Working with a New Medium: Switching from Acrylic to Casein

August 3, 2023July 31, 2023 J.Leave a comment

Oil paint is not my friend.

To be fair, powerful solvents in general are not my friends. I get headaches at the drop of a hat, so working with paint thinner does not rank highly on my list of enjoyable activities.

That’s why I’ve always painted with acrylic. I’ve also taken steps to minimize how much of that acrylic escapes my studio — from using multiple jars of rinsing water, to multiple trays for evaporating that rinsing water, to stripping off the dried acrylic residue and trying to repurpose it.

Still, I don’t want to work with a medium that’s basic liquid plastic if I don’t have to. That’s where milk paint comes in. Rather than using acrylic as a binding agent, it uses a protein found in milk.

There are some key differences between acrylic and casein paint, though:

Casein is inflexible, while acrylic maintains flexibility when it dries. This means that acrylic is good for painting on stretched canvas, while casein is only really suitable for rigid substrates like wood or canvas-covered MDF.
Casein dries to a velvety, matte finish, while acrylic can be pretty shiny unless you add matte medium.
Casein takes a long time to dry fully. This means that you can wet it and re-work it. Once acrylic dries, it’s dry.
Casein works great as an underpainting medium, while acrylic has some drawbacks.
Casein dries to the touch very quickly. Acrylic stays wetter for longer, and the addition of retardants can further extend this drying time.
Casein has a bit of a smell, while acrylic doesn’t really smell like anything. I have to say that casein’s smell isn’t really objectionable, though. It smells kind of like lemon window cleaner, but the scent is very light.

These didn’t really influence my decision to start using casein paint, because I was more focused on reducing my dependency on acrylic media.

Here are two of my paintings. The first is acrylic, the other is casein:

A painting of a raven on a yellow hillside. The sky is blue, and a silver leaf sun hangs in the clouds.

As you can see, there are some differences in vibrancy and transparency. I also had to change a lot of my techniques in order to successfully work with casein. For example, I like to work wet-on-wet. That’s a bit more challenging with casein, because the under layers are pretty much dry to the touch by the time I’ve scooped up the next color I want to work in. I’m also not used to being able to re-wet and re-work paint once I’ve used it.

Casein also tends to have more opacity than acrylic. (This opacity can, of course, be reduced with the addition of a little water.) Some acrylic pigments are very opaque, but others are quite sheer — almost more like a glaze. Casein goes on like it means it.

I’ve noticed that I also have to work more quickly with casein. If I take too long, it’ll start to dry on me. The same dry-brushing techniques that I was taught with acrylic don’t really work here.

All in all, while working with casein has taken some adjustment on my part, I love it. I actually prefer it to acrylic now, especially when it comes to opacity. It’s a beautiful medium that’s been in use for millennia, and one that I hope sees even more use in the future.

The Magical Meaning and Symbolism of Starlings

August 2, 2023August 20, 2025 2 Comments

Since there are still small, belligerent starlings all over the yard, I figured I’d make the best of a very noisy situation and write a bit on starling symbolism and magical significance. While I mostly know them as small weirdoes who periodically walk up to me and gape to be fed (which is almost admirable in its temerity, to be honest), they’re powerful, sacred animals in their own right.

Starling Folklore

Despite their ubiquity in my area, starlings aren’t native to the United States. The story is that they were brought here in the late 1800s in what is, perhaps, the silliest fashion imaginable. A German-American Shakespeare enthusiast named Eugene Schieffelin wanted the US to have all of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays, so he imported and released about sixty to eighty of them. (Invasive species who?) However entertaining this tale might be, it most likely isn’t actually true.

Shakespeare’s mention of starlings refers to their talent at mimicry:

Nay,

I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak

Nothing but “Mortimer,” and give it him

To keep his anger still in motion.
spoken by Hotspur, in Act 1, Scene 3 of Henry IV

A murmuration of birds over a city, against a dark, cloudy sky.

In Rome, however, starlings were more than a curiosity or a passing note in a play, and starling symbolism was a important thing. Starlings form very large, elaborate migrating flocks called murmurations. These are exceptionally striking formations of thousands of individual birds who seem to cover the sky in a flowing, undulating mass. Augurs, diviners who read the movement of birds, would watch these murmurations to receive messages from their gods. Some forms and flows were very good omens. Others, not so much.

