Did you think that I had finally gone mental and offed the Geek and went to the Big House?

I wanted to show everyone what my camera is capable of when it puts its mind to it:

I have been doing some beading lately, which I love to do. It calms me down, and that's a good thing.
Some pieces I did this week:
My SIL was admiring the watch I made for my Mom as a Christmas gift, and asked if I would make one for her mom:

The large silver pieces are set with Swarovski lead crystals, and the smaller beads are Czech glass and a few cracked glass pieces.

When I make something special for someone,
I like to add a charm to give it a bit of a personal touch.


Another piece was a funky eyeglass holder for my Mom:




When I found these awesome milleflori glass beads, I know I had to do something bright and colorful with them:

Mom loved it. Which was the whole point.

And now, let's just bask in the glow of Lucy basking in the sun today:



(See her nictitating membrane?)


Here it is all the way over her eye.
Did you know that we humans have a residual nictitating membrane? That pink tissue in the inside corner of our eyes.


I love this one especially, because it looks like she is flying, something she will never do again.

At the end of the day, I was getting ready to put the screech owl back, when I noticed that his foot looked 'wrong'. I looked closer, and saw that his back toe (hallux) was caught in the tied part of his jess (those leather straps that allow us to control the bird).
Crap. These birds do NOT like us messing with their feet (our GHOW is an exception to this rule...nothing bothers that bird) so I had to wrap him in a towel in order to get the talon out.

(Click on the picture if you can't make out the hallux stuck in the jess)
Wrapping the bird in a towel calms them down...raptors are so visually oriented, if they can't see what is going on, they relax (at least enough for you to do what you need to do to them).

With a very, very gentle lift and a tiny twist, the talon was free. I checked the toe, and it was pink and warm, and he was able to flex it (almost right into my finger), so the toe wasn't damaged. It made me a nervous wreck to hold that tiny leg...birds have hollow bones, (think of a very brittle straw) and screech owl leg bones are teeny tiny. So I held my breath until I could get him back onto my glove:

His feathers were a bit frumpled, but otherwise he was just fine. Whew!