Deer

 

Oot and aboots

Tell me it's hot and dry without telling me it's hot and dry. Cue the toad in Bosley's outdoor water dish the last two mornings. He keeps looking at me like, "what?" Completely unconcerned with the loud, ferocious beast I'm tying out there with him. 

These were all taken this morning in the mist. We found a huge spider and I kept maneuvering around to get the best shot. Personally, I like the above one where he's on the right, looking roughly the same size as half a wren...

Thing Three spotted the deer crossing the road, fortunately sans traffic at the moment, and he whistled at them to get their attention. So kind of them to pose!

 

Happy hump day

An eagle-eyed Thing Three spotted a mama deer with her triplets while I was ogling over a beautiful morning sun. She headed for the intersection as a pickup truck approached and I held my breath as math equations galloped across my brain: if Mama is traveling at speed X in this direction as a Truck approaches at this velocity Y from that direction, at which spot will we need the turkey buzzard cleanup crew? 

A) Here

B) Everywhere

C) There

I say B.

Fortunately for all involved, she is an excellent mama who knew to STOP before reaching the intersection and those babies hit the brakes too. The truck passed, more slowly, thankfully, as the sun was behind him- it might have been a different story from the opposite direction- and then once it passed the entire family made it safely across. 

As Thing Three and I sighed in relief and turned away from the sun to watch for the bus, he spies another solo deer in the other direction, also trying to cross the street with a different pickup truck challenge. She made it as well, as did the eventual bus, all without incident. 

Have a safe, wonderful hump day, people!

 

"Lightning has just hit my brain..."

That title is from the movie "Hook", featuring Robin Williams as Peter Pan and Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook. I saw it with a posse of close friends when I was in junior high, I think, and it's remained a favorite ever since. 

Anyway, as Dada prepared a lovely bacon/eggs/sourdough toast breakfast this morning, he finished off the current bottle of orange juice. Liam protested that he wanted some, so I told him to go bring in the next bottle from the garage. He was dumbfounded that there would be more out there, never mind the fact that we store them out there all winter, every winter, as we have one of those ridiculous side-by-side refrigerators that isn't wide enough to shove an extra large pizza into, and the garage keeps in plenty of cold. 

As he returns, loudly proclaiming that he'd never noticed the bagged bottles of orange juice outside the door to the garage, in my head I heard the Holderness family spoof of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". One of my favorites for sure. 

Then it hit me, like lightning. All those centuries and lifetimes of men being the hunters while women were the gatherers. I mused aloud to Dada, "wait, the MEN were the hunters?! They can't find ANYTHING! How did THAT work? The good Lord would have had to said to each deer, 'you, get out from behind that rock. They'll never find you otherwise. You, get farther into the field because they won't think to check the woods for you.'" 

Dada smiled, knowing he's guilty of not always hunting until the lost item is found, and gave me some grief about sexual prejudice. 

I continued anyway, "OH! So THAT'S why they followed the HERDS. Even men could follow a herd. 'There they gooooo!'" 
It's all so clear now! Women would have checked under every leaf for berries and under every rock for edibles, hence the "leave no stone unturned" gatherers and the men could traipse after the herds of buffalo or mastodons or whatever was in the area. Got it!

And there's our history according to me. You're welcome. And thanks to the amazing Holderness family for speaking the truth in fun. Haha! I take no credit other than copy and paste. If you haven't explored them, go check them out- they are a hoot!

It's beginning to look a lot like SPRINGTIME!

Once again, the photos loaded wherever they darn well pleased, so bear with me through the chaos. 

Speaking of chaos, yes, it really is two in the morning. We experienced some storms tonight and our Great Pyrenees is a Great Big Chicken when it comes to storms. She takes it upon herself to move furniture and pace and pant, and when a large dog moves furniture and paces and pants, you know it. And you get up. Especially when you have pots of dirt sitting around inside like so many sitting ducks. But that's another story. 

Here's a side view of the shed showing how badly it needs a new roof. The lower side is not too bad. The very top, however, is another story. 

I know some of y'all have gorgeous harbingers of spring like tulips and crocuses and hyacinths. I get these cuties with the delicate pink veins running through them. One of their nicknames is Fairy Spud. I think that's adorable! 

Because Dada tills up the dirt in the back forty garden every year, I have to remove anybody who started growing on their own lest they get turned under. I had five of these guys, yellow mulleins, who needed rescued so I transplanted them along the drainage ditch/creek that is our back border. Someone evidently thinks he is delicious- look at all those nibbles in his leaves! We've seen a lot of deer lately, and there are tiny fuzzy baby bunnies being hidden in our strawberry patch, which seems like a dream place to grow up to me! However, we've also seen several small snakes. I am glad they're here, especially close to the garden, but that also puts them close to the baby bunnies whom I am hoping do not turn into snacks. 