In the Welsh Mabinogion, Branwen is sent to Ireland to marry King Matholwch . Her marriage is far from happy, however, so she tames a starling and teaches it to speak. She sends the starling back to Wales, where it alerts her brother Bran to come and save her.

Starlings can mimic far more than words. Mozart kept one as a pet, and it learned to repeat portions of his compositions. When it died, he was heartbroken. He performed a funeral that his biographer (and wife’s second husband) described thus:

When a bird died, he arranged a funeral procession, in which everyone who could sing had to join in, heavily veiled – made a sort of requiem, epitaph in verse.
Georg Nikolaus von Nissen

Starlings also seem to imprint readily on people. Personally, I have made every attempt to avoid them, however their babies still don’t seem to have any issue strolling up to me with their mouths open, expectantly. It’s kind of like walking up to a grizzly bear and demanding spaghetti.

In general, the starling’s place in folklore seems to have been secured by their ability to bond with people, and their talent at mimicking speech and other sounds they encounter. Just watch this one, who not only imitates a human, but flawlessly mimics an Alexa unit immediately afterward:

It’s almost eerie!

The Symbolism of Starlings

Starlings are said to represent everything from freedom, to prosperity, to love. Given their folklore, starling symbolism is most strongly connected to communication and divination.

To divine using a flock of starlings (or even just one, though they always seem to show up in groups!) involves noting their number and behavior. It can sometimes be hard to count starlings, particularly since they can number in the thousands within a single murmuration.

If you observe them in flight, like the ancient Romans, pay attention to the shapes they form. What do they evoke for you?

Note the direction in which they’re flying. This means both the cardinal direction, and their relative direction. The east represents beginnings, renewal, spring, and the dawn. The south represents a climax, an apex, summer, and high noon. The west represents a decline, a release, autumn, and twilight. The north represents endings, death, winter, and midnight.

A starling clinging to the trunk of a tree.

In terms of relative directions, birds flying to the right generally indicates a positive or affirmative response. Birds flying to the left generally indicates a negative response.

As with any divination method, keep a journal of what you see and your interpretations. After some time has passed, revisit what you wrote and see how accurate it was. This can help you decode what the flight of birds means specifically to you.

Starlings are polarizing little guys. Some people absolutely love these noisy, funny little birds, while others hate them. I’ve come to be amused by their antics, though I’m also looking forward to when their fledglings are finally grown and it’s time for them to migrate!

animals · divination

The Magical Meaning of Starlings

August 2, 2023August 2, 2023 J.1 Comment

Since there are still small, belligerent starlings all over the yard, I figured I’d make the best of a very noisy situation and write a bit on their magical significance. While I mostly know them as small weirdoes who periodically walk up to me and gape to be fed (which is almost admirable in its temerity, to be honest), they’re powerful, sacred animals in their own right.

Starling Folklore

Shakespeare’s mention of starlings refers to their talent at mimicry:

Nay,

I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak

Nothing but “Mortimer,” and give it him

To keep his anger still in motion.
spoken by Hotspur, in Act 1, Scene 3 of Henry IV

In Rome, however, starlings were more than a curiosity or a passing note in a play. Starlings form very large, elaborate migrating flocks called murmurations. These are exceptionally striking formations of thousands of individual birds who seem to cover the sky in a flowing, undulating mass. Augurs, diviners who read the movement of birds, would watch these murmurations to receive messages from their gods. Some forms and flows were very good omens. Others, not so much.

When a bird died, he arranged a funeral procession, in which everyone who could sing had to join in, heavily veiled – made a sort of requiem, epitaph in verse.
Georg Nikolaus von Nissen

It’s almost eerie!

The Symbolism of Starlings

Starlings are said to represent everything from freedom, to prosperity, to love. Given their folklore, they’re most strongly connected to communication and divination.

If you observe them in flight, like the ancient Romans, pay attention to the shapes they form. What do they evoke for you?

In terms of relative directions, birds flying to the right generally indicates a positive or affirmative response. Birds flying to the left generally indicates a negative response.

life · Neodruidry

A Fruitful Lughnasadh

August 1, 2023August 4, 2024 J.2 Comments

Today marks Lughnasadh, the celebration of the first harvest. This usually focuses on summer fruits and grains, so there’s lots of blueberries/bilberries, baked goods, apples, and pears.

