Christmas Birds

I have many nostalgic thoughts about Christmas in our old farmhouse, when I was a youngster.  One of my favourite memories was the Christmas tree. We had a set of antique glass blown birds.  I'm not certain of their origin, as they were much nicer than any of the other cheaper ornaments that we had on our tree.  Over time they met their demise until there were only three left.

When Ebay reared its commercial head at the turn of the century, I started checking to see if there were more such birds available to add to my meager collection.  Wonder of wonders, there were flocks of them, just awaiting my bidding fingers.  Below you can see the result of consumer greed.  I blush. Let me explain though, I bought a lot of groupings, most of which were in need of some repair.  Over time I've patched, painted, glued, and made composites out of parts and pieces.  The ones that were in decent shape, I've not tinkered with, as they do appear to have some reasonable monetary value, if intact and of obvious vintage.

With our new kitten investigating every nuance of Christmas decorating, I hesitated putting our birds up this year.  We usually hang garland around the big picture window and attach the birds all around.  However young Wesley could easily access such efforts, and birds live or otherwise do garner considerable juvenile feline attention.

I had pretty much made the decision to just leave them in the box for 2011, and then I saw a blog with a Charlie Brown style tree - deciduous not evergreen at  Magnon's Meaderings.  Thanks Cro. I was impressed and thought, hey, I could adapt this idea somehow - hang it from the ceiling and little Mister Wesley can only admire from the floor.

So out I went to the back forty - and found a nice bushy little thornapple shrub - the top came home with me and I screwed a hook-eye into the end and hung if from a hook in the ceiling.  Then I added the birds one by one.  Because it is not very large, I probably only put out about a third of the birds.  So we now have, well maybe not a partridge, but a whole lot of other colourful birds in bare tree.

The Daily Quest

This is a daily feature on The Musical Gardener blog. Below is a question, or puzzle that will change day by day. Do not use the comment section of the blog for your answer.

Answer to Yesterday's Puzzle:  I'll take none of your guff, young man.  The rest are all pallindromes (they are spelled the same backward or forward.)

Today's Puzzle:

Mix & Match

Which word is defined by which definition?

 a) alphamegamia                     1) marriage between a young woman and an older man

 b) anopisthography                  2) practice of writing on one side of the paper

 c) apodyopsis                          3) the act of mentally undressing someone

 d) abderian                             4) given to incessant or idiotic laughter

Please respond with your answer to the email below. I apologize but you will have to type my email address in manually (I'm attempting to avoid spammers).

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And that is about all I have to say for today.

Musings and meanderings from the Musical Gardener.