Several days ago, about the time I started hearing a loud rattling sound it registered that the dogs were barking. I was actually on the other side of that wall, inside & I guess that's why I could hear so clearly. After getting all the dogs & the cat indoors - a lot harder than you would think - I debated what to do. The rattlesnake was not moving off & I couldn't let it stay there. I know snakes have their place in nature, & I know it is illegal to kill them unless they pose a threat to you. Since I have to think of myself, my husband, & all the critters here, I called a neighbor with a gun.
Same area without snake & cleaned up a bit. I also put some tomatoes I wintersowed in the ground. Thank goodness I live in the country so hopefully my fencing is unnoticeable.
Why I hate orange trumpet vine. It grows in the woods nearby & along the road in the trees. We have never planted it yet fight it constantly. We haven't used the chimney in several years & either the wind or a bird has dropped seeds. I plan to get a chimney sweep out to clean it out & put some sort of cover on it.
We have lived here for 24 years & I just noticed gladiolas in this area right at my property line. This area is where those huge high line, transformer things for electricity going to the transformers to your house are. The light company comes through once or twice a year bushhogging & sometimes spraying. Which saddens me because that area gets loaded with blackberries. They maintain it but it is actually owned by a man who doesn't live here. I've only heard about him through my elderly neighbor & met him once. A few months ago he had all the pine cut, leaving a mess with trees & stumps everywhere. Anyway, I took a picture with my phone & showed it to my husband. Who informed me that he had told me about them for years. (Guess I REALLY don't hear him when he opens his mouthπ¬).
I went back the next day & dug up several. I know its the wrong time but I hate to think they will be sprayed.
I'm always stopping & putting turtles in the road on the side of the road they were headed but this one was in my yard. I've always seen them as one color so this seems either younger or older maybe.
Tomorrow is my anniversary. I must remember that but right now I'm irritated with him. In his defense, he's on oxygen & doesn't leave the bedroom much because he watches a lot of YouTube videos (cooking, aliens, deep state, his interests are all over the map). I know this. And yet..... We still have Zoey, the little puppy someone dumped here a few months ago & who I'm hoping will go on a transport with a rescue to be adopted out. I've written little things from her & posted on Facebook with the tag #ZoeytheWonderDog if you are interested in seeing all the crap she does.
This morning I had 2 accidents to clean up, which made me irritated because no one acted like they needed to go out & as soon as I woke up, I let them all out. When I got home from work, this is the first thing I saw:
Please note that my husband was in the kitchen when I came home. To get to the kitchen, he walked over this. His excuse? That he had "just" picked up pieces of something the puppy had torn up. I said well, if it's a contest, I had to clean up 2 large puddles this morning. To which he said (which is why I'm ticked), yeah, I saw that & don't know why no one told me they wanted out. I told him he had missed my point (which was, if you see it, clean it up).
I bought a few Sempervivum from ValleyLynn here & some stuff from various places. I had the semps potted up & sitting on the couch in aluminum pans. Twice the puppy got to them but I was able to stick them back into the soil. But yesterday I couldn't find one & one is pretty damaged. Someone sent cactus cuttings & I left the box on the couch, thinking since the box was partially closed, the cacti were in an egg carton, & they're cacti, they would be ok. Nope. I have no idea if there are any more out in the yard that I can't find.
They were all in the egg carton so I'm not sure how the dog even got them out. This is the first cactus I've ever owned & I don't know any varieties, but I'm potting them up.
ππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππ
I found some heavy duty totes the other day that I'll be using to container garden in. Naturally I was completely out of potting soil. I noticed yesterday as I drove by they had workers out under a tarp & today the door was open, so I thought great! I can get several bags, pay here & never go near the rest of the store. Nope. The person outside walked back in & I was told that was exit only. So I decided to wait on soil because I really didn't want to walk all the way to the entrance, walk all the way to garden center, & then all the way back to the front & then all the way to my car. So I got in the car & went home.
Tried posting yesterday but had crappy service:
I had to meet her close to her home, at this church on the side of the road about 45 miles from my house. On the way, I stopped to put a turtle in the ditch & out of the road, in the same direction he/she was traveling. Too many people think its fun to run over themπ or they see them too late to avoid them. So if I see one I always try to help it along. I read somewhere that turtles live their whole lives in the same 1 or 2 mile area; that when people pick them up (even if they release them somewhere), they are always searching for their territory.
The lady gave me eggs from her chickens. As a kid growing up, my grandmother sometimes had chickens so dirty looking eggs aren't completely alien to me but I've spent so many years buying pretty clean white eggs that I have to admit, I was a little taken aback how 'fresh' these looked. What a reality check for people who would never think about breakfast coming from a chicken's buttπππ. We talked for a few minutes about wild animals & chickens. They have several different varieties & will be selling chicks soon. If I happen to get the coop redone, I'll see how much she's selling them for. My husband loved having chickens before, watching them & feeding them. We never gathered eggs from them So sometimes a hen went missing & would show up later with chicks. As long as he was the one taking care of them. Not like the situation with the dogs & the cat where I'm the one feeding, cleaning up after.
