Flower of the Day: 02.02.2017 Primrose

Primrose

The more unusual the better I find. I had problems at first to determine what this plant actually was, but looking at the leaves I decided it was a primrose. The colours are not so primrose-like but they probably had a curl put into them: anyhow something completely different.

Flower of the Day: 02.02.2017 Primrose

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Music

<Music Leue 039

When you are married to a musician, a drummer, then there are always photos of music in your collection. Here is Mr. Swiss on drums with others playing in a local restaurant in our town.

Morrocan Musicians

A groups of musicians in Marrakesh, Morocco that played when we were enjoying an evening in a bedouin tent.
Organ of St. Urs Cathedral, Solothurn

The organ in the St.Urs cathdral in the neighbouring town of Solothurn in Switzerland. I remember when I took the photo, as the organist was playing at the time.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Music

Colour Your World: Sunglow

Sun and moon

Sometimes you have to be in the right place at the right time for the photo that you would love to have. One of the first things I do when I rise in the morning (still in my nightdress I would add) is go outside on the porch even in minus temperatures and see if there is anything worth a morning photo. I took this one last week, one of the rare days when the sun rose at the right time for me. The photo was a quick one on my mobile telephone, but it did the trick. I have thousands of sunrises and sunsets, but each time something new arrives.

Colour Your World: Sunglow

Daily Prompt: What a Mess

Birdseed

It is Thursday, the day when it is all done. I finshed this morning with quickly cleaning my back windows, just three double windows, but when you are Super Woman you just whip through the whole thing with some cleaning liquid, a window wiper and a nice white cotton cloth (remants of used underwear torn up) leaving a trail of shiny glass reflecting the cleanliness of the complete home. Yes, the final touches, beginning with Monday cleaning doors, Tuesday cleaning the bathroom and kitchen (Mr. Swiss) and Wednesday the shower. No big deal, all in the routine of the lady from planet Krypton Earth. And so I sit down and have nothing to clean until next week on Monday, but with a inside feeling of triumph.  The sun is shining, and the birds are signing, so let’s go into the garden. The snow has now gone, it is warmer, but birds do not clean. They are happy birds, because they are regularly fed by me and Mr. Swiss.

Of course they eat it all, but seeds have a shell and they do not eat the shell. Birds do not clean, why should they. Their main duty in life is to eat, fly, eat, lay eggs and then collect food for the offspring. It all revolves around the same thing, if we find food we have done it. In summer it is no problem, there is always an unsuspecting worm, bug or fruit hanging on a tree. In Winter they are poor little things, it is cold, food is scarce and so I do what I can to feed them. My next door neighbour also has a food table for the birds in her garden, there are many scattered in our area, we are suddenly bird lovers and mothers in Winter.

“Look Chirpy she has filled the bird house again.”

“Great beaky, I just lover those sunflower seeds.”

“Yes, they are the best: difficult to remove the outside, but afterwards one big delicacy.”

Bird FoodAnd so they munch through the provisions, dropping the parts they cannot eat and  leave the remainders where they fall. At the same time birds are quite reproductive in the recycling methods. I would say for every two beakfulls, their little tummies cannot take more and so they have to make room by removing the ballast. They do not have toilets, why should they, they are birds not mammels and after all it is all in the name of fertiliser. Just drop it where  you are and so they move on, leaving the remains for me to clear away.

Eventually it will rain, and the left over seeds which are also scattered below their feeding places, begin to germinate and I spend many happy hours removing growing sunflowers and other strange green plants looking very much like wheat or barley, or perhaps just unidentifiable stalks.

Luckily I have a gardner that removes most of the ballast and when April arrives the bird feeding stations are gone and so are the remainders of the food until the end of the year, in November when it all begins again.

Why bother? Of course I do, cannot have hungry thin  birds in the garden. I am proud to say I have the fattest, fittest, livliest birds in my garden. They even fall off the branches of the rees now and again because of their overweight and loss of balance.

Sparrows 01.02 (3

Daily Prompt: What a Mess

Good Morning, bom Dia

Dog at vet 01.02 (2)

TabbyWe had to stop off at the vet yesterday on the way home from shopping as Mr. Swiss had forgotten to have Tabby’s Vaccination card stamped with her injection renewals. She has quite a history of injections. The photo only shows the second page, the first page is full, but she is now an elderly lady. Of course the vet does not do it for nothing, but a bill for illness would amount to more. When we arrived at the vet, Mr. Swiss said he will go quickly and I can wait in the car. No way, I thought, you never know what you might see at the vet for an interesting photo – perhaps a snake, a lizard, a parrot, anything is possible. However, this time there was only a dog being very friendly. It seems the dog belongs to one of the ladies working for the vet. Anyhow I did not miss the opportunity of taking a photo. We also had to pick up Tabby’s “tic” and “flee” medicine, although Tabby is a clean cat with short fur, but better to be safe than sorry. You just have to empty the capsule on the back of her neck in the fur and it spreads into the body. Some say it is not so good, but we have never had a problem. The only problem is getting Tabby to accept. She has the habit of realising when something is good for her and she afterwards spends the next few minutes trying to lick it off. However licking the back of the neck is not so easy.

Brunnen SpaltThe plumber called past for an inspection of our cracked sink  which will be replaced in a few days by the specialist. No problem, the insurance covers it all. We also had our soap dish replaced for the bath, which has to be set into the wall. A metal part of the old dish had broken, and it was difficult to take the soap without cutting your finger on the sharp edge, although Mr. Swiss did tie some black sticky tape around it. It did not look so good, so ow we have a nice stainless steel one, bigger than the last one, although the soap bars are not bigger: anyhow it looks good.

I almost set fire to the kitchen yesterday, but I did mention that in my daily prompt blog. I forgot there was butter melting in the pan, and was convinced that I had not begun to melt the butter. Luckily I smelt it before anything happened – just a golden oldie moment of forgetfulness.

At last the snow has disappeared. Actually it did not bother me because it was in places out of my way and was pretty to look at. On the other hand, my photos were somehow becoming boring, everything had a white backgroud. I can see clearly now the snow has gone (would be a good line for a song) and even my photos seem to be sharper, although perhaps I was not shaking when I took them, or the sparrow was sitting still in the tree.

Sparrows 01.02 (2)

And that’s that. I have other things to do, but not so much, just a few windows to clean keeping up appearances. Will be back later. Today I am just cooking spaghetti with a tuna fish sauce so what could possibly happen?