I took a walk intent on what I was to see
Tall grass and wildflowers
Mud and toads, grasshoppers and birds
But my intent was not to be
Even though each flower had grown spirited and tall
The winds interfered with my view
Grasshoppers hopped under my clothing,
And the mud enticed me to fall
I sat in the middle of a pattern of lace
My intent shifted over wind swept fields
I connected within that moment, and
I watched the bees and butterflies race
I have a few plants growing that I never planted. One looks like a Gourd. Or, maybe it’s yellow squash??
Sanosuke and Kaoru love Zucchini. It can be raw, or cooked they will gobble it up.
Here’s another what is this..Eggplant? Watermelon? Audrey II?
Here’s the pumpkin..
Hello, everyone! This has been a very long, tiring month. With Michael unable to drive, I have been doing all the driving. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue, but I have a back injury that makes it hard for me to sit, stand, and walk for even short periods of time. Before, we were taking turns driving, now it’s all me. With multiple doctor appointments for all of us, including our teenager who will start ninth grade August 16th, I am having trouble even checking my emails.
Now on to other happenings..
Yesterday Uriah killed, ‘That Rat’!
We were standing next to the garden. I was complaining about all the tomatoes that have been eaten in the past week. Thirteen! Thirteen big beautiful tomatoes!
I can’t say for sure it was a rat that ate the tomatoes, it could have been the skunk, a family lives near the barn. Or the opossum, one tried to take up residence in the dog house. Maybe raccoons! There are plenty of those around. Even coyotes love tomatoes. Do foxes eat tomatoes?
Anyway, Uriah turned away from me and started nosing around a square drainage tube that was lying at the top end of the garden. Ground squirrels like to hide there. I raised the tube to slide out the animal, and it held on inside tight. I rolled it over, and over until it was pointed at the Bog Willows and the rodent slid out. A very fat, cute reddish rat ran a zigzagged pattern towards the trees.
Uriah looked up at me, surprised.
“Hey, you go catch that rat!” Ooops! I used the wrong word. Rat sounds like cat, Uriah isn’t supposed to chase a cat, and so he sat and watched it run. I pointed at the rat and yelled. “Mouse! Get that mouse!”
Uriah hesitated, then started chasing it through the grass.
Yes, it squeaked, so do Ground Squirrels and Chipmunks. I almost called Uriah off. Almost..
The chase lasted only a minute or two, with Uriah tossing it into the air, then turning in circles and a giant leap, then silence. Uriah waited. I praised him and gave him a pork rawhide bone. He happily trotted off, while I moved the body to the burn pile, fully intending to burn the tree branches and that rat, tomorrow.
We were due at the doctors in an hour and I won’t light a fire if I’m not around. So that was the plan, tomorrow light the fire…
It rained all night. The trees are flooded. The water line is inching towards the house and overflowing the burn pile. I need another plan…
Link on Chipmunks and Ground Squirrels:
http://web.extension.illinois.edu/wildlife/directory_show.cfm?species=groundsquirrel
smooth and creamy, cold and sweet
leisurely, pieces slip apart
dripping
slipping
melting
so
slowly
yet…
to fast to catch with my tongue
white and dark
make their way over my fingers
past my knuckles
to my wrist
where i hasten to wipe traces off my shirt
i smear it, and
it melts faster
hurry
i need to hurry
to eat
that large piece of chocolate
before it slides off the melted cream
uriah waits
furry face upturned, hope shines
and he drools
Purple Martins are very brave or very stupid, I haven’t figured out which, yet.
Martins will dive bomb anyone that comes out the door. They have a fit when I’m standing on the back deck. They will swoop and whistle. Nearly hitting me and Uriah! The cats watch from the inside windows and love the attention they’re getting from those beautiful little birds.
I have never seen feathers that matte black, it reminds me of charcoal. I have to admit my camera isn’t able to capture their beauty.
I love having them around. I will overlook their mud nests because they eat their weight in mosquitoes daily.
Purple Martins have nested around my house for years, sometimes with dire consequences. They can build a nest fast; within two hours they can set up home. My first summer in this house, I made a mistake of leaving the garage doors open while I cleaned out the garage. I had no idea they had made a nest on the electric overhead garage door opener. So when I was finished I closed the birds in the garage, accidentally. The only reason I knew they were trapped, was when one of my cats brought a bird into the house and let it go…
Last night I took Uriah for his walk a little later than usual. I was trying to avoid the mosquitoes by heading outside when it was nearly dark. That didn’t work. They were busy buzzing, and bugging me just as they did and hour earlier.
