Yippee!

I don't need knee surgery!! While I'm a bit sorry to lose my air-tight excuse for lying on the couch and knitting for a week, I'm really relieved. I have a prescription for physical therapy, which I can do here in town, so I'll have to get that set up next week.

The doctor was running very late, but I had taken knitting with me, and managed to get clear to the heel, so time was not wasted. I thought it was also amusing that there's a coffee bar in a corner of the waiting room. It probably serves the entire building, but it was just kind of amusing. And it smelled really good.

I searched out the Wild Birds Unlimited store while I was there, and it's a very, very nice store--very attractive inside and absolutely stuffed with every kind of seed, feeder, gift, etc. you could possibly imagine. I was dazzled. The proprietor was really nice, willing to talk and share advice, and we wound up talking about dog training, since he trains puppies for service dog work. I'll definitely be going back. I bought a 20-pound bag of safflower seed, since I can only find 1-pound bags here, and the birds are emptying the feeder every 2 or 3 days.

Just a little while ago I saw 4 house finches on the safflower seed feeder, 2 house finches and a house sparrow on the nyjer seed feeder, and 3--count them, three!--birds in the suet cage. Obviously they're figuring out how to use it. It was pretty funny there for a while--they would perch on the outside cage and reach in as far as they could to reach the suet and overbalance and fall in. At first they'd fly right out, but after a while I noticed one--a female finch, I think--was going into the protective cage and clinging to the suet-holder to eat. I guess other birds have been watching and copying her.

The bird-store guy said I'm probably not getting goldfinches because they're shy and don't like to compete with other birds, so I'm thinking of putting another hanger with a feeder under the living room window. I can see the tops of the Casa Blanca lilies from the couch by the window, so surely I could see a feeder on a 6-foot pole. The other option would be to maybe hang one on the front porch, but I'm not sure they'd want to come onto the porch. He also suggested putting my hummingbird feeder back out in August--that a lot of times you might not see them in the spring but they'll show up in late summer/early fall.

We've had a substitute secretary in the department this past semester, and I've really enjoyed it--she's SO nice, very enthusiastic, always willing to go out of her way for people. She brought me asparagus from her garden, and most recently a jar of rubarb jam, and she made a coffee cake for my birthday. So I want to do something for her before she leaves, and my sister found this great site where you can play around with different colors of yarn and beads and order a kit. I ordered the dk weight, thinking it will knit up faster than the fingering, and I'm hoping it will arrive Monday. Then I'll have to knit like crazy to get it finished by the end of the month. I like knitting with beads; I just hope the colors are at least close to what I saw on my monitor!