Raccoon In A Can.
Just going to do this now, and move on with my life! We did not harm the creature. We rolled the can to the grass. Laid it down very slow and gently and opened the lid. We gave the can a little nudge and the raccoon ran out scared and confused while we just stood there waiting for it to pick a direction. End of story. Again, have a great day all!
On Another Stinky Note…And One More Hawk Picture! Scroll down!
Skunk. There was actually 2. It looked like a mom (?) and her baby (?) skunk. They were just eating any and all the leftover crap I throw out there because I know that the wildlife comes. Usually the raccoons crawl into our garbage can and dig out what they want and leave a mess, so I try to save them the hassle. The garbage can is one of those tall, basic, flip-top carts, that almost every city in America now uses for garbage per the town they live in, be it brown, blue, green, etc. In fact, I have a picture of a small raccoon that got stuck in the garbage can, at the bottom, because it was too small to reach and be able to crawl back out. Or too weak to push up the lid once it was in. I will try and get that up next. Prob tomorrow though. Work again. Poo. The same night this skunk was around we also had an opossum. But it ran away when I tried to take the picture. The skunks, literally, do not care. They will just stay there until you make a very loud noise, and even then, they kind of look up and wait a minute, to see if you are really serious, before they lift their tail and waddle towards the back weeds. Brave. They know they have the stink power. No one is going to go rushing up on that. Let me end this now with my last picture of the beautiful hawk that I got as close to as I could before it lifted off the ground and flew away. It was really looking at me. It definitely has that bad-ass-predator-air about it. It knows too, there was no way I was going to try and hurt it. It was sizing me up and dismissing me while I stood there taking the same picture over and over. Actual wild nature can make a gal feel pretty small in a big world. But happy to be a part of it. Every one have a great day! Later.
Hawk.
And two for some size reference, zoomed out a bit. He/she was prob the size of a cat maybe. Very impressive I thought. Work calls. Later.
The First Squash! Times 2!
Look at that! Two yellow squashes. All of a sudden, BOOM. squash everywhere. We looked it up and we are supposed to start picking them small. But we might let at least one try to monster grow. The internet says they will be too tough and inedible if they are too big, but nature must be allowed to have its way. If the animals don’t start chewing on them first, that is. We had 2 more good size “pickers” out there but some little creatures were nibbling all over them and left bite marks and chunks removed from either end. We picked and tossed those. Here is my most recent plant picture. Lots of flowers, lots of small, yellow tubes laying in between the leaves.
OK. That’s it for now. I have to go to work now. I will get the weekend list here with pics. I just downloaded all of them mere minutes ago. So exciting. And I had my day off yesterday which is where I got those fab veg pics from, and high school registration. Times 2! See how I did that? Not that I am comparing my children to squash, but…sometimes…when they are laying v e r y still….only teenagers, and the very old, can achieve the vegetable type of non-movement that makes you actually have to get up close to them to check for breathing and a pulse. Anyone who has been around either group will back me up here. Last picture of this post will be the stack of books we left the school with yesterday, and that my kids will have to haul back with them, in about a week and a half. Very heavy. And very hardcore. This is freshman and sophomore curriculum. I seriously do not remember having such advanced text books. Is this a reflection of the new education standards for a good life vs. the old education minimums to just stay alive? Or as pre-req to Harvard or Yale, (for extreme) example, or NU/SIU, in Illinois, as opposed to the pre-req for Hamburger University? Or was I just “special”?? Either way, I am still alive. And I have a job. Have a great day all.
13 Minutes On The Oven Timer That Rules My Life
And these children, who periodically shout out to me, from the other room, to go take a shower because they want me to drive them someplace before work. At any rate, this is the only picture I will ever be using of myself and the kids for a very long time. They are good looking and photogenic. I am not. I am breaking my cardinal rule of never having myself in a picture, because I actually kind of like this one. My daughter took it and BW’d it so I would appear more attractive. Also I am in the back, stretched a bit. This should give me a few more years play before I have to take another picture. This was from the Zoo Day that I still haven’t posted from. It’s coming I promise. And below, are 3 more pics, that you will also be seeing in the “About Us” section, if you ever look there, which I really don’t anymore, but have to, because I desperately need to update it. I was saving these just for that, but I was feeling like I needed something fast, and this was ready, and extremely general as a subject. Plus, my kids like seeing themselves when they open my page. The color version:
Not too bad of us. That’s the same zoo, just another angle, and in color. Here is an action shot, also the zoo:
But the really risky one is below. From the beach. The beach. This is the morning we let our snake go free. I should prob post the zoo and beach pictures next, now that I have brought it up again because it’s a good chance to clear out another folder. But that damn work bell is calling. I have off tomorrow, and I am going to try to post more, but it’s school registration day, which I think I already talked about, and I have an entire list of things that I need to do before the weekend, that I have to work. Bummer. And speaking of lists…I figured out how to post the BF’s weekend list he texted me. I’m going to give it it’s own separate posting so I can add the pictures to accompany all the fun we had. We did the entire list, plus more. I think I said that already too. It will be much more exciting for you, and you will really feel like you were doing all these things with us, if you can see the pictures with the words. It’ll be like a virtual reality, activity, participation, picture thing. Now you know you want to hang around for that. Plus it’s 100%, completely and utterly, no strings attached, FREEEEEEEEE!!! And you can jump off the fun bandwagon, if it gets to be too much, or take a potty break whenever you want, at any time, by just clicking away from this site! YOU control the adventure! Now in case you forgot, here is that beach picture of me and my kiddies. First and last. Have a great day!
