Of Hats and Birds

Welcome, Dear Reader, to our Merry Hearts Cottage today!

Do you like my new blog banner? I decided to change "An Old-Fashioned Look at Homemaking" to "An Old-Fashioned Life", since I haven't quite kept to my original plan of sharing all the wonderful antique articles and book excerpts I was going to in the beginning! I try, really I do! So the blog will remain the same, although the description has changed.

I want my husband to know how grateful I am for his taking time to make the banners, etc. that he has on my two blogs. Providence knows I'm not quite computer literate enough for such things!

With Easter drawing nigh, the Mad Hatter bug has bitten us again. The symptoms include thrift-shop trips for old hats and trim, followed by floors and tables littered with the afore-mentioned items, in various stages of dismantling and re-mantling. So far we've managed to finish just one, which is for our dear Audrey:



We were going for a sort of Cynthia Kilpatrick from Wives and Daughters; what think you of it? Audrey seems to like it well enough!

The snow has brought a blessing of birds to our home: We had visits from goldfinches, house finches, mountain and black-capped chickadees, house sparrows, and pink-sided juncos, all at the same time! They seemed to be saying, "If we'd known it was going to snow again, we'd have stayed South!". They unfortunately were as camera-shy as our ring-necked pheasant, flying away as soon as the scary camera came toward the window!

Here's the best shot we could manage.

Perhaps this face in the window is another reason the birds were flighty?

Speaking of birds, our Chicken Noodle has been a useful amendment to the home beauty parlor.

While we have indulged in creating millinery confections, Frankie and Evangeline have been memorizing even more the entire operetta, "The Pirates of Penzance." Frankie begs to watch "With Cat-Like Tread" (The name of one of the songs) several times a day.

Future modiste Evangeline studies the costumes from "The Pirates of Penzance".

We recently received an order from an Idaho herbal company we just discovered, called From the Forest. They sell herbal extracts and tinctures for a very reasonable price, along with some lovely Idaho-made soaps made with pine extracts. We bought a mushroom tincture for AnnaMarie, which is reputed to assist the body in creating its own insulin. We shall see how it works! The balsam fir hydrosol and balsam and pine essential oils are wonderful for staving off the "end-of-winter blahs". A few drops in the bath create a feeling of peace, like camping in the woods.


Thank you again for coming to call, and may you enjoy a blessed Sabbath day!

Love,

Marqueta

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"Honor the healing power of Nature." ~Hippocrates

"Never think that God's delays are God's denials." ~Button

"There is as much difference between genuine patience and sullen endurance as between the smile of love and malicious gnashing of teeth." ~W. S. Plummer