A little help from an Angel?

My friend, Billy picked this gal up for me as a housewarming gift when we moved to our house last Fall. I plunked her down here next to the front door. I have given her no attention, I spent more time with the horses, chasing Duncan and whatnot and never got around to planting ANY flowers near her.

She took it upon herself. That little wild Petunia popped up under her legs and bloomed yesterday without me even noticing. The pink perfectly matches the other things on the other side in my recently raised bed.

Seven lives left for Bing-dot-com

Well, you all met Bing (or Bingeeee, or Bingle...whatever Duncan calls him today) a few weeks ago.

Our story starts early Sunday morning. My brother in law Mark arrived to cut firewood. We chatted in the driveway in our church clothes.....Bing wound himself around my ankles until I relented and pick up his sorry little (read FAT, gangly teenage cat) self. He snuggled Duncan and I put him down on the porch.

We got in our Explorer and headed to church. About a mile down the road, Jay looks at his phone and realizes that we will NEVER make it on time and since we only sit in service for the singing part and take Duncan out to the lobby for the service, where we watch on the TV set....we decided not to make the 40 minute trip for Duncan to be very angry about missing the singing. :D We turn around in a driveway and head the other way towards the closer town. We drive about nine more miles. We drive down our road, aptly named Little HURRICANE , because of the hills and turns. Then onto BIG Hurricane and a few more miles. Then into town. We stop at Hardees for a bite to eat. WE spend a few minutes in line mulling over our coupon using options and finally arrive at the window to receive our food.
We pull into a parking space to tear up biscuits and whatnot for Duncan. We are there a few minutes, sipping drinks and waiting for Duncan to eat without worrying he will stab himself in the eye with a spork. I just happen to look down and see a kitten walk out from under the front of my truck....hmmmm...odd? Wait a MINUTE.....that looks like MY kitten.

I say "Bing?" and Jay looks at me like I am a lunatic (as does a guy beside us in the parking lot). I jump out...and follow the kitten (bing lookalike?) and say "Bing-y" as sing-song as a person who fears iminent death for her son's cat can. He looks back...Oh MY it IS him. He goes through the railings to their outside eating area...and isn't running but not coming either. I reach through and grab him by his tail. It was less than pretty, the rescue, but I grabbed him. Luckily, he is quite tractable, and didn't bite my wrist or anything.

I look him over and besided a smudge of grease on his left paw...he is without a mark. I put him in the back and drive to the Rural King. He manages to climb through the dog gate and is sitting on Duncan's seat back and Duncan is not happy. I remove him to Jay's lap and he rides there to Rural King, goes in Rural King and gets all sorts of complements on his cuteness. I remind him constantly he is NOT a cute and GOOD kitty, he is, in fact, a VERY VERY BAD kitty.

We get home put him back at the barn and give him food....another BAD KITTY reminder...and I move on.

How, does a little kitty ride in the hood area of a vehicle 9 PLUS curvy miles. (also I do NOT drive like any grandma you know). How does he then not jump out while I am tearing biscuits, or while I am ordering or while I was sipping my drink, but just when I looked?

So...Bing lost a life on Sunday....hopefully he will be careful with the remaining seven.

Oh...and lest you think I cannot count. Bing also carries a broken right front paw from getting stepped on by a 1200lb HORSE. His carpals were broken, but Dr. Martha assures us he will be fine (as a bad kitty can be). I have caught him SINCE the stepping incident playing with the same horses tail as if it never happened. The horse doesn't care, but once in awhile he does stomp a fly and apparantly Bing is the sweetest kitty, the cutest kitty, a lucky kitty but VERY VERY bad and not VERY VERY bright.

Feeling Leftout!

I have a decorating conundrum. I see all of your Monograms and I love them.

(like this simple on on Joy's blog)
http://joysofhome.blogspot.com/2009/02/served-on-siver-platter.html

I want them in my home....but..... there are two different last names at our house. My son and I are hyphenated and my husband is not.
DH would need a big "M" and D and I need our "R". What does a girl do?

My thoughts are...TWO of us are Rs so I could do that, but would my hubby care? If I do "M" people become even more confused as I explain ALL THE TIME that my hyphen makes my name one long word alphabetized in Rs not Ms.

I have ignored rude people about my hyphen and am proud to have married both our names as well as our selves...however, THIS one silly thing irks me.

Any advice fellow bloggers?

Finding Beauty

It is simple, I think to find beauty in a rose. I however, find that beauty is everywhere I look. That is when I take the time....

To look a little closer! As wonderfully made and pretty (in it's way) as any flower. I actually stopped in my mowing to look at this little guy. (sadly right before I mowed him over).

What have you seen today....more importantly what have you missed seeing today.

Get on your belly in the proverbial grass today and look at the pretty side of things.

Surprise!

Lilies that is. These are one of my fave flowers...now faded and dying. About two weeks ago they popped up and said 'hi'. Each Spring I see their green leaves and think how beautiful these pink gals will be. Then I forget about them about mid-Summer and am happily suprised by the seemingly instantanious growth of stem and flower. I wish they lasted longer, but I am not sure I would love them as much if I had them all summer.

