Ave, Maria, and Josepha Paint

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Ave, Maria, and Josepha are friends.
They go on adventures.

Or, as in this case, they stay on adventures.
Stay at home.
Well, I mean they stayed at a home...at Josepha's home.

And sometimes they paint en plein air.
Josepha, as the hostess, set out the paints, the pens and the colored pencils.
Ave drove over with Maria.
Maria swiped the air with her cane to keep the jumpy, catastrophe of a dog at bay. It worked, too...once she made contact. Why does this dog desire knocking things down? Mostly she wants to knock people down. She's just too darn enthusiastic for her own good...not to mention the good of others.

After the dog chaos, the three friends settled.
In the kitchen.
At the table.
Upon which the art supplies lay.
By the big window.
The window that looks out onto the garden.
They had tea, black tea, no cream or sugar.
Make sure it's boiling hot.
Use a fluffy dishtowel and a hot pad for a tea cozy.
To keep tea boilng hot.

They did not paint.
They stared outside.
The songbirds were out in full force.
The birds brought all their bird relatives with them.
But wait!
Maybe mourning doves are not true songbirds.
Maybe they are pigeons, how awful.

But their coo is way cooler than pigeons which they may or may not be.
We wonder at the bird world.

Why do more birds than ever before seen in Gopher Flats show up when complete strangers (well, not really complete and not really strange...) flock at the kitchen windows? Josepha doesn't always see all these birds herself, at her own home!

Ave and Maria see a woodpecker, first of the year.
A junco arrives, a rarity.
The lone robin brings his bob bob bobbin' buddies.
Thank goodness an oriole didn't show up.
Josepha may have flat out cried from jealousy.

Ave, Maria, and Josepha did not paint with the paints at hand.
They watched birds.
Then they ate.
Egg salad sandwiches.
Bread and eggs from Josepha.
Made into lunch by Ave.

They stared outside and ate and drank tea.

Later the three friends watched the birds a little more.
They watched and watched.
They looked out over the painting supplies to the yard beyond.
Watching until most birds headed out to Torpor.
Torpor is a place somewhere else from Josepha's garden.
Josepha think the birds in Torpor grip their little claws onto softly bouncing branches, dozing.
Dozing and groaning over their fat little tummies.
Tummies that require the purchase of 5o lb. sacks of wild birdseed and 25 lbs. of black oil sunflower seeds and 4 lbs. of homemade peanut butter-lard-cornmeal-wheat flour-oat suet each month!!

Ave, Maria, and Josepha got their fill of birds through a window.
They got their fill of sandwiches and tea as well.
Then they headed out into that very garden to watch the birds in real life.
As opposed to from the inside of a house, through a glass window.

Maria and Josepha sat.
Sat and watched for the birds which had fluttered away to Topor.
A place where fat, piggie winged beings go to digest.

Sitting in the sun, with sunhats providing shade, Maria and Josepha sat in a sort of torpor themselves. Ave went for painting supplies in her bag, not the assembled art supplies at the ready in the house provided by Josepha, no.
She went to get her own paints in her own bag.

Ave painted a tableau of Maria watching for the birds, which had finally returned from Torpor, once again in droves, for visitors, not for the home owner.

Ave's painting was wonderful.
Capturing the color, the very essence of the garden and Maria's purple/pink sweater.

Maria and Josepha accomplished nothing of note, but they filed away the sights, sounds, facts and figures of the avians.
Filed it all away, somewhere inside their brains, for later review.
Hopefully after a long nap in Torpor.
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