The fact that the beaches were closed and there would be no sunrise Easter service really bothered me.  So the Saturday before Easter, we went to a field not too far away and flew our Easter kites.  The winds were gusty and the kites were up and down.  But they were up long enough to gather a couple of spectators who were driving by and stopped to watch.  We had a ghost delta kite, an angel kite and my handmade Easter kite in the air.  I was especially pleased to get the Easter kite up.

I finally got back to the sewing machine.  The appliqué is now complete on the giant Hata skin.  I must be currently obsessed with the sun as it is the motif of my last two kite builds.  The rest of the construction will go faster now.  Except, maybe, the edge binding and the tail.  I have to decide what kind of tail I want to use.  The most common tail is the fuzzy tail.  But I’ve found the zig-zag tail is faster to make as you don’t have to sew a line or ribbon all the way down the center of the tail and there is only half of the side cuts to make.  Decisions.  Decisions.

The Easter yard decorations are down and packed away.  I felt there still needed to be more color in the front yard.  Especially as the dogwood tree was losing its flowers.  So I got out some of the ground decorations that I use at kite festivals.  I wanted to use my crab ground bouncers but the wind is too low and erratic to keep them inflated.  So I set out my shark, fish and octopus mini-windsocks.  An aquarium in front of the house.  All overseen by our “watch” gator.

So here’s hoping we get to fly again soon.

Fair Winds All

We are complying with the Stay-at-home order and limiting our trips out of the house to the grocery store and the pharmacy.  There is still quite a bit of traffic locally and there are still people who are gathering on the beaches.  My kite flying has been very limited.  I tried to fly in the backyard and had moderate success with the light wind glider kite, the Emong by Flying Wings Kites.

I’m sure the neighbors found it amusing watching me stumble around the backyard with a kite string in one hand and a cell phone in the other.  At one point the wind appeared to be picking up and I tried another kite I happened to have handy, the Joel Scholz Parrot by Premier Kites.  While it did go up for a while, it was never very high and needed constant supervision.

As for my kite building, I have been suffering from a serious lack of motivation.  Part of which was due to the fact I was going to have to crawl on the floor in order to get the whole appliqué piece properly situated on the main sail.  One of the drawbacks of not having a large table to work on.  I finally convinced myself to just get down and get it done.  With absolutely no help from my able assistant.

And so, life goes on.  Stay safe everyone.

Fair Winds All