In our area they are often called "N A K E D Ladies" (sorry again don't want that to be a search engine hit here LOL).

a little goodwill find

From a few weeks ago.

I saw it...it was $6, I decided I didn't want it that badly....went home...thought about it endlessly and went back two days later....saying "if it is still there it is mine".

Under the harsh lights of GW it was too bright and I felt needed 'painting', but at home in my less nutty light...I like it as is. I might do a white wash on it later to make it look old, or some dark wax....we shall see. For now it sits on my GW Entertainment center that wonders when I am ever going to paint her.

Beauty even after a storm?

A week ago we had a pretty bad storm. I don't know if they ever decided if there was a Tornado touchdown in our nearby town, but if there was the path it took ran about 1/2 mile south of my farm and lost power for a few days. We were lucky, as was our whole area, no humans were killed or even hurt.

We pulled several limbs off of our fence, had a friend come and tack down some barn roofing that blew up and generally cleaned up alot of branches here and there.(here my ancient girl, Reckless, surveys the damage)

Somehow I find beauty in the work of nature, though, dead trees tumbled so that new ones can get light in the canopy, so termites and other wood-eaters can have a meal and so little animals will find shelter.

I wonder if the grasshopper thinks a tulip poplar branch in his backyard is good or bad?

We found this feather, we think Hawk laying among the downed branches. Without the storm, would I have ever found it?

Another unsung beauty of crisis...PEOPLE....everyone had SOMEONE out helping them, people were stopping each other to ask how they fared, and people were just generally NEIGHBORS on our road, more so than usual.

When was the last time you admired a green acorn? SO high in the trees, hidden by leaves? NEVER? SO I took this photo just for YOU!
However, feet, mere feet from that downed tree that Reckless was sniffing is my bluebird box safe and sound. This is the second set of eggs (that I have noted). The first set fledged about a month ago. I will go back in a few days and see if she had MORE or if they have yet to hatch.

Also this nest in a tulip poplar came down. It was likely uninhabited. It is some unknown species. everyone keeps saying hummingbird, but those are HUGE tulip poplar leaves and the nest is bigger than them...so something else builds cup nests covered in Lichen? Anyone know?

Back to School

It is very quiet around here today. I took the day off from grooming and Duncan has been dropped off at school. I can literally hear crickets.... I think it is lovely!

Here he is ready for his close-up.

A turtle summer

I don't know if turtles are making a come-back, if we just had alot of rain, turtles are suicidal or what, but I have moved A LOT of turtles across roads this summer.
I did not photograph them all. I have moved MOSTLY Eastern Box Turtles. All male but two...and all pretty typical sized. Actually the one above trucking across I didn't touch, b/c he/she was nearly across the road I just parked near her and made sure she didn't get hit.

The one in this above picture I photographed b/c my friend Rachel is a fellow turtle rescuer and it was her birthday...so this was her gift! :D

I found one very small one....smaller than the cupped part of my palm. I don't know why they are about, my guess, since most are male is the typical male preoccupation with ES EE EX (not spelling that on my blog so I get all sorts of searches).

This one I found YESTERDAY. SHE (female) was near alot of construction on one of our main roads I took her into the place I buy feed so the casheir could take her to their pond. She is a painted turtle and I had never seen one so large, hence the water bottle for comparison sake.

I did not count turtles this summer, my estimate is 20....just me. There were two already killed I got off the road, one I hit myself on a highway and one that died of an upper respiratory infection in my care. (waiting to get the the wildlife rehabber).

There is also the dove I found hit on the interstate, now living in an undisclosed location with some quail in an aviary....she had a broken wing.

What kind of summer was/is yours?

Found!

These guys (plus a few with no panes) were in my barn loft. I had begun hosing them down before I took the picture, but wanted to leave some cobwebs for your viewing pleasure!

I don't know what/where they are going, but I am IN LOVE. I wish I were talented I would build a cool cabinet for the tall skinny one!

Bing

This was Duncan's other B'day present. His name is Bing.com We have Google.com and now Bing. I figured right now people say "what?" but in a few months those ads will get crazier and Microsoft will have people typing Bing.com more than anything so what the heck, I went with it.

Isn't he KYOOT? He is very sweet and kind of 'stupid'. He has managed to get his leg injured because he thinks our horse, Jake's tail is a toy. We think he got stepped on accidentally. Dr. Martha says he will be fine, but may have a little crooked leg if it included his growth plates. Alas....should have named him "lucky".

Gifting myself

Usually I resist buying cut flowers, it seems so wasteful. I like to grow flowers, but never remember to plant really good "cutters" before it is too late.

I went to Kroger and bought a few bouquets. I spent a little less than 11 dollars. (wow aren't I ridiculous?) LOL

They definately make me smile.

Duncan goes back to school in two weeks. I have tons of new pictures and stuff to blog about. With him in school I can also finish some projects...I hope I will have more time to blog. :D