Looking Up

 
The best two things I saw today both required looking up. Coming home from work this morning, the moon was a beautiful almost half.



Later in the day, even though it was still really cold outside, at least the sky didn't look wintry. Look at that luscious shade. Blue is my favorite color!



In other news: I worked on the taxes, but the majority of the day was spent formatting and doing illustrations for the Dubois Files books. So much to do! I may not have given myself enough time, but at least there were no major frustrations today. It just takes forever.

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Fort Wayne Home and Garden Show - Twiggy

 
This will probably be the last post about the Fort Wayne Home and Garden Show. But I saved this for last because it's something I've always wanted to see. OK, not a burning bucket-list goal to chase, but I have been very curious, and now I've seen the real deal. It's Twiggy, the water-skiing squirrel!



This year is Twiggy's final tour. The handler said she'd be doing some shows near home base, but they've been traveling with the squirrel(s) since about 1980, and I think the humans are more tired than the squirrel.

The lady in the blue vest lifted Twiggy from her cage. This was directly in front of me, so I got to see Twiggy snuggle in, and then go for a little excursion around the inside of the vest.



Here's some of Twiggy's story. The first Twiggy was rescued in 1979 when she was orphaned after Hurricane David. She became a family pet, and then someone dared the lady's husband to teach the squirrel something crazy... like water-skiing. Apparently he was a guy who couldn't let that pass, and thus was born a phenomenon!

They take advantage of the novelty to promote water safety to kids... thus Twiggy's little life jacket. They talked about learning to float and how to be safe around water.

If you have concerns that the squirrel is stressed by all this, I don't think you need to worry. This does not look like a stressed animal!



So, the "skis" are a little platform with toe holes and a bar to hold on to. The rig is pulled by a remote control boat. It goes fast enough that I only got one picture in focus, and this isn't it. But at least you can see the whole set-up in this picture. The crew in the boat is stuffed animals.



She put Twiggy in the water, so the kids could see that the squirrel can swim. She swam fast to the skis and climbed on board, no worse for the wear, except her tail was wet and heavy and drooped in the water after that. Here's my in-focus shot.



What can I tell you? It was fun. The squirrel seems to think it's fun too- she didn't want to get off the ski. Gray squirrels can live up to 20 years in captivity, but even so this must be Twiggy number 3 or 4. (There are probably several squirrels all trained at the same time, now.)

In other news: work, work on taxes, work on book formatting, back to work tonight. See you tomorrow!

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Fort Wayne Home and Garden Show - Fairy Garden

 
This, again, was a totally commercial display. All the pieces were for sale, and there's not a thing "real" about it. Even the grass was fake. But it's cute.



Personally, I thought the carrot on the stick to lead the bunny was cutest, even if he does have a price tag on his butt!



Here is the other side of the exhibit.



In other news: Work, working on taxes, working on book formatting. Too many looming deadlines!!!! I paid money to get my scanner to speak to my computer again. Well worth it. It's a good scanner and I hated to see it become a useless lump of plastic.

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Fort Wayne Home and Garden Show - Succulents

 
If you've been hanging around a while, you know how much I like succulents. There were a fair number of nice ones at the 2018 Fort Wayne Home Show. But they were all part of a commercial booth. That means they were for sale, which is great, except the issue for me is that there is little effort made to identify succulents for sale beyond "succulent."

I can made some genera IDs, but that's about it. Here's a nice planter filled with various Sedum (and maybe Sempervivum- or maybe all Sedum)



This is an Echeveria, sometimes called a cabbage Echeveria. I've killed a few.



Here's a really nice Aeonium. When they get this big they look like rosettes on top of a naked stalk. I didn't really show that in the picture, because I was so captivated by the spots. I like it.



I have no idea what this is, but it's funky!



This is probably some kind of aloe, but it's pretty amazing that it agreed to be in perfect bloom for the show.


Finally, just another nice collection. Most of these are Sedum, but there are some other things, possibly a Haworthia.



Finally, today's sunset seemed unusual to me. And, oddly enough, can you believe I've never shown you a sunset in March before? Anyway, I loved how blue everything was, but look at how the rising billows of clouds more or less parallel the tree line!



In other news: Working on book illustrations following regular work.

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Fort Wayne Home and Garden Show- Live Animals

 
At the Fort Wayne Home and Garden Show, Ester and I decided to wander through the other two halls which were exclusively retail. Except we sort of forgot that one end was devoted to family and children's activities. We stumbled onto a petting zoo. The animals were really calm. I'm not sure why the rabbits were all content to just sit still in their open containers (boxes, pails, etc) and wait for the next little kid, but they were.



The pony looked bored. I hope he was only bored and not sad.



The liveliest critters were the baby goats. They were hopping on and off mom constantly. She was completely unperturbed by eight hard little hooves



The lambs' major goal was to butt the pig and get it to run around.



I liked the tuxedo rabbit best.



This was a nice find in the midst of all the patio bricks and roofing and siding companies. It made me smile to see the children interacting with the creatures. I'm sure city and suburban kids get few chances to do this on a regular basis. (Not pictured was a chicken that appeared to love being petted, and some baby ducks)

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