Exceedingly Mundane

I posted a picture on Instagram and Facebook this afternoon, of my rudbeckia blooming. They bloom every June, July and sometimes last a bit into August. They’re perennial and we’ve probably had them bloom reliably for over 8 or 9 years, maybe more. I take pictures of them every.single.year. I love them, they make me happy! 🙂

Disclaimer: I’m trying to be better about capturing things here on the blog that I’m posting at other social media sites online. I’ve stopped using Flickr, but I do still use Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I’m trying to remember to take more pictures with my phone, if I forget to bring my camera. I love my digital Rebel but usually don’t lug it much of any place. My phone, I always have with me, and I’ve been working on getting better taking photos. I took several yesterday of the demolition going on in my mother-in-law’s kitchen! I would post those, but believe me, my rudbeckia are much prettier 😀

We had a really nice weekend. Nothing special, but it was a beautiful spring weekend, and we spent a lot of time outside. Saturday, we stayed busy outside in the yard and on the deck. Tim did a lot more work than I did (I still haven’t totally shaken this sickness thing and I don’t feel 100% yet).

We live near a small airport, and apparently some WW II planes were practicing for an upcoming airshow, or just having fun. They flew over several times during the afternoon and I had a good time trying to run inside and grab my camera when I heard them flying over. I missed them mostly, but got a couple of almost decent shots:

For lunch, we drove to our favorite crawfish place and picked up a big bag of hot goodies: crawfish, sausage, corn and potatoes. We came home and had a picnic on our deck – it was the perfect weather for it and we had both really been looking forward to our first crawfish of the season. Here’s the before and after shots – in case you can’t tell, the before shot is pretty steamy, because of all the steam coming up from the paper bag!

While Tim was cutting the grass, I noticed a butterfly flitting around my verbena, which has one patch that has come back and is blooming beautifully. Even though verbena should attract butterflies and hummingbirds, mine only seems to attract bees. My backyard is full of bumblebees, flying around the flowers and wanting to sting me and Beau 🙂 Finally though, I have spotted a butterfly. And I had my camera out, waiting on the airplanes to fly over, so I was able to snag a decent shot:

Last but not least, Tim picked up a new hummingbird feeder for me at Lowe’s. I had pulled out my old one to fill up and hang up and he looked at it and said, I’m throwing this away. I was like, oh no you don’t, there’s nothing wrong with it and I want my hummingbird feeder. It did leak a little and was looking a little ragged, so he tossed it in the garbage. He was very thoughtful though, and bought me this beautiful new one:

Hope you had a good weekend, too!

I often post photos here on my blog of the flowers blooming in my yard. I plant just pansies in the winter, but I do plant a lot more in the spring. I have some perennials, but I do plant a lot of annuals. The older I get, the more I realize that I want more perennials, so I don’t have to keep doing this every year. I don’t enjoy the planting and I don’t enjoy the watering (watering pots of flowers here is a daily thing, because of the heat and the humidity), but I do enjoy seeing everything bloom. I don’t mass plant one flower – I like a lot of variety when it comes to type and color. My flower beds and planters don’t have a color theme. I have everything from red, yellow, purple, pink and orange 🙂

Lest you think I have a green thumb, I thought I would go outside my comfort zone and post some photos that I normally wouldn’t post.

This year, I have planted petunias 3 times. Two colors, from different stores (Lowe’s and Walmart, nothing from a nursery) – red and purple. The first set I bought lasted almost two weeks. The second set lasted about 6 days. Less than 3 weeks total, and now…. Here’s what they all look like now:

Yes, I apparently have a black thumb. At least where petunias this year are concerned. Believe me, I’m over petunias this year. Disgusted with them. So, I’m replacing some of these with “moss rose” because I love that little flower and usually have really good luck with it. No more petunias for me. No way. 😀

Howdy! I’ve now officially taken the longest break ever from my blog (two whole weeks!), since I started blogging over 3 years ago. I must admit, I’m really enjoying the break and am still seriously considering giving up blogging all together. I’m still really on the fence about it. I think I don’t quite enjoy it as much as I used to, or maybe I’ve just run out of interesting things to say and post about. After all, I basically post about the same things over and over 🙂