In another sense, it’s about coming together to share. Traditionally, it happened during a time of year when the earliest crops were spent, and the next round wasn’t ready for harvest yet. Lugh is also credited with battling the powers of blight, which is connected to the scorching, drying heat of the summer’s hottest days. That meant celebrating with foods that either stored well (like apples and grains) or could be foraged this time of year (like bilberries).

A rolling pin and several balls of biscuit dough on a floured board.

It also started as a funerary feast. While it’s associated with the Celtic deity Lugh, he created this festival in remembrance of Tailtiu, his mother figure. She’d died of exhaustion after clearing the land for growing crops. That makes this festival a poignant combination of anticipation of what’s to come, and gratitude for what has passed. It’s joy and sorrow, thanksgiving and mourning. Tailtiu has passed on, but the land is ready.

This year, we were supposed to join in a camping trip and Lughnasadh celebration. Unfortunately, a combination of high temperatures and severe weather meant that that didn’t pan out the way we’d wanted. Instead, it’s given me more time to think and (as overused as this phrase may be) connect with this High Day.

Really, I’m at a Lughnasadh point in my life. The rise of AI chat bots has coincided with the natural end of several long-term paid writing projects that I’d been working on, so I’m not getting the same volume of work that I once was. At the same time, I’m investing more of my time, money, and energy into other things that haven’t yet paid off. There’s mostly been a lot of planning and reading stuff to help me figure out how to navigate this transition.

But I’m not doing that today. Today, I’m extremely thankful for everything that the old cycle has given me. I’ve reaped some very generous harvests from it, and that’s awesome. I’m also excited for my next projects. Having less paid writing means less money, but it also means a lot more time and creative energy to put into things that have deeper meaning for me.

Today, I’m baking bread. I’m making these very strange (but very delicious) cookies full of dried berries and cacao chunks. I’m eating dried blueberries by the handful, and searching my strawberry plants for ripe, red berries.

Have a happy and abundant Lughnasadh, and I hope we all reap a good harvest in the days to come!

Uncategorized

The Bully Birds

July 27, 2023July 26, 2023 J.2 Comments

My crows have, for the moment, disappeared.

Well, okay. Not disappeared, they’re just sort of close by instead of hanging out on my various sheds and/or porch.
Personally, I blame the starlings.

Starlings have a bit of a reputation. They’re invasive, noisy, arrive in hordes, and get into tiny brawls everywhere. They fight in the birdbath and knock it over, upsetting the mourning doves. They fight in the seeds and kick them everywhere. They kick each other off of the deck railing like this is a tiny Sparta, and every one of them is a miniature Leonidas.

A group of starlings doing what they do best: screaming and kicking the crap out of each other in a pile of food. — It’s just this, constantly, all day, every day.

They’re also bullies. Since they travel in groups, often with masses of babies in tow, they have no problem starting fights with birds much larger than them. Starlings are tiny compared to crows, but they do outnumber them greatly. Crows will kill and eat baby birds, so the starling families seem to go on the offensive as a matter of course.

It’s not like they have to fight a whole bunch, either. Crows have good memories, and starlings are loud. It probably only takes one fight for a crow to hear a flock of starlings and not exactly feel up to facing down an army of shrieking lilliputian kickboxers.

A group of starlings pecking in the grass. In their midst, there's an oblivious gull. — A gull, probably about to get his face rearranged.

Starlings also have basically no sense of self-preservation. In the past day, I’ve seen a baby starling walk up and gape its mouth at a reflection, a sparrow, and a squirrel. This afternoon, one of them flew to my kitchen window, stood on the outside sill, and gaped at me through the glass.
I wished I’d gotten a picture of this, but I did not as I was too busy staring in shock at this stunning display of hubris.

Sorry, kid. I keep the feeders filled, but I’m not about to go outside to spit bugs into your tiny face.
Also, where are your parents?

Fortunately, starlings are migratory. They’ll hang around during the summer, like a swarm of drunk college kids in Punta Cana, then pack up and leave. I know the crows are still here because I hear and see them around. They just tend to go to the feeders very early and very late, when they’re less likely to be harassed.

Honestly, I know how the crows feel.

A male starling in a field of dry grass. His feathers are deep black flecked with cream, with a rainbow sheen. — He’s probably looking for someone to fight.

