1rst Week Of May...

We've been taking our daily walk with the dogs, stopping in to visit with Mom and Pa and taking pictures of the scenery and the wildlife. We're working on a number of things in preparation for the visit from family this summer, doing some building, and also planning some surprises for various people! :) There's always a birthday or anniversary to celebrate.

A few years ago, Pa planted a whole bunch of light purple irises along their driveway. With cross-pollination of our local bees, some of the irises have changed colors as the years go on. In this picture there are three colors - dark purple, bi-color, and a golden iris. None of these irises are the original light purple that Pa planted!

The golden iris.  You can see streaks of purple through the petals.

The bi-color iris. 

 The dark purple iris.

The valley we walk through on our way to the bridge has a hay meadow for the neighboring farmer's cows. We've seen lots of critters in the field, skunks, possums, and rabbits, mostly. Occasionally, we are surprised to see low lying fog as we go by, and when we turn around to come home, the fog has burned off  already!

Buddy enjoys the sunlight at the bridge.

Sammy snags a snuggle from Richard at the bridge.

A gathering of daisies in the ditch.

The Missouri primroses are blooming in the rocks and poor soil.

A monarch landed in our yard!

Sammy Takes A Walk...

Richard and I have had an exciting couple weeks.  We were invited to two revivals (and went to both). We've been working inside and out, Richard mowing and cleaning out ditches, me cleaning, writing and even a little sewing.

In the course of talking  with one of our neighbors she mentioned her German Shepherd was jealous of our walks to the bridge with Buddy, so of course, I said I'd be more than happy to walk Sammy with us! Today was the first day Sammy got to walk with us, since we've had rain all week!

Spring is definitely springing, we've had some wild visitors and the green things are growing. 

 

Vanessa Atalanta dropped by. We've had painted ladies, checkerspots, duskywings, swallowtails, a few I don't know the names of, and even a Monarch. However, Vanessa is the only one who stayed still long enough for me to grab a camera. 

 

A blue jay hides in the pines.

     

There's a woodpecker nest to the left of the bird.

 

The irises bloomed.

My peach tree has fruit! We had covered it for the unexpected frost but were afraid we'd lost the blossoms anyway.  Apparently not! Now, if I can only harvest before the deer get the ripe peaches!

 The potato be Richard planted in mid-February, we weren't sure they'd made it through the surprise frost a couple weeks later. They did, and we have very healthy plants growing!

   

Fog drifting in the valley as we walked to the bridge a few days ago.

 

 

Sammy gives Buddy a kiss at the bridge. She enjoyed the walk very much and we'll be walking her with us a lot more often. 

Sunrise And Some Wild Life...

We take our walks early in the morning, often walking out of our driveway before the sun is fully up. The pink stretch is the sun below the horizon, glowing off the clouds. 

It's an odd thing, but through the mile to the bridge, the sky changes colors, and the surrounding area can look completely different in the light just a few yards away as we walk.

 

Pink sky at morning.

 

As we continue down the road, the sun starts comping up.

 

Halfway down the road, the sun plays peekaboo.

 

Along the way, the domestic life takes a peek at the strangers in their midst.

 

A ground web is covered in dew.

 

Not sure of the genus just yet, I'm guessing it's a duskywing, but I'm awaiting confirmation.

I Moved The Furniture Around...

The animals all got discombobulated and had to try everything out as if it was all new!

 

Buddy tests his couch to make sure I didn't do anything to it. 

 

Christian and Emmy have the same body language and expression!

 

Then they settled on the other couch.  Of course, Christian has to stretch out. 

 

This is a rarity - Emmy and Dinah usually fight with each other. 

 

Emmy is a Daddy's girl - she loves Richard.

 

She is more shy around me, but she loves my fuzzy fleece jacket.  

 

Richard was doing something with the tools and Dinah did NOT approve of him setting his drill on her bed. 

And then there's Christian, doing what he does best...napping! I leave these pictures to speak for themselves...

 

Good Friday...

In anticipation of Jesus's Resurrection, our neighbor's cross is draped in royal purple this Good Friday.

Morning Walks...

Almost every morning we walk Buddy to the bridge.  I take pictures along the way if anything catches my interest. These photos were taken on different days.

 

This is right outside our driveway, looking east (the bridge is to the west). Sunrise was very pretty, with the pink clouds and blue skies.

 

A lovely golden sunrise, taken just about halfway to the bridge over an adjacent meadow.

 

At the creek, there's a beaver family, they've been there for years.  We rarely see the beaver, but lately, the animal's been a little less shy and I've taken some decent pictures. Here he completely ignored us, and continued to eat. 

 

I don't believe this is the beaver lodge, it's just a pile of sticks gathered together. The lodge is situated under the bank on the opposite side.

 

The beaver is now swimming towards the lodge. The pile of sticks is to it's left. By the way, the pile of sticks is now gone from the creek a week or so later.