In keeping with that “over and over” thing, I thought I’d post a couple of the photos I’ve taken recently in my backyard. I bought some really puny looking bedding plants and got them into some pots and planters last weekend. I’m not sure they are going to make it, so I don’t have any photos of those. Trust me, they don’t look too hot right now, but I’m hoping some water and Miracle-Gro will help them out over the long haul. It’s already really hot here. Supposed to be in the high 80’s or low 90’s here for the next 10 days, according to weather.com. Actually, it will be hot here from now until at least October 😀

I posted a photo of my clematis a little over a month ago (original post here, and mine is the one at the bottom that is not blooming yet). I’m happy to say that my white clematis is in full bloom now, and it looks so pretty. I love sitting on the deck and seeing it:

We planted a couple of new lantana… one is doing well and the other is half dead already. Sigh. This is obviously the one still alive. Tiny, but alive.

I bought a vinca vine and planted in a pot last year, and then in the fall, tossed the vine out behind the fence. Tim discovered it a month or so ago and said it was coming back. I let it grow a bit, and then dug it out of the old flower pot and replanted it with a new geranium… let’s hope they both do well for the summer:

And last, a basil plant. I say every year that I want to grow herbs, but I never have any luck. One year I tried seeds, which went nowhere. One year I tried oregano and another year thyme, and nothing. This looked like a fairly healthy “sweet basil”, so I bought it. I also got a “Patio Tomato” plant and planted for Tim (I don’t eat tomatoes). We’ll see what happens with these. Question – can you make pesto from any kind of basil? I wonder if I bought the wrong kind…

Hope things are happy, sunshiney and blooming where you are 😀

I took a bunch of photos on Saturday, so I thought I’d post a few more 🙂

The shrub roses in our backyard are starting to bloom, and they look so pretty. Both of these are yellow, but for some odd reason, the last two years, one of them blooms red for a while, then switches to yellow blooms. But they were both yellow when we bought and planted them!

My mother-in-law gave us some irises several years ago, but we haven’t taken care of them like we should have. I think they’re supposed to be divided every couple of years in the fall, which we have never done. Also, I think with flowers like this, you’re supposed to have part of the root bulb exposed, which we never do. Very few of them bloomed last year, and so far this year, only one single flower has bloomed. It is pretty though!

Tim and Beau resting outside on a beautiful April day:

Our clematis is growing and growing, but no blooms yet. We went to Tim’s parent’s house this past weekend, and all of their clematis have beautiful blooms on them, though. His brother has a purple one at his house, and his mom has a maroon one… aren’t they pretty?!

Mine won’t be long, it has got blooms on it and has really grown exponentially the last couple of weeks. Ours is not a pretty color though, just a white one. Since we planted it against the house, which has red brick, I wanted something that would show up against the brick. More pictures when it starts blooming 😀

Spring has sprung here! We’re really loving being out in the warm weather and seeing all of our shrubs flowering in the backyard. It’s been raining some this week and a bit overcast, but it’s still so nice to look out and see stuff blooming. Tim has been working on and off for the last few days, pressure washing the deck, patio furniture, house and fence, and getting ready to apply our annual coat of water sealer to all of the wood. Things look really good in our back yard right now, thanks to the stuff blooming and Tim’s hard work 🙂

Here’s our Indian Hawthorne shrubs in the backyard:

And our yellow Lady Banks climbing rose that is growing on our fence:

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Have a great day 🙂

We’ve been seeing a few robins here, but I’ve been having a hard time getting a photo of them. They tend to just flitter down to the ground, and then they fly away rather quickly. From the windows on the back of our house, where I normally shoot photos of the birds and squirrels, I have a hard time seeing parts of the ground because of our deck. So, I’ve had trouble photographing these pesky robins. I was really excited last week to see a robin perched on my fence. I ran to get my camera, then had to change out the lens to my telephoto lens. I was sure he would be gone by the time I got all of that done… but no, he was still sitting there. I realized why after I transferred the photos. He seems to be a pretty old, slightly grizzled robin! I guess he was tired and not in a hurry to fly off! Oh well, at least I got a couple of photos of the robins this year!!! 🙂

