"bird on a wire" Winter Earrings by jean yates for Artbeads

The snow we have been having this winter has been at one and the same time both difficult to manage and impossibly lovely to see. Yesterday I was confronted with dragging 26 garbage bags out of the garage because we had to miss the previous week's pick up day, we were so snowed in at that time. So we had two week's worth of garbage and yes folks, that was twenty six bags.  As we had spent that entire period of time running our car into the empty rubber trash cans and using them as bumpers while sliding down the snowy icy driveway, I had nothing to put the garbage IN. To protect it from the wild animals,  I covered it up with a thin narrow strip of plastic which was 50 feet long but only 3 feet wide (does the phrase "complete exhausted frustration" come to mind at this point?) and put some crushed garbage cans on top of it, went inside and conked out until the kids came home.  The day BEFORE that, we had a snow and ICE situation, which we here in this area call "black ice". This is when your driveway appears normal but as soon as you step on it your legs fly out from under you and you are flat on the ground. It is extremely dangerous. Period.  Jim and I spent that day repeatedly falling over into the snowbanks for safety's sake, and dreaming of Florida. Yes, we're getting old. Maybe we could go work in Florida as burned spies like the guy, Michael, in Burn Notice on cable TV. Jim could be Michael's former FBI sidekick, Sam, and I could be his former girlfriend, Fiona, and finally achieve my lifelong dream of being incredibly good looking and also  resourceful at times where you have to think fast. Neither of which I am good at.

On the other hand... today, when I picked up the phone at 4:30 am, and was informed that school was cancelled, I was lured back to the countless memorable "snow days" of my childhood, which were all about happiness and fun. We would put on our ever-soggy snow pants and jackets over and over throughout the day, and venture out to play on the back lawn, which stretched out to the marsh. Our mittens were made of wool and would get wet almost immediately as we rolled giant balls of snow to make snowmen...lots of snowmen. Sometimes we would make snowhorses. Those were my favorite! Here is how you do that: you roll two large snowballs together, pack snow in between them and smooth it out until it is like a saddle, make a smaller snowball for the neck and an oval one for the head. You use sticks for eyes and the nose and mouth. You can make ears if you like. Then you get on your snowhorse, look over at your sister, and wave. It is far more interesting than making a snowman because you can ride it and wave from it, you see. 

My favorite other thing to do was to make an igloo. I would loosely pack light snow in a pile and then dig a hole in it and sit in it. That was all I could do--just sit--these igloos were NOT terribly large.
I had trees over to the left of the house however which I could also sit under which WERE large, and when their branches were heavy with snow, they made fantastic forts. I would get my neighbor Robby to come over and hack around with me if I was playing the tree fort game, and the line of trees meant there was room for more than one person. Lots of yelling fiercely, shooting, running and hiding--all sorts of politically unacceptable stuff for these modern days, which kids did back then and thought nothing of it.

We also had great sledding because our back yard slanted down toward the marsh. If it was the right kind of snow you could get really far. If it was the wrong kind of snow, you could only go about a foot at a time, by pushing really hard with your arms and your boots. That was a big waste. However the right kind was WONDERFUL. You could almost get all the way to the marsh!

Enough of these memories, except to say that where we lived, we always fed the birds in the winter. We would watch them from our glassed-in porch as they would come to the bird feeders on the cherry tree right up against our huge floor to ceiling window. My parents had had the stone floors of the porch heated from underneath, so they could sit and read the paper and have breakfast there and watch the birds. My mother had been a serious birdwatcher since she was a child. My father loved all  animals. We had a bird book which weighed around 500 pounds in the living room. I would stare at it and compare the sizes of the bird eggs in the illustrations, from the tiniest to the largest. The birds we had at our feeders would go through two feeders full of seed a day, plus a special feeder of thistle seed.

When I made these earrings I thought a lot about winter, snow, and the birds we had loved to watch then, and still do now. I particularly thought of chickadees because their black, grey and white little bodies are so cute and fluffy and I always picture them with red berries.

  When I designed these earrings for Artbeads I chose the 10mm Chickadee Sterling/Resin pendants  by the wonderful artist Taina Hartman for the focus of each earring. Then I surrounded them with wonderful Gunmetal-Plated Split Ring Cable Chain which enhances the color of the little birds on the white resin. This is great chain to have on hand for all sorts of uses. it is 6mm X 4mm and at 14 gauge it is nice and hefty for a very good price. I recommend it completely.
 I made sure I had some red in there by using a Swarovski Siam AB drop on each earring, and the beautiful 6mm faceted rounds are a color called "Silver Night".  They look a bit like black diamond, but they are even better, in my opinion! As Artbeads says, "These SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS round beads display a unique hue called Crystal Silver Night which exhibits a dual luster. One side of these beads features a metallic sheen while the other side is translucent adding to their unique appeal".
 The tiny 4mm bicones are Xillion cut White Alabaster.

I call these my "bird on a wire" earrings.  I would like to thank Artbeads for the opportunity to reflect back to these happy thoughts of the snows long past, the "snow days" of childhood, and the beautiful birds we continue to love. It was always a time of pure magic. Kids and snow just go together like hot chocolate and marshmallows.

To bring this entry back to thoughts of Florida, I want to tell you about one more thing. There was a girl at my boarding school from Florida and the first year we were all there at school, in Maryland, it snowed. She had never seen snow. We all put on our jackets over our nightgowns that night and went out onto the front step and looked up at this amazing sight. She was instantly in love with this phenomenon. We were all 14 years old.
This Leonard Cohen song is for her because that year was the year everyone at school was playing it on all the record players and guitars in school. We all loved this song. People still do. Palmer, my friend, this is for you.

Disclosure: beads and materials provided by Artbeads. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.