Coleus and Persian Shield

Watermelon and Dark Star



Defiance and Watermelon



Defiance



Kong



Henna



Persian Shield

Winter

We lost this old dogwood this year in a wind storm.

Fine Feathered Friends

The goldfinches love the thistle sock we hung by the kitchen window this winter.


Female cardinal cracking a seed with her bill.


Suspicious blue jay at the suet feeder.


Female cardinal with two tufted titmice during heavy snow.

Piglet

Meet Piglet! Piglet loves birdseed.

Coleus and Zinnias

I am still trying to get a decent pix of the coleus. Nothing compares to seeing it in real life. It has grown huge. "Big as a wash tub", as we say around here.





I had been dead-heading the zinnias until I saw a goldfinch in them looking for seeds. I'll leave the dead-heads for the birds now. I should have known that.

My Magimatic Adventure

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Goodwill and found an old camera. I bought it for 75 cents. I took it out to the car and was amazed to find film still in it. I took the film to Walmart and they sent it off to be developed. I was pretty sure that it was too old to develop, or that maybe it hadn't even been used.

Two weeks later, I picked up my pix and found that 6 of the 10 pix had actually developed!



This little note was enclosed with the pix.


Here are a few of the pix:



I'm still trying to figure out what type of chair this is. It doesn't appear to have wheels, so I don't think it is a walker. It looks like it has sliding beads on the top bar.




These were obviously taken at Christmas time. Isn't she a cutie in her little blue fur coat!




And now for the shocker. I know this man! I couldn't believe it! I showed the pix to a woman at church that used to work with him. She estimated the pix to be from around 1977 based on the size of his two boys. The film in my camera was over 30 years old and it still was able to capture a moment in time.

Sweet Potato at the Bird Bath

Sweet Potato, king of the backyard, feigns sleep while lying in wait for unsuspecting birds...


This may take a while....................

Here's...

...why...


...I...


...love...


...the...


lovely...


...Zinnia!

My Summer Flowers

Sweet William, a lovely fragrant perennial


One of the many varieties of Dianthus, or as we call them "Pinks", also a perennial


My very first rose. No joke. I have never grown a rose in my life until this year. This is a potted mini-rose. I am afraid to put it in the ground. It has grown and bloomed all summer.


Ahhh, lovely dear zinnia. My favorite annual. Hopefully more pix of these to follow soon.


My first year growing Coleus. What an amazing plant! Just break them off and stick them in the dirt and they grow. I think they can also be grown indoors. I hope to have a better pix of these soon. This pix does not do them justice. They are gorgeous.


Campanula or Bell flower...This lovely plant is almost dead now after blooming its heart out all summer. I don't think it could tolerate the heavy rains. This is a perennial, if it survives the rain this year.


One of several petunias I have this year. All have outdone themselves including one that was almost dead when I rescued it on clearance at Walmart. It's in the pix with Sweet Potato. A very hardy annual.


The hummingbirds love Red Salvia and so do my guys. Another hardy annual also known as Scarlet Sage. Isn't that a beautiful name?

Our tomatoes are dying. One day they were healthy and green and the next they had the blight. We have had so much rain this summer. They are still loaded with fruit. I suspect that something similar happened to my campanula.

Finally...

Our tomatoes were slow to set on this year.


They grew very, very tall.


They grew bigger, but took their time turning.


Finally! True love and home-grown tomatoes! What more could you want? How 'bout some fried cabbage and cornbread!

Where's Waldo...er...Sweet Potato

Sweet Potato loves to sleep among my flower pots on the picnic table. I had to take this pix through the kitchen window because if I had went out, he would have been in my arms and I wanted to catch him snoozing. Sometimes, all you can see is a tail sticking out from among the pots. He is still the sweetest cat in the world.

On Mountains and Sky...

Normally, I can remember when and where I take my pictures. This one, however, has me stumped. I can't remember where I was, or when I took it. I know it was on a trip home and I asked dear husband to pull the car over so I could take a pix. Beyond that, I don't remember. I think it's pretty though.

I love our mountains, but you just about have to go outside and look straight up to even see the sky here. We are surrounded by mountains. I always enjoy looking at the sky when we travel. As long as I don't see too much of it. Flat land makes me very uncomfortable. I feel anchored and protected by the mountains.

From the pilot episode of Christy...

"...Nothing in my life had prepared me for the wonder of those mountains. Smoke blue and serene, folded one behind the other. I counted eleven ranges rising up toward the vault of the sky.

I didn't realize it then, but from the very first moment I saw them, the mountains were a source of peace and strength to me. Always there to quiet my mind and satisfy my heart."

I couldn't have said it any better.