P.S. Saturday morning early, I got up to let Beau out to go to the bathroom. I saw a beautiful bluebird perched on the edge of one of my hanging baskets. We rarely have bluebirds here. I have bluejays here all the time, and mockingbirds too, but hardly ever a beautiful bluebird. I think I’ve only seen them in our yard maybe 3 times in the last several years. This time, I wasn’t fast enough. By the time I got my camera, he had flown away. Boo-hoo. 🙁

Hello out there! Long time, no blog 🙂 I don’t seem to be able to think of anything to blog about. Not a whole lot going on around here. We’ve had a lot of company, my sister and then my niece, here visiting. Tim and I had a busy, but fun weekend. We were really bad and ate out all weekend. We also went to see the movie “Vantage Point” and that was good. We watched a couple of movies from Netflix too. A newer one, “Dan in Real Life” and a classic, “The Maltese Falcon”. I’m not cooking a lot this week, so I didn’t post a menu. I didn’t particularly like the topic on today’s Ten on Tuesday (10 places you’d take a tourist to see in your home town). I don’t live in a touristy kind of place 🙂

So, instead, I thought I’d post a few pictures that we’ve taken lately. Tim actually came and got the camera one day a week or two ago. He saw one of our two woodpeckers up in the tree and got some good pictures of him. Here’s the red-bellied woodpecker in our tree:

More pictures on the extended page…
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I posted a few pictures I had taken in our yard yesterday, but I didn’t post one because I have no idea what this is! I was hoping someone could help me out.

We have a small line of trees behind our fence, in our extra back yard. Tim hits golf balls there, and Beau runs around having a blast smelling all the trees and shrubs. There’s a tree that has been dropping these huge green ball things the last couple of weeks. I have absolutely no idea what they are. If you do, please drop me a comment and let me know! Thanks 🙂

Anyone know what this is?

I have taken a few pictures over the last few days of things outside in our yard and neighborhood, and thought I would post them here. We’re not having a lot of fall color, since we are so far south, but we are starting to see a little. The cooler temperatures we’ve had the last few days are really starting to help, I think.

I also bought a few more pansies yesterday, that I just finished planting. I *think* I’m through with planting pansies for this fall, although I have one more small flower bed I’m considering putting some in. My problem with flowers in the spring and fall is that I see them in the stores and nurseries and get all ga-ga over them… I love buying them and taking them home, and then I absolutely dread planting them! Isn’t that silly?! 😆

OK, here’s a picture of my Confederate Rose that started blooming about the third week of October. I don’t quite understand how this thing blooms so late in the year, with big huge blooms that are such a pale pink. These sooo look like spring bloomers to me, but they bloom in late October and early November every year. I love this one, because there was a bee buzzing around the bloom, look on the right:

Click on the extended entry for another picture of my confederate rose, some of the fall foliage on our street, and some of the pansies I just bought and planted 🙂

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We got up early this morning, to go walking, and saw that we had yet another coon in our live animal trap. So, instead of walking, we had to go relocate him, as we have the other animals we’ve caught. I blogged about this earlier (here about the coons and also here about the possum), and wanted to report on our “critter count”.

First, here’s the big coon we had to go relocate this morning… Tim says he is the largest one yet. He called him “big guy” all while we were moving him 🙂

So, here’s the official count so far:

Coons – 3 (caught and released in a wooded area miles from our house)
Possum – 1 (caught and released in same area)
Rats – 4 (dead as a doorknob, not moving those suckers)

I shudder to think how many more critters are out there, waiting to be caught or walk into the rat trap. Ewww! But, at least they are not eating as much of the squirrel’s corn (I actually had squirrels yesterday, for the first time in a couple of weeks), and are not pushing down the bird feeders every night. I have a lot of grass that is dug up from my back yard. Each time we put down the trap, the critters all try to dig their way out, so we are having large sections of grass being dug up all over the yard. 🙂

I blogged a couple of days ago about the 2 coons (raccoons) that we have caught in our live animal trap (read about it here). We still load the trap every evening, thinking we might have more coons that are knocking over things and eating all the bird’s and squirrel’s food.

Last night, it was not a coon that got caught in the trap. It was a possum. What a hideous little creature (I’ll only post one picture here because the thing is so nasty and ugly; more on the extended page). The coons were rather cute in comparison and not nearly so disgusting. Ick.