Weekend Plus!
Benches first. At least one and some filler boards. Hansel and Gretel up first. With a nice back design.
We did everything, plus more!!, on the weekend itinerary. I tried to download the actual list as typed, but it wouldn’t let me. Or I couldn’t figure it out. Either way I don’t have time for it right now. I have work and I need to get showered and dressed so I am not running around like an idiot in an hour because I am so late. I will post it and picture it later in the day, and week, (’cause it’s that much), if possible. We tried to capture the fun of all the moments on camera, but its a hit or miss thing when we get busy and have actual fun. We had three camera’s trying to snap the action though, so something good is bound to have been caught on film. Both of my kiddies are home for the week. School registration is Thursday. Back in class on the 14th. Summer is nearly over and it feels like it just started. I’m still working on my old folder of posts. This is going to clear out a few more pics. This makes 7/20 for benches and there are three filler boards advertising the Farmer’s Market and other events in town. I like the parrot the best.
I took another picture of my garden plant. It is continuing to spread across the yard and up onto the logs. More vegetables have appeared. I think we are going to be hit by a squash flood very soon. None and then a ton. I need to start looking up recipes or something. Pictures are still on my phone. I need to download everything. That will have to be later too. That was kind of a teaser, and so random, but here are the last two filler boards:
Seahorses, coral, and fish.
Flamingo. I’m really not sure if these particular boards represent a greater theme or really even go together with the benches. Doesn’t seem like it. Florida maybe? The tropics? It sure isn’t Fairytale related. But who cares. They are here and they are posted and now I can go get dressed. Our weather has bypassed blistering summer and is now breezy and temperate again. Almost, almost, chilly. Definitely cold at night. So get out and enjoy while you can, if you can. Later gators.
Late Summer Bug Out
Late July, early August. This is the time to be careful. Every day I step outside to see some new type of bug (or snake–HA) trying to give me a fright.
Not because they are soooo scary but because they surprise me with their quiet, non-moving, oddly, and sometimes ominously, colored presence in the places that I was the day before and they were not. And because of my schedule. I get to see day bugs, like that one above, and night bugs, which seem even bigger and buggier in the semi dark of my backyard.
I have to look up on the doors and walls and down on the ground. I keep thinking that my lost snake will return like a cat or a homing pigeon, back to stay with the family forever or exact its revenge for abandoning it to the wild. As a bonus, I usually get to be the first one to walk through the webs that our wolf spiders are always trying to build across the door frame.
Yuck yuck yuck. Three different kinds that I was able to get a picture of, not to mention the countless other spiders I don’t see. This moth (?) was just sitting on my flower pot while I dead headed.
Did not move or even try to fly away even when I was shaking the planter. Standing his ground. It knows that I am not going to touch it. I mean, look at it. Eeesh. I also have some kind of giant bee or wasp or something buzzing around my butterfly flowers in the front. I am not exaggerating when I say “giant” either. It’s bigger than the average bee/wasp. Probably, conservatively, 2-3 inches in length and with a wider body. It does not sit long enough yet for me to get its photo, but, you know, I will devote the rest of the season to trying. My son just moved some sticks from our small branch pile in the back, and uncovered a swarming bee’s nest. He got stung three times. Luckily he is not allergic and has been stung several times before in his young life. Both of my kids have. I think that might be kind of weird just by itself. Some people never get stung by bees. And yet my kids get stung practically every summer. Hmm. I don’t really have any more reflecting to do on that. Just throwing it out there because I mostly type what I am thinking. The BF has planned an actual weekend for us. With a schedule and list of things to do and places to go. And I have one more day of work to get through before the fun begins. I may or may not get to post as we go. I plan on putting the actual list here if I can but I don’t want to jinx our plans so I may have to do it after and let you know what we did or didn’t do. Plus, I have to send it to the computer and download and blah blah blah. So here are a bunch of bugs to enjoy while I am gone. Have a nice creepy day.
FYI. Ending on a positive. This last bug is NOT a real bug. It’s a display from the zoo. But what if it was? Think about it. Later.
Feed Me Seymour! Feed Me!
