one of the mango trees we attached a hanging chair and man... it's nap heaven when the wind blows and the birdies play the tunes undisturbed above. If you don't have narcolepsy this treatment will definitely get you that virus!
My knee has been bugging me recently, thanks mom for the bad knee genes! So I can't take the thinking walks that Mario takes in the morning. During those walks, we chit-chat about what project to tackle next.
Then when we get to the closest beach spot he goes off the tangent to the next 10 years' projects, artificial intelligence things, and I get lost in finding "treasures" in the sand and the shores.
By the time I get back he is about to ask me a question on what was spoken while I was treasure hunting. When that happens, I follow Bill's suggestion on how to handle that scenario 😜
Besides morning coffee, I usually don't consume breakfast however I must say that the heat is affecting our habits more than we probably realize. Back home Mario never went out at 6 AM for a morning walk and now he does that almost religiously. Scarlet follows him outside with a routine she never had before. She patiently waits for him to complete his arrangements pre-walk, purr away to get her morning treats (He spoils her!), get the cuddles, and then wait by the door for him to open and go out. There's a whole protocol to the "give the goodies to doggie" process.
My sleep is really bad so normally back home I would stay in the bed as long as I can to recover in the early hours of the morning. Instead, I find myself slothing to the west side of the deck where we placed stool chairs for morning sunbathing while having breakfast at 7 AM.
From there I stare at the bare branch/birdies spot. Since I retired I don't recall start jamming on anything too early in the day. And forget about handling manly tools before brain functions really kicked in. But as I said, we are changing and we are not even seeing the change while occur but merely as an after the fact.
The deco "parts" arrived a couple of days ago, I looked at the branch, rewind in my head what Mario and I had talked about for the project, and start getting inspirations on how to actually pull it off. I couldn't wait for him to come back from his walk so I left my half-brewed coffee and headed to do the job.
Grabbed the saw, the brown glue, the decor parts, and a pair of gloves. Placed the go pros in a couple of angles for timed shots and started the day!
I bought two parrots, one tucan, one pelican (Nigel), and a crane that has not arrived yet. When we were doing startups Mario used to have parrots in his weekly updates to the team and everyone start remembering what he was talking about because of those parrots. So I decided to make the plaza memorable with Mimí and Cocō, aka the parrots.
For Mimí I slightly angle cut a branch and snagged it into the crease of the wood, glued it, and clamp it while the glue would hardening.
Cocō instead has a different prime spot and he can swing with the wind because I used an eyelid to hold the resting loop.
It will never be like the best parrot I know, GUCCI but it will do it until aunt Sandy will come to visit with him along. Check out the clip at the bottom of the post for seeing Gucci in action.
On the farthest and tollest branch, I placed Sam the toucan.
Then I need a place for the pelican and none that the whole branch was offering was good enough. Just when I was puzzling myself on what I could have changed to make it more belonging there, hubby got back from his morning walk and he dropped a comment:
Umm... not sure. I probably would place a plank across the branch so that real birds have a place where to seat when the land. I don't have time though, honey, I have a meeting in 15 minutes and I have to jump in the shower first.
Well... I hate when he does that. I stare at a problem for a while, he passes by for a kiss and he drops a solution while he is walking away. I am no dummy but he surely makes me feeling one when he does that... I should kill him like the queen into the TV show See but then I would miss him dearly so, for now, I handle with overcooking the spaghetti, that will teach him a lesson! Seriously, want to piss off a Sothern Italian? Just overcook the pasta or break some other food descent pass on tradition and that will blow the lid off the most self-restrained pot in the kitchen. You are welcome. 😈
Anyway, I improved on the SUGGESTION, using a half-rotten piece of wood that was leftover from when we cleared the raised garden beds. So it would look more marines-ish.
Jordan, if you are reading this, we want you to know that I am practicing the "focus tongue" while I cut wood. Placing screws seems to still take 101% of my CPU so I can't use other body parts while I do that task but I will keep practicing to achieve your focus tongue skills 😜
Winds here can be really strong and come into gushing splashes, they are never uncomfortable to humans (a mystery to us so far) but things are affected like a God's broom is sweeping away.
Therefore, Nigel had to be secured on the plank and secured well.
"GoPro record" is the word you use to make it recording while it is on standby, and you want to do it hands-free. That thing works 1 time out of 4 when you are lucky but I learned that if I say "xenon" with a deep voice it always works with surrounding noises. I was so surprised to see it working again and again that I almost amputated Nigel's foot with the drill!
It was coming together real nice and very cheerful, I wanted to bathe in my feel-good moment so I texted my job inspector to show my progress.
He is a bit taller than me so I used his arm to place the tucan on the top.
While he was gluing it he said "the pelican is pretty cool but it is missing something..." - you know when your mom tells you something that you know it's the right thing but you don't want to admit it and just pretend to ignore it but inside the nuts and bolts are heating up?!
So I start thinking about what I could have added or changed. Entering Vickie's thinking mode. It was about noon, we're looking at full data center capacity. My nerd readers will appreciate that comment also as proof that when they talk biz-shit over FaceTime I pay attention to their discussion...
And just when he finished gluing the feather little guy, I had a jolt turning on the whole lighthouse. I said:
Amo, you know what we could do to make it cooler?
And I could tell his brain was spinning but nothing was coming out on the spot. And at THAT moment I felt like this:
We can use one of your lures for fishing and stuck it in its mouth and the wind will make it flap around. How is that for coolness?!
To which he looked at me like I was in my twenties, perky boobs. Pulled skin like a drum skin just placed on the instrument. And wind (it never miss here) flocking my hair in slow motion like in those teens movies when she comes down from the stairs.
Ah, joys of joy.
I did it and I even took a killer shot with his Android Pixel phone while wearing my working gloves. #achievement_unlocked_plus_one
Removed the extra parts to make it more natural and voila, looked like a motion picture-ready birdie.
And the wind showed up just at the right time for testing the work. When mother nature and true DIY workers are in sync!
The birdcage and feeder are en route, I will update the post once it gets here so that I can share the finished work. For the time being, I am pretty happy how this came out!
I will leave you with a quick and dirty clip that tells some stories about our encounters and experiences with feathered friends and their enemies!
bLife ahead, don't waste it, embrace it. 🤙🏽