Plants and Herbs

Passionflower Folklore and Magical Properties

July 26, 2023July 25, 2023 J.1 Comment

As we kill off our grass, we’re working hard to replace it with plants that serve multiple purposes. Ideally, they should be native (or at least semi-local), attract pollinators, provide food for both humans and animals, and either return or self-seed. One of the plants that passed muster is this area’s native species of passionflower, Passiflora incarnata.

Also known as maypop, true passionflower, purple passionflower, and wild apricot, P. incarnata is a really pretty, fast-growing vine that provides both wild-looking purplish blue flowers and edible fruits. The flowers don’t last long, but they’re very striking!

A fringy, bright purple Passiflora incarnata flower. — A flower of P. incarnata.

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t heed the old adage, “the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, the third year they leap.” As a result, I planted way too many passion vines. They’re going to eat my porch.
Help.

Anyway, as I watch my yard speedily being consumed by passion and pumpkin vines, I figured I’d write a bit on the magical uses and folklore of the passionflower.

Passionflower Folklore and Magical Uses

Despite the name, I’ve mostly seen passionflower used as an herb to dampen passions, not stoke them. They’re said to be useful for calming libido, cooling relationships, and cultivating platonic or romantic rather than erotic love.

This could be because the word “passion” has a number of very different and contradictory meanings. As Mark Z. Danielewski wrote in House of Leaves, “Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.”

As a new world herb, passionflower was a novel plant to the Spanish missionaries who arrived in Peru in the 1500s. Giacomo Bosio, a monk and historian, referred to passionflower as “La Flor de las cinco Llagas” (“the flower with the five wounds”). This refers to the five wounds the Christian figure Jesus Christ is said to have endured at his crucifixion. The Biblical usage of passion equates to suffering, so, to missionaries, the passionflower represented divine suffering.

A blue and white flower of P. caerulea. — P. caerulea, a passionflower native to South America.

One tale from Brazil says that the passionflower grew from the tears of a woman who was separated from her lover.

Medicinally, passionflower is used as a calming herb. Evidence suggests that it’s safe to use internally, but there’s been some controversy as supplement manufacturers didn’t meet FDA requirements for safety data. It may interact with sedatives, monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), and drugs to prevent blood clots, and is contraindicated in pregnancy.

In traditional indigenous herbal medicine, passionflower is used as a poultice to reduce inflammation and soothe pain.

In the garden, passionflower is irresistibly delicious to Japanese beetles. They’ll eat the leaves and flowers like there’s no tomorrow, which is bad news if you actually want to harvest any fruit!

Taken together, this paints the picture of passionflower as an herb to ease suffering. Since it was said to represent the five wounds endured by Jesus Christ, you could look at it as a “wounded healer.” This isn’t a plant that flows with exuberance, it’s one that knows suffering and eases it in others.

In Victorian flower language, passionflower was said to represent religious fervor or superstition.

Passionflower corresponds with the element of Water and the planet Venus.

Using Passionflower

If passionflower both represents and alleviates suffering, how do you use it? Since it’s native to North and South America, there isn’t really any information about it in ancient magical texts. Nonetheless, there are many ways to work with this unique plant.

As a vine, passionflower grows and clings (hence the whole porch thing.) This makes it useful in workings to bind something to yourself. Since it’s also a plant for relieving suffering, I’d use it specifically in situations where you’d like to bind a solution to a problem — for example, using passionflower to tie yourself to a stable, fulfilling job or enjoyable living situation.

Passionflower is also sometimes used in pillows or sachets for restful sleep and dream magic. Be careful with this, however, as placing passionflower under one’s pillow is also said to be a remedy to dampen libido.

This herb is also used in love magic. Bathing in an infusion is said to attract a potential partner to you, and it’s an often-seen ingredient in sachets, jars, and other charms for love. It works well for this purpose, as long as you know what kind of love you’re looking for. (If you’re after a passionate fling, skip it and go for cinnamon or ginger instead.)

Infuse the flowers in a carrier oil and use this to help ease worries and sooth the heart and mind. Anoint the temples and heart area whenever relief is needed.

All told, passionflower is a delightful herb. It’s beautiful, feeds bees and hummingbirds, and provides valuable medicine. As long as you don’t let its name fool you, it can help you with an array of spells and charms.

life

The Imposter and the Trickster God

July 24, 2023July 22, 2023 J.Leave a comment

I want to be involved in all of the things.