 

A turtle rose to the surface to check us out.

 

A raccoon runs across the meadow and into a drainage pipe to hide, probably from us, despite our distance from it.

Out And About...

We had beautiful weather for the last week or so, getting up into the 70s in mid-February! I started walking to the bridge with Richard and Buddy most days. A few photos of cloud cover during that time.

 

On the way to the bridge, just around the farthest bend.

 

In the lower right corner, you can see the peak oof Mom's and Pa's house. This was looking over their roof at the pretty pink clouds of sunrise.

Around The Homestead...

 

Wispy pink clouds at sunrise.

 

A bird's nest I found on the ground by the well...guess the wind blew it out of the tree. 

 

Buddy looking handsome.

 

Dinah hides in Tayla's stroller. 

Christian does what he does best. NAP!

Reviving my blog...

It's only fitting that when I decide to revive my blog, I start with a post about the last thing I posted in 2015!

We went to the Eagle Exhibit again and got to see Phoenix and Aquila, again!

 

This is Phoenix, the bald eagle. 

 

This is Aquila, the golden eagle. 

We then went to lunch with Mom and Pa, who went to the Eagle Exhibition with us.  Pretty cool day all around!

Nature And Conservation...

This morning we went with Mom and Pa to the local Department of Natural Resources Center and saw a presentation on eagles - specifically, the bald eagle and the golden eagle.  This included getting to observe, up close and personal, two captive eagles that were injured and wouldn't have survived in the wild, so live in a habitat and go on tours to teach about their lives.  It was very interesting and we had an enjoyable day with Mom and Pa. 

This is Aquila (which means eagle in Spanish). Aquila is a golden eagle and got caught in a coyote trap in 2005 and required 3 surgeries to learn to fly again.  However, because of his injury, he cannot fly far ,so he now lives in a special raptor habitat at the Zoo in Springfield Missouri. He is about 8 years old.

This is Phoenix. When she was very young, her transmitter didn't move for 3 days so the DNR folks went to check on her.  They found her lying on the ground, barely alive, for no reason they could discern. Because she required round the clock care, she imprinted on the humans, and so cannot survive on her own.  She is 26 years old and also lives in the raptor habitat at the Zoo in Springfield, Missouri.    

On the way home, we were passing a field and saw two coyotes.  This is the male.  He took off (after lifting his leg on a bush). Then he paused and watched us for a good 2-3 minutes before finally loping off into the underbrush.  We weren't able to get good photos of the other coyote as it went into the brush very quickly.

We've been busy...

The summer was super busy for me.  Mom had a medium stroke on June 28 while she was visiting my brother in another state.  After she spent a few weeks in the hospital, Richard and I drove up there to escort her and Pa home.  They'd gone in their truck, and we brought our 4Runner so Mom could lay down in the back if she got tired.  We had a leisurely 2 day drive home, enjoying the sights, and taking our time.

For the next six weeks, many family members came to stay with me so they could see Mom for themselves and know she was doing good.  It was very enjoyable but also very busy! We had company clear into September.

In that timeframe, Richard also had cataracts surgery and his yearly checkup on his esophogeal issues.  Everything is fine, throat is looking good and he's doing great.

Christian the cat ended up having to go to the vet because he was bitten by something and the bite got infected.  He's fine, now.

Christmas came with visits from the kids, we enjoyed their stay.  Mom and Pa went to visit my brother again for Christmas and had a great time, this time!

A few days after Christmas, Richard had terrible pains in his stomach so I tok him to the ER.  They checked him out and determined he needed his gall bladder out.  He had to go in for a few more tests before they took it out, to make sure all was well with his liver and kidneys.  They took his gall bladder out on 2 days ago, and released him to go home yesterday. He is recuperating well and there are no issues.

I am still working on my goals of finishing up all my craft projects, and cleaning out my craft closet and room.  So far I'm doing pretty good, I've catalogued the things I've finished on my sewing blog. In addition, I have also passed on some things that I finished - several people got some of those quilts and some Christmas presents I made. Everyone is happy!

My goal for this year is to continue working on last year's goal of decluttering all the stuff we have.  I've made a grand start - I got Richard to build more shelves in our closet a few months ago, and we re-painted the closet, too.  We donated about 1/3 of the closet's clothes we no longer wear. We also invited the kids to take some of the clothes, and surprisingly, they did find a few things they wanted. It helps that we're all the same general size!

As I was putting all the Christmas decorations away last week, I decluttered them, too.  Threw out all the broken ornaments and lights, got rid of bedraggled decorations, and boxed up all the non-sentimental ornaments to pass on to family members or to donate.  

Today I attacked my dresser and got rid of a black garbage bag full of socks, T-shirts, tank tops, swimsuits, shorts and jammies I no longer wear.

Here is a gratuitous picture of Christian doing his favorite thing...sleeping.

I hope everyone has a blessed new year and that you and yours will prosper!