Thursday, 17 November 2011

Special photos of a special bird

Spike sent me these stunning photographs of an albino hummingbird, snapped by fifteen-year-old Marlin Shank in Staunton, VA. Spike wrote:

How lucky was the guy that grabbed these shots? I'd love to be able to just SEE one feeding in my flower beds. We get several that come thru every spring & fall. But I've never seen an albino. The pic with the red rose is outstanding. Enjoy, Spike.






[Click HERE to see more photos.]

Thank you Spike, what a beautiful creature!

Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Grasshopper's treasures - Part II

A guest post by Grasshopper

Hi everybody, here is the next installment in the Native American auction I recently won. Some of you may recognize this photo Regina posted on that old blog called Palingates (Remember her?). Anyway, I've had these for about 40 years, they were given to me by a family friend who knew I loved all things Indian (except for the scalping). They are 9" from wrist to forearm. I asked a few knowledgeable people about the cuffs and they said they were local, meaning the Wisconsin/Illinois area, but nobody knew which tribe.


I knew the cuffs were included in the auction lot from their photo, but when I got to see them close up at the preview, I was amazed at the similarities to the ones hanging on my wall all these years. Same colors, same type of beads, similar flora and same white background. So similar yet completely different. They are smaller, at 6" from wrist to forearm, perhaps made for a woman or a child. With a little research and some help from Cowans auction house, I'm now quite certain they are from the Ojibwe tribe in the Western Great Lakes region.

I cleaned the one on the left to show the condition at the time of the auction.



Sometimes I try to figure out what flowers or plants or critters they were trying to apply to their beadwork. Perhaps after smoking a Peace Pipe they began embellishing and creating new variations of the nature around them with their imaginations?


The fringe on this pair is much longer and are very dried out and stiff. I'll have to figure out a way to oil them without damaging the beadwork. By all accounts they were probably made between 1840 and 1860. Pretty good condition for that age. For all I know, they may have been sitting in an old chest for the last hundred years. I'm sure there's more history to these beauties but this is all I have to share with you for now. Thanks, Dances with Grasshoppers.

Here are some links about the Ojibwe:

Ojibwe People
Ojibwa Indians
Clothing and beadwork
Photos of Ojibwe beadwork

Tuesday, 15 November 2011

Children...

Many years ago our boys were invited to pose for a Dorling Kindersley catalogue and earned the princely amount of £30 each. Their school days bring back many memories...


When Paul (on the right) was about eight years old, he made his teacher laugh with something he wrote. They were learning words ending in "ight" and had to make sentences using them. Paul wrote:

"My mom and dad never fight."
"My mom is always right."

Isn't that just adorable?

Billy, on the other hand, used to alarm his teachers (and us). I was called to the school many times because Billy had banged his head doing something daring and had to be taken to hospital for a check. Concussion was a regular ocurrence.


He managed to get into some kind of trouble very often. In Brazil, when he was eleven, he managed to go through the roof of a milking shed. He wasn't injured, but very shaken. Then he made a ramp for bike stunts and tried it with a bike that had slightly flat tyres. Following an almighty tumble, we had to rush him to hospital with an enormous gash on his thigh. While he was being stitched, with all of us in the room, the nurses had to abandon Billy to see to Paul, who had passed out.

When they were teenagers, back in England, they came across a baseball bat and decided to go to a local park for a practice. Baseball is not an English game, so they didn't have much of a clue. The practice didn't last very long. While swinging the bat, Paul cracked Billy's forehead open. More stitches...

The pub where Paul worked

A few years later, Paul was working at a nearby pub and used to ride his bike to work. I received a phone call from his cellphone, but from a stranger. Paul had a close encounter with a tree and this kind stranger had stopped to help. My car was in for some repairs, so I grabbed my first aid kit and rushed to the spot on foot. When I arrived, completely breathless, there was an ambulance. Paul had injured his elbow and a devastatingly handsome paramedic greeted me with a laugh: "Good job you brought your first aid kit, we didn't have one!" I didn't know the stranger had called an ambulance, but the humour was very reassuring. Paul had a fractured elbow, but was otherwise OK.

There are many other stories, not all of them about disasters. They will have to wait for another post...

Gabby Giffords will get better and stronger

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Considering her present difficulties, Gabby has a very positive attitude. What a refreshing contrast from the shallow, vitriolic attack dogs unleashed by the GOP and the Tea Party!

(H/T to Shapeshifterbelly.)

Monday, 14 November 2011