Saturday - Picture #6

Friday - Picture #5

OK, I confess. I cheated. I took this picture yesterday. I went out the back door to take the canna picture and the raccoon was on the deck eating Lefty's cat food. She was so engrossed in it that she wasn't going to let me run her off. I was able to lay down and get this eye level picture. She looks like she's ready to bite me but, really, she's just chewing cat food. (I cleaned her up too. She had crumbs all over her face.)

Thursday - Picture #4

I saw this yesterday afternoon while we were sitting on the deck and I decided then to take the picture today as "Picture #4". It's a canna leaf backlit by the sun with some leaf shadows on it. But it's been 95% cloudy today during the time when the sun's angle would be right. I took the picture in the 5%.

Wednesday - Picture #3

Weather played a role today too - a very light fog when we woke up this morning.

Tuesday - Picture #2

It's been raining all day so the picture had to be taken from inside.

Monday - Picture #1

In a recent issue of Smithsonian there was a story about a professional nature photographer that gave himself the assignment of going into the wild for thirty days and take one, and only one, photograph each day. I've decided to try taking one picture a day for two weeks and this is my first one. This one is staged but the others won't be.

We went berry picking this morning before breakfast and stopped by the garden on the way back and picked the other items in the picture. In addition to the berries, there are turnips, squash, zucchini, onion, bell pepper, jalapeno, cayanne pepper, radishes, green beans, spearmint, cilantro, parsley, oregano (standing in for sage), rosemary, and thyme.

The Painted Veil

The Painted Veil (2006) has been on our list of favorite movies since we first saw it a couple years ago. We ordered it from Netflix and watched it again yesterday. This is an excellent movie adapted from a 1925 novel by W. Somerset Maugham. The casting is perfect with Naomi Watts and Edward Norton. A classic love story with great photography! If you like this trailer, you'll like the movie!

Here's a music video that has some additional trailer footage.

Rex Reed of the New York Observer says: "The Painted Veil tells a mesmerizing story while honoring all of the classic traditions of superior filmmaking — a magnificent accomplishment that will haunt you long after it ends."

Hummers - Close-Up!

We've seen pictures of hummingbirds feeding from people's hands and I decided to see how close our hummers would let me get to them. I've done that a couple times and the answer is "very close!". Glynda took these pictures through the kitchen window while I stood by the feeder. The feeder is about a foot from my face and in the top picture the hummer is about the same distance. In the second picture, he was way to close for me to be able to focus on him. It's a close to nature experience! I've felt the wind from their wings as they fly past my face. (Not picking on you Julie - this just happens to be a bird thing.) One other point. I decided to take the pictures, set-up the camera, went outside for less than five minutes, and the pictures were done!

Berry Nice Evening Walk

One of the good things about country living this time of year is taking an evening walk and coming back with a bunch of dewberries. Glynda makes a very good dewberry cobbler and, of course, they're good on cereal - hot or cold.

One Paw Rule

We eat breakfast in the nook when the weather keeps us off of the deck and Pancho always participates in this routine. His window sill is a bit narrow and he has trouble moving from Glynda to me or back again. The sill is the same height as the table and over time we've compromised with him on the "one paw rule". We permit one paw on the table as he moves from Glynda to me and back again. It seems that he really understands the rule but that doesn't keep him from taking advantage of it when it's not really needed or sometimes pushing it to "two paws".

Another Bird Thing - This Time: Cardinals

Male cardinals are rude little guys - always running the other birds away from the feeder - especially other male cardinals and even the female cardinals. So this morning when we noticed a male and female sitting together on one of the plant hangers on the deck gazebo we took notice. Then they pecked each other's beak and Glynda thought that was "sweet". Then the male flew away and we thought that was over with. But - he flew down to the feeder, got a sunflower seed, flew back to the perch, and fed it to his lady friend. That was sweet! (They're not that bad Jules.)

Here's Our Little Veggie Garden

Yesterday we had the first vegetables from our garden. They were turnips and Glynda prepared both the greens and the turnips. Both were good! (We have used chives, cilantro, and parsley from the herb garden.) Everything we've planted is doing well at this stage although I don't have a lot of hope for actually harvesting any corn.

In addition to the corn and trunips, the garden has modest quantities of zuchini squash, yellow squash, okra (still very small), bell peppers (both red and green), jalapeno peppers, onions (about ready now), carrots, green beans, radishes, and eight tomato plants. I'm also going to try a few mesclun greens. It's an OK graden for the first year!

The Duck's ID'd!

I know you're all concerned about the ID of the duck on yesterday's post. They were "Black-bellied Whistling Ducks"!

I've got two birds of Texas books and they're not in either one so we tried the Birds of North America and found him there. They're not suppose to be here! I checked a couple internet sites and they've been moving there habitat northward the last few years and we're just on the edge of it. Kinda' neat to have a somewhat rare bird for the area stop by and visit us.

WOW! What an Exciting Morning - All Before Breakfast!

First the bird on the weathervane posed for an interesting shot, then the lizard hung from all four on the hummingbird feeder (doing what he looks like he was doing) and then these two beautiful ducks (we haven't been able to identify them yet) gave us a show moving from one tree further out to one much closer where we could better watch them before they flew off together. (I know - it's a retired couple "exciting" morning.) Click on the duck picture to see the full screen - actually, click on all three!.

A New Carport Today

Glynda's finally got her new carport. It looks a little small in the picture but it's a big 18X21! This went up in less than 1-1/2 hours. (They left here at about 1:30 and had three more to build today.)

I've been spreading the dirt around inside and then packing it down with my lawn mower tires. I felt like I was driving a zamboni!!!

(How about this as a place to serve Thanksgiving dinner??)

Making do and doing it well!

Our favorite dessert at La Madeleine's is their fruit tart. We didn't buy them too often because they're expensive - the full size is aboout $20. Glynda made this one this weekend and did a great job on it. Not exactly La Madeleine but definitely close enough. (I've got the Starbucks' frappachino down pretty well too.)

Rocky Raccoon Makes His Nightly Rounds

Rocky is a nightly visitor - checking out the birdfeeder and cleaning out anything remaining in it. He'll also check Leftys' bowl for the same reason. Then sometimes he just tears things up because that's what raccoons do. In this picture, he'd just climbed the steel post to the other bird feeder to see what might be available there. (The camera doesn't focus too well in the dark.)

New Blooms in the Garden

Top to bottom - Cherub's Smile Iris, Ixia, Amaryllis

Lots of Tree Triming Done

Our back yard and parking area look a LOT different now. Just this evening we had a lot of triming done and it's really been opened up. The plants and lawn will get a lot more sun now. One of the immediate benefits was this picture. If the trees hadn't been trimmed I wouldn't even have seen him. We were hearing a Great Horned Owl but this appears to be a Barred Owl. (We saw at least four owls this evening.)

Maxine's Wisdom

Greg's 45th Birthday

Greg and family just before Greg blew out the candles on his 45th birthday cake. We all hardily approved of Jill's selection of individual servings of Blue Bell ice cream. (That funny stack of yellow things on the table.)

Glynda and I spent the night before at their house and on Saturday we worked with them in their backyard implementing a landscaping plan I'd done. It turned out OK!
















At the party, Lillie got her first taste of some of that Blue Bell ice cream and she decide that it was good stuff!