Indeed

Spring has sprung.....

after Sister One's post yesterday

I was excited at the thought of Spring.

But look at what I spied as I

left work........

Hollyhocks.

Winter time blues

I have been missing for several days, weeks, okay not quite a month.

We survived the holidays and jumped into the new year.

But as happens every new year, comes a round of sickness.

I guess the kids play so much with all their Christmas goodies, stay

up late at night and sleep in every morning, that going back to school is just

too much for them! Someone always comes down with the flu or a cold.

I think it's safe to say after 12 days, we are all back to school and work.

Bummer on the work part. I was really hoping that lottery ticket would

finally pay off and I could spend my days playing in my new green house.

http://www.geodesic-greenhouse-kits.com/

But this is the real world, and I'm back to the 8-5 routine every day,

and I don't have a new green house. But I can dream.

Wouldn't it be fun to play in the dirt all day,

all in the name of growing your veggies year round!

This is the time of year when I really have winter fever (even though it was 67 degrees here yesterday).

It still gets dark at 5:30, it's cold, windy, and you have to

scrape your windows most mornings.

I really long for spring, the smell of fresh turned dirt,

budding of the leaves, and spring flowers sprouting.

I pour over my garden catalogs every night and was so

excited when I found a tree I have been searching for since my youth.

A mulberry tree!

Grandma Fritzler had a huge one growing in her yard.

Our favorite past time at Granny's house, was raiding the mulberry tree. For a short six months, when we farmed up north, I had one growing in my yard. Life was good.

So it's time I get a couple of them ordered, and start picking the perfect spot to plant them.

I'm also toying with the idea of a couple of peach trees.

It's only 10 short days until the ground hog tells us, if spring is around the corner.

Tree Face MIA

Last summer, one of our trees sprouted a face.

We enjoyed it every time we drove into the driveway.

We weren't the only ones who liked it.

 

Bree, our huntress, was very interested in it.

She spent quite a bit of time on this post admiring it.

 
 

But after our first wind storm, an eye went missing.

 

Now the whole blasted face is gone!

  

I think I'll have Bree help me find it ---

after it warms up and decides to be spring again!

It's Taking Over!!

As you may recall, last spring I frequented

greenhouses much as an alcoholic frequents bars.

I went to greenhouses in five different towns.

I enjoy trying new unusual plants so I bought a currant tomato.

The tomatoes are great, but they're a pain to pick.  One of

my colleagues just advised to roll them off the stem into my hand.

Uh, huh.  Her tomato is probably staked and 

trained to drop tomatoes on demand.

I staked mine, but it didn't seem to matter.

It was a nice experiment, but probably not one I'll repeat.

We normally plant birdhouse gourds along our patio fence. 

We can usually plant 8 to 12 and have the entire fence covered. 

We didn't find any this year.  I found castor beans. 

 

They are a lot of fun to grow.

The leaves are incredible.  It's nice to 

grow something big besides weeds.

They are even more interesting when they go to seed.

In addition to castor beans, I found

ornamental millet.  Did I find birdhouse gourd plants?

No, instead I found a cute, cuddly kitten that 

was free with the purchase of a catmint plant.  

Of course I bought one and got Willowby,

our June-bug stalking kitten.

The greenhouse that had the kitten had snake gourds 

and apple gourds for $2.29 apiece, so I bought one of each.

The apple gourd never really grew. 

It didn't die, but it didn't grow either. 

It was kind of weird.  

The snake gourd didn't do much either...

... until mid-August.

Then little shoots began appearing everywhere.

It began to bloom and small snake-like gourds appeared.

 

That eventually turns into this --- 

Our one plant turned into this --- 

 

Our fence is 25 feet long and it is completely covered.

This is only one plant!

Mardell is scared to walk down the brick pathway!

It seems to reach out and grab her and she walks by!

Sitting at the table and enjoying the peaceful

singing of the crickets and the diving swallows 

is out of the question.  Sit for any amount of 

time and you never know what might happen!

The little tentacles reach out and grab your neck!

It overtook the three plum trees and was

happy to hang snakes from the branches.

We haven't quite figured out what we're going to do

with all of these snake gourds.  All we know

is we can't go to the patio without a machete!

Tenants Wanted

For Rent: Quality housing for a large colony of

Myotis Lucifugus. Kevlar lined nursery available immediately.

Nearby running water, an abundance of flies, gnats and skeeters

available for your dining pleasure.

Inquire within.

For more information on Little Brown Bats, go to:

http://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/littlebrownbat.htm

They are fascinating creatures. Many, many thanks to my nieces Krista and Dani for getting me started with bat houses. Someday I want to add a remote web cam so that I can watch them as they care for their babies and young. Wouldn't that just be the coolest?!!

We Were Robbed!!!!

We've now lived in our present location for about twenty years. When we were looking for a property to buy, we had some definite guidelines. It had to be in the country. It had to be on one level. It had to have a wood burning stove or fireplace. We really wanted a place near water. It also had to be affordable.



Leo, our real estate agent, was a shrewd man. He took us to look at some real dumps in our price range, one fairly decent place and then told us that he had one more that was "just a little" out of our price range. Uh huh. "Just a little."




Now Leo took the long way around Little Lake Alice so that we approached the property from the east. Our view as we came down the road was this.

The very first thing that we saw were all of the trees.

Massive cottonwoods everywhere.

Lee, the gentleman who owned the place, had an apple orchard right by the road. It had eight dwarf apple trees that were absolutely loaded with apples. I was excited and then Leo told us that he also had a cherry orchard out behind. We were both mentally resisting until we saw the place.

After we toured the inside and saw the claw tub bath tub with a lace shower curtain and brass fixings, we were sold. To make a really long story short, we made an offer. The neighbors also made an offer and a small bidding war ensued. As you know we were victorious.