Once the rehabber got the baby opposums, I decided to go on to the next town where Home Depot is, another 15 or 20 minutes away. I wanted to get back home & mow, & its just so much easier to use a grabber instead of bending to pick up sticks. I also wanted to see if they had the attachments to the ego brand pole saw we already had. We had spent 20 minutes on the phone with someone trying to explain what we wanted. So I thought I would see if they had what we wanted & maybe explain it better in person, perhaps showing what I meant. We have the battery & the system or whatever it's called but need the weed eater attachment & we just discovered there's a cultivate attachment so wanted that (depending on price). But, we have to order them. I asked 3 different people & looked 3 different times for a grabber. I guess they were out because I never found one. As always, I tried to stay away from people but there were a lot more people than I was expecting. Maybe because they had shorter hours. However, these people were not just browsing, they were buying. I did buy a couple items. I've been wanting to try growing mushrooms so I've been looking for one of these grow kits to try. And I needed more soil to cover my potato plants & thought if I got it there I wouldn't have to go into Wal-Mart. As I'm making my way to the check out & then to my car, I'm smelling something. I finally realize its the soil I bought. Hoping that means its good soil for my plants.
Well, today I am 50!!! Actually, my twin sister & I are both 50. I have to go work stocking bread this morning but usually am done just in time to make it to church. Since we aren't meeting, the preacher does a sermon on Facebook live. So I'll watch that. It rained REALLY, REALLY hard last night & I believe I may have even heard hail. So there goes my plans to mow & burn a couple piles. Oh well, I'll start some seedsπ.
Here are old pictures of my sister & I.
About a month old
With my dad. I've written about my dad. We idolized him. He was the eldest of 6 kids. Went to Vietnam at 18, came back, met my 16 year old mother, got her pregnant, got married. A month before we were born (a month premature), his father died at 42. So he started going his mother & siblings. Two months after we were born, my mother left so he took care of us with a little help from his mother & sisters.
More pics. That's my mother's brother holding us.
One with our dad
Days like today is when I really miss him. He died at 48 (heart attack, same as his father). We were the first (& second) grandchildren on both sides. Sadly, all the parents & grandparents are gone now.
Here's a craft I did with my 6 year old granddaughter. (And yes, I know, I'm waaayy too young looking to have grandkidsπ. I also have a grandson who's almost 7π). I let Lili do most of the work so it could be something from her to her mom. This was a project I had seen in a crafting group on Facebook but was more Christmas or winter themed. I decided to change it up a bit.
The guy used a cake pan from Dollar Tree (I didn't know they even sold those) but we used an old cake pan that had rusted & gotten so scratched up I couldn't use it. We spray painted the bottom & sides red.
While that was drying we painted 4 canning jar rings black & 4 canning jar lids white. 4 solid lids from spaghetti sauce or anything like that would also work but I didn't have any. We used those little 50 cent bottles of paint in the crafting department.
I completely screwed this part up but it came out ok so no problem. We glued them together first & if I would have paid attention to the instructions, known to paint & glue each tube separately & then glued them together.
These are an empty toilet paper tube & a paper towel tube, cut to 3 different sizes. We painted them white, then dripped Elmer's glue around the rim & let it drip down. The instructions said to wrap paper towel around first but it didn't look right so I pulled what I could off (but I had glued it so it didn't all come off). Not too much glue because then it drips down & pools at the bottom. Let that dry & spray paint it white because that was faster than using a brush. We also shoved aluminum foil & newspaper into each tube for stability & so our candle flames wouldn't drop down too low.
Back outside to see if the pan is dry. It is so we turned it over & spray painted the inside.
We then used Elmer's glue & put glue around the inside of the rim, put each lid down, & pressed down.
We then used Elmer's glue to glue a black button to each lid.
I have sweet gum trees, which I hate because of the massive amount of sweet gum balls they make. These are the adult version of Legos in the floor. They will also do a number on a mower belt if you don't take them up & burn before mowing. So, we gathered them up & counted as we went so we could practice our counting. Then I poured some bleach & boiling water over them & let them soak. This is to kill any nasties hiding in them & to also clean them up a bit. Also, if you leave them in the bleach long enough, they lighten up a bit. After they soaked for awhile we dumped them out so they would dry. We also gathered some pine cones. When they had dried, we spray painted some of the gum balls red & some white.
We then hot glued the 'wheels'.
We painted the handle of an old spatula black (both sides) & after it dried, glued it to the bottom of the pan, pressing down a little. Then gluing a little to the side.
We then put our tubes in the center & then the pine cones & sweet gum balls.
We then added a flameless tealight to each tube.
Here are the screenshots of the original