Also, snakes, I would greatly appreciate it if you would please eat ticks and whatever was eating my tomatoes last year- a vole, perhaps? Thanks. ~Management

Here's the back garden with the ditch beyond it. You can just see the edge of the fence around the strawberry patch to the right. The dying cherry tree is on the left. It gives us about 7 cherries a year, haha. 

Mentally slide this photo of a trench in between the other trench pictures, because it's the middle shot. Since we live in what used to be the Great Black Swamp, some of our areas are rather, well, swampy. Dada, being an engineer, decided to help things out a little and dug a small trench to help our lowest lying area to drain to the back ditch. 

And because he's an engineer, when I asked for two openings in our already existing fence this year, he made me these snazzy closures that are just like big buttons! I'm so tickled! We used to have one large opening in the side of the garden closest to the house. Last year for whatever reason we had an opening facing the ditch as well and I found it very convenient for filling my watering can in the ditch instead of hoofing it all the way around every time. Made me appreciate  not having to run to a river daily for water and count the rest of my blessings as well. 

Dada's bane and one of my great delights:

We ran out of winter and didn't get our apple trees pruned so they look terrible but they're starting to bud, so they will be gorgeous with blossoms pretty soon. We are going to have to go crazy with trimming in winter 2020-2021. Ugh. 

I still have more dirt to play with, so yesterday it was All Pots on Deck. Some of these will hopefully be lemongrass, basil, chives, marigolds, delphiniums, and a mix of annuals that came in a seed packet claiming to be terrific for cut flowers. I guess we'll see if anybody comes up. Some of these guys are inside on the bar right now and some I tucked up against the back wall of the garage in the small garden outside as I knew we'd be having storms. Didn't want anyone getting tipped off the table...

Deer hoof prints

Drat, this is the last photo of the three trench pictures. Apparently they wanted me to show you them in reverse, haha, with the water going uphill from the ditch back into the swampy woods:

 This one followed me around while I took all the other photos and had been out galavanting around with Dada doing nature Art for one of her classes. 

"Take my picture. Take my picture. Take my picture." 

Consider it taken, kid.

Oh Jolly Playmate

Grandmama is here visiting and she doesn't know how to sit still very well. She called from the laundry room, which is upstairs, "you guys have a deer out back..."

Sure enough, someone was standing out there, looking around for a playmate!

In honor of Grammy

Yesterday would have been my Grammy's 94th birthday. She was pretty fond of critters, big and small. Maybe that's why I saw so many of them out and about. 

At the bus stop, Carrie and I looked across the street as the bus approached, and three deer were hanging out in the winter wheat. Thankfully, they stayed put and didn't try to cross through the traffic behind the bus. They were even there long enough for me to get back in the house, tell the boys to get moving and grab the camera before dashing back out to get some pictures. Sorry about the quality. This first one was auto contrasted by the computer and it helps a little tiny bit:

The sky and humidity reminded me of the mornings we experienced camping in Hawaii. Such soft pastels and warm wind. Again, I'll take it!

I heard lots of chittering and gnawing out back. This little guy was way up high, making enough racket to be easily found:

Dang it, the yellow jacket who's been zooming around in the house is still here... I am much less tolerant of bugs in the house, grrr!

Anyway, not often I get to hang clothes out in November, but I got four days of it, baby!

Something or Somebody is wearing a path from the creek to the apple trees. Or the other way around. It smelled pretty interesting to Triskal this morning, Whoever or Whatever it was.

And the poor garden is yielding dandelions:

And grasshoppers. Boy, this one was active!

What's left of the tomaters:

Still leaves on trees. And needles, I suppose. 

That's all for now. Must go commit insecticide...

Blast from the Past

 

Okay, so it's not really that far in the past, but I apologize. I thought I'd already posted these! We found a park close to our new house that we just love. Naturally, our kids being our kids, they found a zipline. Even though it was a super wet, drippy, overcast day, they had a total ball hiking in the rain, testing out the zipline, checking out the seesaw, looking for deer (we saw two, and if you've ever heard how loud our boys are everywhere you'll see how amazing that is), and just exploring a new place. I think we'll end up regulars.

 

 

"The trees have eyes!" - Legolas

 

These were taken almost a month ago. We'll have to go see how things are greening up!

 

Grandmama was here a few days to help out with our crazy schedule while Dada's on a business trip to Brazil. She's home safe and PaPa is here now. This morning we had a 2 hour delay due to fog. You can never count on getting anything done in the morning around here, hehe.

 

This weekend brings Carrie's 12th birthday and Damon's yellow belt karate party... never a dull moment!