Lori Stotko, the hands specialist, had wanted me to test the new shaping for awhile.

“So how are you doing with the new splints?”

“Edward Shovelhands.”

She laughed. She tweaked them a bit more–curl that edge a tad, add velcro across this part of the fingers, there you go, good for happy knitting for another three or four years.

And on the wildlife front: I’ve been throwing  a few nuts out mornings and afternoons, far from the feeder, just a few but it seems to be enough to keep the squirrels docile around the birdfeeders. Not enough to hoard but enough for a few of them not to be hungry; seems to work.

The bluejays clearly have caught on. One saw me opening the door today and was just waiting for it. I closed the door and, swoop! Got it! Jab, jab, jab, jackhammering it steadily apart on the ground.

What happened next I did not expect. There was a sudden three-way birdfight: swoops and jousting and chasing right through the smallest twigs through the trees, mine mine mine, continuing on out across the neighbor’s yard and then the next, swoop, swoop, (run!) go away, MINE, and just when I thought it was over there they were back again, swooping and flinching, chasing and fleeing. I definitely got my entertainment out of that walnut.

The squirrels, meantime, kept well out of sight till those big beaks were too.