Pineapple punch

Soon after we got to Tennessee in the spring, I noticed that the bronze wind chimes that our late friend Franny gave us in the early '80s had lost their clapper and wind-catcher.

Oh, they still made a rich clang in a really stiff wind -- and sounded like an explosion in a bell tower when I hit them inadvertently with the handle of the pool equipment -- but I missed them terribly, and couldn't find the clapper and catcher anywhere in the sweet bay garden where they've hung since we moved here.

The light bulb went on this week: A wooden ball with two screw eyes for the clapper (softer tone than the original metal disk) and, considering that it's hard to find bronze at the crafts store, a piece of sheet tin for the wind-catcher. I dug out the pattern I'd given Arnold for the pineapple cutouts around the Key West balcony, scrounged some tools from the workshop and . . . bingo!

I think I'll use weatherproof matte-black enamel on the new additions, so they don't outshine the amazing patina on the chime tubes, which we're taking with us when we migrate South.