The Blue Jay Has Landed...

My friend Joan gave me a blue jay in mini, from a show a few weeks ago...He has now found a home of his own.  He didn't show up very well in the trees at the craft cottage.  Here, he is a stand out.

I did the landscaping this morning.  I won't go into all of the details, because I did a lot of that in the craft cottage yard.

I will tell you how to make a mole hill out of a mountain though.

I started with a block of dry floral foam and got what is in the corner, covered with white glue...Yup.  All of the green stuff is leftovers....thus the mole hill...

I painted that white to keep all of the sand the same color and then smeared it with lots of white glue.  I sprinkled on some of the sand and shook off the excess.

Then on to the landscaping goody bag.  I used the heavenly bamboo, Nandina, for the branches of the tree.  It turned out kind of mesquite looking...

I used clumps of the railroad, reindeer moss for the foliage.  Then I went to the backyard supply house for rocks.  My back yard is full of desert stones and I don't think I am going to have to buy stones anytime soon.

I had cacti and other vegetation left over from the craft cottage, so that was done in no time...

Then Tessie got involved.  "It needs life!"  I knew that she wouldn't let up, so I told her to go find some...

I thought that would keep her out of my hair for a while....Wrong-O.

She was back in a flash. She had a salt shaker in one hand and the blue jay sitting on the mesquite tree, just as nice as you please....

I asked her how she did it and she replied, looking down her nose at me, "Honestly!  Didn't you ever hear that the way to catch a bird is put salt on his tail?". 

I looked a little closer and saw that the poor bird was just covered with salt...I doubt if he could lift his wings to fly away...

The last time I looked, Tessie had him in Eskiaga's patio birdbath.  He seems to have survived the ordeal, but the birdbath is now a salt water vessel and no self respecting bird but a sea gull is going to use it again.

I am off to supervise the cleaning of the birdbath....I see Tessie sauntering that way with her toilet brush....Gotta go now!

See you tomorrow.