ANGEL BIRDBATH

There is something that people know about me, if they are around me a lot, and that is, I CAN be a perfectionist at times.  Not always.  There are times when I might be heard saying, "Oh, yes, well, that will do."  But not too often.  I won't settle often.

For three years, I have been hunting for the perfect birdbath for my increasingly eco-friendly back yard.  I had an image in my head, and Don would patiently wait while I checked out the birdbaths nearly everywhere we went.  You see, he knows, too...he knows that there is going to be a pretty huge window between when I start looking for something for the back yard and the time I actually make the purchase.  The window this time was three years.

Yesterday was Memorial Day Saturday.  My cousin is visiting from Phoenix, and Don and I took her down to our old hometown in Illinois to drop her to take care of her mom who has had a hip replacement surgery.  Don and I visited with family around town, went to the cemetery to pay our respects to my mom and dad, and right across the highway from the final resting place of so many familiar souls, was a little store with probably a hundred concrete sculptures outside.  When Don heard me take that little breath that was an excited little noise to me but to him said, "It's almost one-hundred degrees, the humidity is about ninety-five percent, and she is going to drag me over there to wander around in the hot sun for an hour and walk away with no birdbath."

Of course my compass was set, and I drove across the road and into the parking lot, and we started wandering around in the hot sun for an hour, but I found it!  All this time and it was right there in my little hometown of 5000 people, standing by the highway, waiting patiently for me to notice after all these years!  

After some wrestling around, she probably weighs eighty pounds, two guys at the store managed to get her into the trunk of the Focus.  When we got here last night, though, Don's back had taken a really nasty muscle spasm, and it was not until this morning that I tracked down a couple of neighbors to drag that thing out of the trunk and place her where I wanted her.  Once there, we took toothbrushes and Comet cleanser and scrubbed all the crevices in her wings until the years of neglectful dirt and grime was scrubbed off and she looked positively heavenly!  

I took several shots of her, trying to capture the beauty, but photos do not do her justice.  I expect to see birds crowded around for a turn in the cool water underneath my old, old, huge ash tree.  Soon the cardinals and blue jays will have little beach towels out there and will be floating around in little swim rings sipping margaritas with umbrellas in them, or maybe, like the bat house that is situated in my yard, three years will elapse before they discover the fountain of youth I have installed for their enjoyment!

 I wasn't drunk when I took this last one, but it's for my cousin, Tracy, because she loves to photograph at an angle, so I have an angled angel for her here...


I just heard a pool party going on outside, lots of flapping, splashing!  I thought, "OH, wow!  They have found my birdbath already!!!"

Now, here is the REST of the story.  On the opposite side of my yard is a running-water fountain, just a small thing, a big bowl at the bottom and a series of angled smaller spouted bowls , three of them, over the top.  The water runs into the small bowl from the pot at the top, down to the next bowl, etc., to the last big bowl.  When I got to my back door and looked at my new, beautiful, clean, pristine, angel birdbath and saw it empty, I directed my attention, instead, to the little fountain across the yard where two fat robins, who together filled the bowl and couldn't even get a good flap going because there was no room, were in the bowl yelling at one another.  Why do you think they were yelling at one another?  "Get out of my way, you fat broad!"  "Who are you calling FAT, you tub of lard, good for nothing robin!!"  On and on and on...while I stood there waving my arms and pointing at the angel by the tree.  By the time I got the camera, of course, they had finished their bathing and groaning and moaning and taken off.  


Guess I am going to have to put a "POOL OPEN" sign over there until they catch on.  


Ta-ta for now.  More yard improvement photos after I return from Home Depot this afternoon!