I try to give back as much as I can to every community I’m involved with — my community, Meetup groups, even (well, especially) the band of lovable weirdos who inhabit the yard.

One way to do that is sharing skills, but… that’s not always easy.

Right now, I’m struggling with a quandary. I have some skills I could share with one of my Druidry groups, but I’m also dealing with a massive case of imposter syndrome. It’s hard to share your knowledge with anyone when you feel like your skills aren’t worth offering.

A mouse sneaks through a pipe placed in a concrete wall. His expression is alert and cautious.

The thing is, I obviously wouldn’t be where I am without knowing how to do stuff. Even bullshitting is a skill. I mean, it’s a skill I wholeheartedly admire in other things. My favorite stories have always been about tricksters. Trickster deities, tiny heroes, and animals who compensated for their lack of size, sharp teeth, or fearsome claws by using their cleverness. Even the deity with whom I have the closest relationship is often regarded as a trickster figure, who uses his wisdom, magic, knowledge of the Otherworlds, and trickery in equal measure.

Why’s it so hard to see any of that in myself? Why can’t I manage to share something that I’ve been doing since I was a child?

Plants and Herbs

Hyssop Folklore and Magical Properties

July 19, 2023July 17, 2023 J.Leave a comment

The anise hyssop in my little pollinator garden is putting of spikes of beautiful purple flowers, so I thought I’d write a bit about the magical uses and folklore of hyssop.

A fun fact first, though — anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) is not that closely related to actual hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis). Both of them are members of the mint family, Lamiaceae, but so are teak, rosemary, and chia. Anise hyssop is native to Central and North America, while hyssop is from the Mediterranean eastward to Asia.

Anise hyssop is definitely a useful plant, but I figured I’d cover hyssop-hyssop first. If you practice one of the many branches of European-based witchcraft or folk magic, you’re more likely to encounter Hyssopus in old texts.

Hyssop Folklore and Magical Uses

A lot of the modern lore about hyssop comes from its mention in the Bible. It’s indicated numerous times as a cleansing and protective herb. For example:

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Psalm 51:7

Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning.
Exodus 12:22

To purify the house he is to take two birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop.
Leviticus 14:49

When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people.
Hebrews 9:19

There’s more, but you probably get the idea. However, this runs into the same problem as anise hyssop versus hyssop. The hyssop mentioned in the Bible is not H. officinalis. (Biblical hyssop is more likely to be Capporis spinosa or Origanum syriacum.) Nonetheless, I figured the Biblical references to hyssop were worth including because they inform quite a bit of the body of lore about H. officinalis.

A spike of bright violet-blue hyssop flowers.

The name “hyssop” derives from the Greek word hyssopos, which derives in turn from ezov or azob, the sacred hyssop mentioned in the Bible.

In Egypt, Priests used hyssop as an additive to purify food. This was necessary to make certain foods acceptable for their restricted diet.

Magically, hyssop corresponds to the element of Fire and the planet Jupiter. Following the uses of Biblical hyssop, it’s most commonly employed as a purification and protection herb.

Medicinally, a decoction of hyssop was used topically for treating head lice. It was also used a topical remedy for minor wounds.

In Europe, hyssop was used as a strewing herb. It’s fragrant and seems to have had some action against pests (like head lice, as mentioned above). This may have made it an effective way to keep fleas and other unwanted guests away!

This last bit is particularly interesting to me. In my herb lore reading, I’ve found that the Venn diagram between “herbs used magically for protection” and “herbs that keep bugs out” is almost, but not quite, a circle. Since the Biblical hyssop probably wasn’t hyssop at all, it’s interesting to me that the purposes of Biblical hyssop and European hyssop are so close. It raises a kind of chicken-and-egg scenario — was H. officinalis named for the Biblical hyssop because its pest repellent action “purified” spaces?

Using Hyssop

Sprigs of hyssop make lovely aspergilla. Dip them in water, and use them to asperge sacred spaces, rooms, people, or objects.

Brew hyssop as a tea, strain out the spent leaves, and add the water to ritual baths for purification, cleansing, and hex-breaking. Prepare hyssop the same way, then add to a bucket of fresh water and use it for washing floors, windows, and doors for the same purpose.

A fritillary butterfly on a spike of hyssop flowers.

Add dried hyssop to charm bags for protection, particularly against the evil eye.