Wednesday is garbage day. I have notes posted to remind me of the fact. I only had a couple of bags I debated dragging them down the driveway, but last week when I attempted that, Uriah though we were playing and grabbed one of the bags, breaking it, and spreading the trash all over the driveway…
This week, I tossed the two bags on the hood of the car and slowly pulled out of the garage.
I rolled down the car widow as slowly passed that large Blue Spruce when I felt a pinch on the side of my face. My immediate thought was, “Mosquitoes!” I tried to brush it off out the window, except it wouldn’t move. The small inset struck itself to my skin. Without even thinking, I peeled it off with my nails. I was still slowly moving towards the road. (I have a four hundred foot driveway.)
I glanced at what I pulled off the side of my face and stared at it. It was upside down and wiggling its little legs furiously. It was cute in a way. Sort of! The shiny back body sparkled in the sunlight. I was not amused, when my eyes adjusted and I recognized it as a tick. Still irritated when I pulled back into the garage, I told my husband all about being ticked when I rolled down the car window. He couldn’t stop laughing,..at me! He said, between laughter, that he never met anyone who attracted so many ticks the way I do.
He called me a tick magnet!
I would rather be a money magnet!
*I have been out of it for the past couple of weeks. I realized I had written the above post on Thursday, July 1st and never posted it to my Blog. Way too many things have been creeping up around here and I’m not including the mosquitoes, or the odd looking flying bugs. I even made a video that I never posted… Ooops! Had to find it! Here it is! It is a little long- four minutes. You are walking with me among the milkweeds near the front pond, and you won’t be bothered by the bugs.
The weather has been interesting. High heat and humidity and storms that attempt to blow the house down.
Today, July 10 is our eighth wedding anniversary. I know I’m on the internet updating. Michael is still sleeping so it’s okay:-)
My husband’s health took a turn for the worse. I dragged him kicking and screaming to a new neurologist. He now has tests all this month. He can’t drive until we know what’s up. He is not happy about that..
I have had thyroid problems my entire life, I no longer have a thyroid and it still causes issues. Heavy Sigh!
Just before my husband’s doctor’s appointment, I decided to try for examiner.com and they accepted me. I will write articles on, Hampshire’s plant life. If you stop over there I would appreciate any comments. Or, just send me an email and tell me what I am missing. Or, just read. I need to work on the set up of the articles.
If anyone wants to try to write for the examiner and needs some advice on how to get noticed- ask me. I will be very happy to help.
If you give them my examiner ID number 56021 I get a referral fee.
I will keep posting here, this Blog is for me and all of you who like to take a walk without the bug bites:-)
I hope everyone is doing well. Be happy and safe!
Captain Jack Harkness ~ “Wanna know a secret? So did I. And just for a second there I felt so alive.”
Yesterday, in the middle of a thunderstorm, with multiple warnings flashing across the television and of course being me, I stood outside on the deck watching the clouds.
Stupid? Yes!
It was amazing! At one point lightning streaked across the sky in a vein of pink and white. Then in the same spot, the lightning flashed again, this time with multiple tentacles stretching outward, looking like a fireworks display.
Silver white and pink!
Followed a few seconds later by a cracking roll that shook the ground!
That flash had sent me in for my camera. I wanted to capture a picture of that lightning!
Ready! Set! Okay sky smile!
Each time I pointed the camera upward, the lightning would flash in a different spot, above, or behind me.
I noticed a low hanging cloud that seemed to swirl all on its own. I thought, just maybe this was makings of a tornado and I should be inside. I turned off my camera and glanced up before I pulled open the door. A solid object half appeared for a second, as the clouds drifted slightly. Before I had a chance take a picture, the cloud moved back around the object, covering it and as it moved upward.
Can you see it? Shaped like an upside down triangle with rounded edges. It is nearly invisible behind the cloud cover.
It was solid, not part of the clouds. Any ideas? Guesses? Funny captions?
Weather balloon?
No lights! And it didn’t move fast, it just hovered.
Maybe I witnessed one too many lightning hits!
My eyes were playing tricks on me.
The Jupiter II slipped out of storage!
With all the odd weather we have been having I would guess at a weather balloon. If I were a meteorologist I would be recording these weather patterns.
Ever see anything odd in the clouds and wonder; Huh! ?
