X is for Xenodochial, Xyloglyphy and Xilinous

- It was my pleasure to be xenodochial (hospitable to strangers) in hosting a family of chickadees in my back porch bird house.  I loved watching mom and dad chickadee coming and going with pine straw and other leafy bits to make a nest.  It was easy to tell when the eggs hatched, because mom and dad set about bringing food in to hungry little beaks.  I last saw them on Wednesday morning.  Then on Wednesday evening, with a pang of sadness, I realized they were gone.  But I expect they'll visit my back porch again and hopefully remember the kind woman who left them alone back there except to quietly water plants.

- Back when I had two cats (both gone now), people often thought it was a good idea to give me cat related paraphernalia as presents.  Not that I was ungrateful, but it was mostly cutesy stuff I wouldn't put out in my house.  I still have a couple of those items packed away and might post about them sometime.  But the item above, a lovely example of xyloglyphy (wood-carving), is one of my favorite gifts ever.  I love how the artist captured the lines of a cat's haunches as she lay sleeping.  (Gift from beloved friends.)

- This is how your cotton clothing begins, in snowy cotton fields like these seen on a drive through south Georgia.  It's lovely to see a xilinous (of, like or pertaining to cotton) industry like this thriving again in Georgia.

Note:  These "X" words are brought to you by this website: http://phrontistery.info/x.html.  Hopefully I've used them correctly in these sentences.  I was seriously stumped on X words having anything to do with good things and so was happy to find this site.  And I managed to find three positive words beginning with X - most of the others had to do with dryness, disease and ill-tempered women.  :)

Day 24 of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, featuring the letter "X".  Three things that give me pleasure.  

Happy Friday and see you tomorrow, I hope.