December 21, 2025

Yes, December 21, just past the opening day of Winter 2025.  It has been quite cold for a few weeks already, and I am already tired of Winter!  Two or three weeks ago I slipped on the ice out front, breaking three ribs.  They healed up much faster than I remember them doing in years past.  So now I'm able to get some sleep and am starting to take my short afternoon walks to visit neighborhood kids.  I also spend some time each day making little baby toys out of scrap fabrics.  Here are a polka-dot kitty and three green kitties or froggies.   It is so easy to make these cartoon-like creatures.  Actually only the middle green kitty looks kitty-ish.  The others seem to be shaped more like little frogs!  The fabric that I make the frog-like characters from has a number of foot-like shapes and even some eye-like patches. You just have to use your imagination and your free time to make different animal-shapes appear!

Here is a piece of frog fabric.  It won't take much stitching to turn it into a baby toy!  We just have to cut out a backing piece, stitch the two pieces together and stuff it with shredded fabric!

One good thing about Winter is the amount of time you have to stay warm indoors and design little fabric toys, or even just to photograph creatures you haven't seen before.  Here are a couple of Bugs I hadn't seen before.  The first one was outside.  

Our cousins Steve and Joan came over last week for lunch with their son Isaac - they brought me this waxy Amaryllis plant - it has a tiny green bud at the top.  I expect it will turn into a pretty flower.  The wax apparently keeps it watered from inside and means that we don't have to do much to keep it alive and help it grow.  

Here are some of the local squirrels.  Chaim is on great terms with some of them since he always has a pocket full of almonds.  I believe the first one (an Eastern gray)  is chewing a nut of some sort. The second one is a red squirrel and third seems to be another red one faded in the sun!  I hope they are all right in that bright sun.  So far this week I haven't seen much that I didn't see last week.  But again, the temperature has hardly changed over the past couple of weeks!  

Here's our street with bottles left by workmen.  This end of the street has been torn up pretty badly for months now.

Well, the week was pretty much the same all week. I'm thinking we have almost reached the nadir of our discontent.  Take care, everyone, and be good to your neighborhood.  I'm sure we all hope that spring will come soon and bring with it a good deal of healing.  Love, Martha