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”~ The Wizard of Oz * Michael took this picture after the storm.
There was a little boy who walked across the road
He wanted to see where the wolves had gone
His mother warned him not to wander
Nature is dangerous and needs to be feared
Still, he only looked back once, then sprinted
Between the trees into the darkened corners
Leaves formed a canopy over his head
He delighted in that secret place, and ran on
He saw a flash of grey fur and a shimmer
As the sun flashed off the wolves’ laughing eyes
Without fear he stepped into a clearing
An upsweep of flowers white and yellow and blue and red
A place where cinnamon perfumed plants grew
The boy stopped, his mother’s warning echoed
And fear grew, and he picked up a stick
A wolf cub ran up to him and pulled on his pant leg
Fear had him raise the stick above his head
Fear had him swing the stick at the pup
Its mother looked up, when she heard the yelp
The eyes of its mother showed fear
Fear that had shown in his own mother’s eyes
Fear that that placed that stick in his hand
Fear that now mirrored in the pup’s eyes
The boy dropped to his knees and cried
He cried for seeing a threat that wasn’t there
He cried for what he lost by allowing fear, control
He cried for the pup he had hurt
The mother wolf trotted over to her pup
She licked his wounds until he wiggled happily
Then she turned to the boy and licked his tears away
When the sun touched the edge of the earth
And the sky turned pink, then red, then purple, then black
The boy came out of the trees
His mother was waiting, tortured, with fear
He raced to her and tired to explain what he saw
She did not hear him
She clung to him in a panic
He patted her back and hugged her shaking shoulders
Then he pulled away, and looked back towards the trees
…without fear
*
*
Remember, June 21st World Peace and Prayer Day. I posted a poem on June 4th. Take a minute and send out a prayer for the earth, a prayer to stop the oil spilling in to the Gulf and our oceans and all our lives.
Take a moment, one second, to pray. Pray for the earth to sustain.
That white ball in the foreground is a mushroom.
I was up at four thirty this morning. I wandered around the quiet house, then I opened the blinds and kitchen door and stepped outside onto the deck to watch and listen to the sunrise. Birds raised their voices in the cool morning air and sang.
When I make a video I try and choose the best audio I believe fits with the visual aspects. Doesn’t always work…
But, standing out in the early morning sunrise I don’t think anyone could have chosen any sounds better for this moment.
Yellow pink clouds in a clear baby blue sky, mists rising off the fields and the sun slowly rising in the east. I watched as the colors deepened to reds and yellows.
“Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning” I whispered to the Robin sitting on the roof.
The odd weather we have been having lately, baking in the humid heat, to storms with seventy five mile and hour winds, I wonder what today will bring. Behind me to the west the sky was a deep misty grey. I guessed maybe around noon I should see what Mother Nature has in store for us.
Uriah complained. He wanted to go outside. I pushed past the cats huddled near the screen. All were hopefully waiting for a bird or a horsefly to come their way. Kaoru talks to flies and Sanosuke eats them.
“Eat too many and you’re going to throw up!” I warn him over and over.
Kenshin stands close by and in total agreement about the flies. He had to be given antibiotics because of his infatuation with flies. Now he ignores them.
Uriah whined again. I let him out through the garage doors, then came back inside and collected his breakfast. Some Iams dry food, two liver snaps and a beef basted dog bone.
By the time I stepped outside he was already hunting out his ‘mouse’ formally known as, That Rat.
If, I call it a mouse he chases it. If, I call it a rat, well, I think he hears cat and we don’t chase cats.
I took a few moments to notice the wet grass and the chilly air was a bit more uncomfortable, while standing in the grass, than on the deck.
Still, early mornings, in the summertime, remind me of camping.
I would wake up starving and make an attempt to light a fire. Some worked most didn’t. When the fire started I would fry some bacon in a pan, add an egg or two and pull out some stale bread, which I would toast by setting on the edge of the pan.
When the wet wood refused to burn; I would let my nose find breakfast. In state parks they have a small store, with a little area where they cooked up and sold a breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage and coffee, milk or juice. Sitting around on a damp picnic table wrapped in a sweat shirt, half asleep, eating like I was starving in that cool damp morning air, and usually the only meal without the added protein of bugs. Was a wonderful adventure! And that food was amazing!
The sun lifted up over the trees. Bright white yellow and reflecting off the mist and dew everything sparkled.
Uriah munched on his breakfast and I headed into the house for some pancakes and coffee, minus the bugs…