Roaring Fork

It's a busy time for me, but these pix were too pretty not to share. We found this waterfall just down from an old cabin on the Roaring Fork Motor Trail up on Cherokee Orchard Road in Gatlinburg on our short vacation this year. This is one of the prettiest places I have ever seen. The pix do not do it justice.

Happy 75th Anniversary

Mingus Mill


Bear Jam!

My favorite place on earth is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.

Random Ramblings

Empty Nest Syndrome
The last baby robin fledged yesterday. At first, it hopped across the rafters in the carport. It hopped over and sat on the rafter directly over the boat. Now normally, I would have been pleased at the progress it was making, but it just so happened that the CAT was sleeping on the boat. This was not good. Thankfully, the next time I checked on it, it had hopped onto the front rafter and then...I got to watch it fly away and make it to a nearby tree. Here it is before it ventured away from the nest.



Would you know this was a robin? They look so different than their parents when they are fledglings. Oddly enough, the very day the last robin left the nest, all four bluebird eggs hatched!

Christy is Back!
The television show Christy is now showing on the Gospel Music Channel. It's channel 338 on DirecTV. It has been coming on this week at 4pm. Yesterday was the pilot.

"Can" Supper
Last night I fixed my "can" supper...you know....the kind where you just open some cans. I made salmon patties out of two cans of salmon. I served them with two cans of Lucks pinto beans and a large can of seasoned mustard greens. Of course I made a pone of cornbread to go with it.

Speaking of supper, it's almost that time, so I will close here. Thanks for stopping by.

A New Post

A good thing about blogging is that you can come back and post even if you have been away from it for a while. I truly wish I could blog every day. It was my intention when I started this blog. Unfortunately, there are days that I just don't seem to have my act together enough to sit down and compose my thoughts and share them with others. This means when I do have the time to blog, I have to pick out all the things I want to share. The sad thing is, a lot of little sweet memories are forgotten by the time I get back to the keyboard.

So now...I need to go back through my feeble memory bank and decide what is blog worthy...

1. Dear husband and I celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary in February. I have known him for two-thirds of my life, and have been married to him for over half my life. I can't imagine my life without him.

2. Youngest dear son turned 15 in March. I don't even want to think about it. This means next year is the LEARN HOW TO DRIVE year. Let's move on...

3. Oldest dear son turned 24 in May. He has one more year to go to get his Master's Degree in History. He is back home for the summer and working.

4. Sweet Potato! Can't have an update without mentioning the sweetest cat in the world. He comes and he goes. I am still not certain he is our cat, but we are always glad to see him and he is always welcome.




5. This has been a most wonderful year for birds. You cannot know how it blesses my heart to see them in my yard and at the feeders. Currently, we have three active nests in the carport. The robin is on her second nest. She fledged four babies the first time around when she built her nest in the rafters on top of the fence stakes for our garden beans.



This is a terrible pix, but you can see four little robins peering from the nest atop the fence stakes. We took this nest down as soon as they fledged and retrieved the stakes. They fledged on Mother's Day. The following Tuesday, momma robin built a new nest about a foot from where the old one was located and shortly after that laid three eggs. We have had the opportunity to watch her feeding them and seeing them grow. Yesterday, two of them fledged. The third one was still in the nest last night. I haven't checked this morning, it is pouring the rain.

The bluebirds finally found our nesting box and fledged five babies the first time around. The first group also fledged on Mother's Day. Now, there are four eggs in the nest. They should hatch any day.

And finally...sweet Carolina wren that loves to build in the oddest places. If you will remember, last year she built a magnificant nest in the basket ball goal...





Well, this year she chose a spot in the rafters on top of dear husband's trolling motor! Thankfully, it is an older one that needs repairs and he can do without it for a while.

We have had lots of fledglings at the feeders. A brown thrasher brought three fledglings to eat and now the three siblings are still coming together to eat. A male Cardinal has been introducing his brood to the feeders. We have blue jays, cardinals, chickadees, titmice, wrens, song sparrows, robins, mourning doves, a few gold finches, a couple of house finches, mockingbirds, downies, white breasted nuthatches, one catbird, and a hawk. The hawk has flown over the yard a couple of times, always being chased off by crows or robins.

6. Other wildlife...We have one small rabbit up on the hill, several squirrels, and a few chipmunks. The squirrels continue to "plant" walnuts in my flower pots and around my bushes and shrubs. Black bears are really becoming a problem in the county. Thankfully, we don't have them around the house. Our honey bees are doing great. I am fighting slugs tooth and nail this year. I think I am finally winning the fight! It has taken a while.

I need to close here. I don't want to tell you everything in one day. I know a lot of what I have written may seem trivial to some, but these are the things that make me happy...except the slugs.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you are blessed with your own good memories.