Hyssop is sometimes used to season food, and that’s fine. It’s even sometimes used internally in a medical context, and that’s okay too (as long as it’s under the supervision of a qualified herbalist). Otherwise, avoid eating or drinking hyssop. Large doses can cause seizures and cause miscarriages. It’s not known how much of hyssop’s active constituents may pass through breastmilk, and the threshold for hyssop toxicity is much lower for children, so it’s best avoided while breastfeeding.

life

I did it!

July 18, 2023July 17, 2023 J.Leave a comment

A bit ago, I posted about having bloodwork done and discovering that my blood lipids and vitamin D levels were off. I then talked about some of the changes I was making in order to correct these things.

It is with immense relief that I can say: It worked!

Well, it’s still working.

My total cholesterol is now normal, as are my vitamin D levels. The only area of some concern is my LDL (low-density lipoprotein, or “bad cholesterol”) is very slightly higher than it should be. It has decreased, however, so I should be able to normalize it with time and a few more adjustments.

As I figured, the culprit was probably eating takeout. Even “healthy” options are often less than ideal — they’re really just healthier than, say, a burger and fries. If you’re traveling, without a kitchen, or otherwise unable to store and prepare your own meals, “healthy takeout options” are definitely better than the alternative. But, at the end of the day, all restaurant food is made with taste as its primary consideration. I knew this on a logical level. It’s just easy to let yourself ignore it when all you’re ordering is a salad or sandwich, you know?

Anyhow, I don’t have many other lifestyle changes I can make at this point. I can take a fiber supplement. I can explore some herbal remedies said to help maintain healthy blood lipids (ginger seems promising, for example). Other than that, we’re gonna have to get deeper into the weeds a little bit.

I don’t know how much I’ll speak on that, though, chiefly because I know attitudes toward medical care in the US are… complicated, at best. If I do expound on the alternative/complementary remedies I use, I don’t want someone to take that as evidence that these things will fix their own health issues. For one, their body is not my body, and thus their blood is not my blood. For two, it seems irresponsible. I feel like it might encourage someone to place outsized importance on my anecdotal evidence, and I don’t want anyone to get hurt because they refused effective conventional treatment because some outside-the-box shit I did might have helped fix what is really a very minor problem.

So yes. That’s where I am right now — happy, relieved, and figuring out my next steps. Wish me luck!

life

“hey. hey. hey where’d you go”

July 13, 2023July 6, 2023 J.3 Comments

So, my spouse and I went to an out-of-town family shindig the weekend before July 4th. It was a lot of fun — there was a ton of food, live music, and a huge crowd of interesting people to talk to (many of whom are also Garden People like me).

When I came back, the yard was silent. My heart dropped into my stomach.

Was it because I wasn’t there to keep the food and water replenished? Was it the fireworks? Had someone gotten injured or killed, scaring the whole murder away?
Did something happen to Boink?

I put fresh water and the usual mix of food (peanut butter cereal, cat kibble, dried bugs, and berries) out, but all I got was a clamorous mob of starlings.

(Apparently a group of starlings can be called an “affliction,” which sounds about right. I love all of the birds that come to my home, but most of these are, to put it bluntly, invasive shrieking dickheads who throw things.)

A day went by, then another. I lost sleep and felt my urge to write or paint completely sapped. So much of my art is inspired by these magnificent little weirdos, I hated the idea of working on a painted bird when the real ones had disappeared.

Then this happened.

A crow, head cocked, peers through a bathroom window. — “hey, you there? you guys back n- oh, you poopin?”

The crows returned by having this guy rock up to the bathroom window (please ignore the spots on the glass — the rain and pollen have fingerpainted everything) and stare inside. They twisted their head from one side to the other, very deliberately peering in. If they had hands, they probably would’ve cupped them around their eyes to see better.

It was funny, but, in retrospect, also somewhat concerning. Did they watch us leave? Did they send someone to stare into our house every day to see if we were back yet? There are so many windows, you guys, why did they pick the bathroom?!

Anyhow, the big maple tree is once again filled with raucous caws and shiny black birds. I’ve seen Magni and Muse, and even Boink has once again taken up his position on top of the shed. (I have no idea where — or how, for that matter — he went for several days at a time. I’m just glad he’s back.)

It does my heart good to see them. I just kind of wish they’d maybe peeked in the kitchen instead.