That first year was a delight. I carefully mulched each and every apple tree with straw. Little did I know that mice would move in, eat the roots and kill six of our eight trees. Our farmer killed off the cherry orchard the following spring, but that's another story for another time.

The aforementioned farmer asked us if he could have apples for a pie that summer. Sure, no problem. If I remember correctly, Shirley made a couple for us as well. We had the best of both worlds. He picked them, she cooked them and we ate them as well as enjoyed watching them blossom and mature.

Once we opened the &#^&$% store, we had no time for anything and didn't pay much attention to the farm. The weeds grew. And grew. And grew. The year I turned forty I planted two more apple trees with an eye to the future and hopes of replenishing the once beautiful orchard. Time passed. We still enjoyed the apple blossoms each spring. Our farmer picked the apples and that was fine. The pies petered out, but that was okay too.

This year we decided we were going to reap the apples and make our own pies. Mardell studiously read up on when we should spray for worms and other pests. It appears as though there is a two week window after the apples have bloomed. Well, that time came and went and we didn't get the spraying accomplished, but our two trees were exceptionally prolific this year and we have looked forward to apples. Dale, our farmer, is in his eighties now and we figured we were safe and he wouldn't be coming around to pick our apples.

Aren't they just beautious?

But, they are even prettier close-up .... worms and all.

Both trees were laden like this. Last week we noticed
that one tree was nearly completely bare.

We knew that Dale hadn't been around to pick them so we were disgusted. Especially since our bottomless pit of an early alert system obviously wasn't doing his job .....

In case it's not possible to tell from this picture, Chip is lounging on our futon in the air-conditioning, instead of sitting out underneath the apple tree guarding our goods.

We couldn't decide why thieves would just strip one tree.

It didn't make any sense.

Then one day last week, I left to go to school to meet Vicki for the day.

There were THREE, yes, count them, three of these critters
with both sides of their mouths stuffed full.

N

Naturally I didn't have my camera handy, so another thanks goes out to PDPhotos.org for this one.

The blasted squirrels completely stripped one tree. I had been wanting to add this to the blog for some time, but hadn't seen any squirrels to photograph. I had some time this afternoon so I went out to search for them.

I never did find them; however, I took some
great pictures from the bridge.

This is our view to the south.

We had a family of minks early this spring. We got to watch them

playing on the ice. If you look closely, you can see a hole in the bank.

That was the den where they were born.

Look just to the right of the log and underneath the tree branches.

Now they live on the north side of the bridge.

Their current den is much easier to see.

Oh look! There's one now.

Does this help you locate it?

He skittered across the cement slabs for quite some time.

I wish I had a better zoom.

But since I don't, I'm still going to bore you with pictures that you won't be able to tell if it is a mink or not. You'll just have to trust me on this. Scary thought isn't it? When was the last time a redhead asked you to trust them?

This is one where he looking out of his den. Go ahead --- use your imagination.

He really didn't pay much attention to me. I was really happy when he slipped into the water and began swimming toward me.

He slipped into the cattails and that was the last I saw of him. I could have probably sat there and waited, but do you know what happens
when you sit by a stream and listen to the gently gurgling water?


Yep, you guessed it. Fortunately I made it to the house in time.

While we were robbed of our apple crop, I consider myself pretty lucky to have stumbled across the mink playing today. That was a gift in itself. I couldn't think of a better way to end the summer. It sure beat the three and a half hours that we spent at Al-Tell switching our phone service back.

June Bugs in August

Let's just say it now and get it well established ... I'm not usually prone to the heebie jeebies. Except with snakes. Definitely with snakes. But not with June bugs. Definitely not with June bugs. However, I was sitting at my computer the night before last, diligently working on stuff for school ...


... except for the two hours (okay, so what if it was six?!) that I spent playing a new game called Ancient Quest of Saqqarah. It's a great game .... much more fun than Jewel Quest. It features a talking ape that constantly encourages and aids you in beating the boards in order to restore the Egyptian Gods' temples. A talking ape. Dressed up as an Egyptian no less. What more could a gamer ask for? Needless to say there are lots of scarabs as well as other Egyptian icons on the bonus boards. Do you see where this is going?


As I was saying, I was sitting there playing when all of a sudden my hand brushed on something on my shorts. (Yes, shorts. I wear them in the privacy of my house but nowhere else --- the blinding white of my legs is too overwhelming for the general public. Plus I only shave once a year ---- whether I need to or not ---- out by the horse tank.)


Anyway, as soon as I brush against it, I hear this fierce hissing and look down to see a June bug with his damn pinchers extended. I didn't even know they had pinchers. A certain someone in my household is still laughing because I totally and completely freaked out.


After I realized what it was and settled down, I remarked that we seem to have more of the damn things in the house this year than normal. I had simply chalked it up to more rainfall.



Not so. It seems that our fair Pussy Willow spends the ENTIRE night going in and out of the pet door retrieving these monsters.

She is also enlisting Zeda's help (our new kitty). Zeda watches for her and as soon as she sees Willow coming with a June bug, she pushes the pet door open with her head.

But if she gets tired of waiting, she'll go out to help search.

Because everyone knows that two heads are better than one!

Willow is relentless in her quest.

And it pays off.

Damn, it's got my lip!

Let's play.

You run, I'll count.

Time's up! Now I'm going to eat you!

Going, going, gone!

That was good. I think I'll go look for another.

Success once again.

So what if it's missing a leg?

But first, we must play.

It's so much more fun if you put it on a nylon leash and bat it around.

But of course, the end result is the same.

Within an hour, she had caught, played with, and eaten six bugs...
not counting the one she so proudly shared with me.

No wonder her eyes glow!