Scenes from My Ordinary Life

I haven't had a lot to write about lately, but I thought today I'd share a couple of images.

My office is a little cubby under the stairs, not quite as small as where Harry Potter had to sleep because there is a bay that bumps out and makes room for my desk.  I bought the desk around 1984 at a little hole-in-the-wall antiques store in Chicago called Clyde's.  It was painted red and black.  The top had been stripped, but the wood was badly stained, so Clyde had given up on stripping it and sold it to me for $50.  It's kind of small (only 42 inches wide) and one drawer is falling apart, but it's been with me a long time.  I feel kindly toward my old desk, and it fits perfectly in this space.  Plus the stained top doesn't bother me since I very rarely see the top anyway.  The little green table came from Ikea unfinished.  I painted it to match the fabric shades I made.  I'm glad you can't see how wonky and crooked the bias tape edging is on the shades.

Anyway, the point of this seemingly pointless story is not what my office looks like, it's the two windows on the sides of the bay.  Late this summer, gnats got wedged in the screens. Whether they got stuck there and died or simply came there to die, kind of like a gnat hospice, I don't know, but last week I was sitting at my desk, and two goldfinches* decided to snack on the dead gnats.  The birds clung to the screens and walked up and down, picking out the gnats as I sat a mere three feet away.  I had never seen anything quite like that.

*Update Oct. 24:  I've just learned from my very knowledgeable bird-watching brother-in-law that these are not goldfinches at all!  They are migrating yellow rumped warblers in fall plumage.  I'm glad to be able to correct my error.  The things you can learn by blogging!

The final image I thought I'd share is a sunset over the prairie.  Yesterday evening we were walking Alfie in the prairie as the sun went down.  The few clouds and jet trails made for an interesting sky.