Now that might not seem very impressive all on its own, but it is, when you consider that it started like this:
We don’t even know where it came from. That is our “big stump” pile, this bit of nature is growing out of, from when that broken tree was removed so many months ago. I came out one day and there it was. A plant. We decided to leave it because it looked like an actual plant and not a weed. The neighbor behind us has a garden and this same plant is in it. We think zucchini, squash, pumpkin, you know, something like that. Big leaves. Yellow flowers. Super fast growth. Like, accelerated, sonic, creeping, crawling, curling over the branches, type of fast growing. We figured maybe a bird or squirrel or rabbit carried one of the seeds over to our area and poof. Now we have a garden too! Mind you, we have done nothing to this plant. Nothing. No water. No weeding. No maintenance whatsoever. My thought was, that if it really wants to survive, it will have to survive on its own. Survive and thrive. It’s definitely doing that. Every day the thing seems like it’s getting bigger and bigger. When I went out yesterday, my first thought was: Little Shop Of Horrors. Hence the title above. It’s actually kind of scary. Old time movie scary. One day I expect one of those leaves and one of those long, thick stems to be sitting outside the back door tapping on the screen, holding a dead animal. “I’m hungry, Seymour!” “I’m hungry, Lisa!” Damn nature, you scary! (Reference: Tracy Morgan–SNL) And how do you know my name?? OK. Well we have been waiting to see if anything else is gonna grow off this thing except some yellow flowers. This is a good one I took a picture of today:
And then I looked closer. I will admit, as crazy as this sounds, that I was somewhat hesitant to go sticking my hands and arms into the leaves because the plant seems so Jurassic and kind of menacing. But I did. Because I am a human being. A human who is way bigger than a plant and not in a horror movie, or completely “eccentric” or insane at this point in my life. And this is what I saw:
It looks like a squash! Actual food? Maybe? Should we eat it if it actually turns into a vegetable? Is squash a vegetable or a fruit? I don’t know. It’s pretty big I think already, but I have nothing to compare it to, except the other smaller one growing next to it.
So that was my morning. Now I have to go to work. I will keep everyone updated on this gripping tale of, “Growing Something In The Wild!” Ha. Wild. More like, “Growing Something Accidentally In A Suburban Backyard Stick Pile!” Now that, is scary! Later!
Bug Close Ups. A New Low.
Why? My computer will not let me pull up and crop my bench pictures. It is taking way too long to get the images. I have to work today. This is my long week and I am impatient. These two pics were all ready to go. And they are in the folder that needs to be used. I am desperate to post something every day if possible. I guess this is desperate. Anyway here is some phone camera action for you to enjoy on WOW Wednesday. More like, Wait. What? Wah. Wah. Wah. Wednesday. I took the one above with the GS4. Stevie took the one below with her IP4. Yep. That’s it. Have a great day!
Benches Before Work
Trying to be quick before work today. I have been off for several days now and I am kind of dreading going back. I like staying home. But I like money too so… This is Little Red Riding Hood. It has a back too. All of the benches have backs obviously, but some of them are decorated with something extra. This is one of them.
This bench has texture and depth and it’s really kind of cool. The next one is kind of plain like the Snow White one, so it gets second tier post status. Aren’t I just Judgey McJudgey over here. My site. My opinions. This is Let Down Your Hair. The Rapunzel story.
That takes care of 2 more. We are at 6/20. Next up is our intermission pictures. There is/was a Dodge, now Fiat, dealership in the middle of town that always has something we like to take a picture of. So we wasted about 15 minutes there, looking at cars, while my girl complained that this is NOT what we came here to look at! She was right. Plus it was scorchingly hot on all that black asphalt. But I still took too long to take a photo of a Super Bee Charger. 392 Hemi. $46,000. Black as night paint. Called “Pitch Black”. I’ll just put those pics here to save time. The front. And the logo. That’s all anyone cares about anyway.
That should lead me nicely into Zoo pictures and Beach pictures. And also fishing, flowers, clouds, sky, birds, wildlife, and some landscape pictures that I teased with, but never posted. My goal in the next few days, (weeks?), is to get this “current” photo folder clear before it gets cold again, and before the kids go back to school. I haven’t even mentioned my summer slim down plan or what I am doing to achieve my goals for skinniness and less B/P medicine. Big fat nothing, that’s what. I am eating less. It’s only working a little bit. And very slowly. Cardio is the thing. At least that’s what the doctor said. It’s always cardio. Let me stop here and try and figure out the next post. I have to shower and do another load of laundry before I go. I may or may not post overnight. I have to get up early tomorrow to take my girl on her annual summer trip to my sister’s house for a week before school starts. And I desperately need my hair colored. I look old. Yucky gray roots. I miss my hair that used to grow in all the same color. Not fair. Then me and the boy are going to meet the BF for lunch at his work. Don’t we seem busy? Monday funday. Then I have to work all week. All week. Man. And the boy has his last week of football camp. Ok I think that’s enough of the list of things to do from one small woman in the world. If you are still reading, THANK YOU! I wish I had prizes or something, but it’s just this. Beep beep beep beeeep. Blast. That’s the timer. Measuring out my life in minutes. Load change. Shower up. Sprinkler switch. STOP. TYPING. !! Gotta go. Later.
just shy of pretty 