I also failed to mention earlier that even though we’re glad to catch these things (and release them in woods several miles away), they are still doing their best to tear up my yard. Isn’t there something in Murphy’s law about “if it ain’t one thing, it’s another”?!!

They are digging up all the grass underneath the cage, trying to get out:

We learned after the first coon not to position the cage near the fence – they claw and scrap and chew on the fence boards, trying to get out:

If you can stand to look at the butt-ugly thing, there’s a couple more possum pictures on the extended page. It really grossed me out early this morning to see this thing and it was hissing at me too (oh, and in one picture, you can see the blood on the cage where the thing was gnawing, trying to get free)….
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Tim checking out the hammock at Lowe’s:

We ended up eating out last night (I know, getting off track on my menu plan here, bad girl) at my favorite Chinese place, then running some errands. Tim offered to take me to eat Chinese, even though I had food defrosted for supper. I do not EVER turn down Chinese. He’s starting to get on a “I’ll go if we order from the menu and not eat a buffet” kick for Chinese, and I’m more than a little grateful. He’s been so burned out on Chinese food and me, well, I could eat it 3 times a week. He’s happy with once every 3 months. So, this compromise is working out well. We each had a huge bowl of egg drop soup, then split some chicken tempura, and ordered some shrimp fried rice. It was all yummy.

We needed to run errands last night because the seal on our shower door broke yesterday, and we wanted to replace it before we took a shower and leaked water on the floor. So, after dinner, we headed to Lowe’s. We couldn’t find the seal there, but we found some other things we were looking for. Namely, critter catchers. Yes, we have critters, and a lot of them, in our back yard. I’ve been losing food left and right to some unseen critter that Tim thinks is a coon (raccoon for any of you not from the Deep South!). The coon keeps knocking over my bird feeders and eating the food and suet. He takes the corn cobs from the squirrel feeder if I leave it out there overnight. I’ve started bringing stuff in at night, which is a pain. He’s climbing my tree branches, and breaking them, to knock down the bird feeders to the ground so he can eat all the food. It’s either one really hungry coon or an entire family. Anyway, Tim has decided to play Daniel Boone and catch the coon and then take him somewhere and release him. We found this critter cage for 36 bucks at Lowe’s and he had to have it. We also were looking for rat traps. Not mice traps, we tried those and the suckers are too big. It’s only catching a bit of them (a piece of tail here, a foot there, EWWW!). There seems to be a family of very large rats living under our deck in the backyard. Between the rats and the coon, I’m not a happy camper. So, Tim decided to finally do something about it so I would stop complaining. 🙄

Anyway, we got the seal at Home Depot, and a lot of critter traps at Lowe’s. We also picked up a few groceries while we were out. We were tired by the time we got in, and then Tim had to work late again last night. Poor Tim, he’s been working on this project non-stop since last Friday and he’s getting fairly tired and grumpy. And he has to listen to his wife complain about the critters living outside in the back yard.

This is an odd weekend for us – we’re actually staying around the house. Which is something we rarely do. Tim gets cabin fever after hanging around the house for a couple of hours on the weekends, so we inevitably end up going, going, going all weekend, every weekend. This weekend, though, he is working on a project at work and working at night, and on call for the rest of the time, so he’s rather forced into staying here. Me, I love it! It’s something we never do and something I wish we could do more.

Anyway, it makes for even more boring blogging than usual. 😛 We’re just hanging out, watching TV and movies, reading (me), hitting golf balls (Tim) and …. he cut the grass Friday PM. Nothing unusual about that, he cuts the grass once a week in the summer. However, this time was a bit different. One of our neighbors has a riding lawn mower and wanted Tim to borrow it and test it out. Now, if you’re familiar with our house, it’s small and our yard is even smaller. I bought this house expressly for those reasons – less to clean and heat/cool on the inside and less yard work to do on the outside. I used to cut the grass and weed-eat before I met Tim and the yard was a manageable size for me. Which means it’s a snap for Tim to keep up. Which also means, a riding mower is overkill.

If you want to see pictures of Tim on the riding mower, and also the hummingbirds that are swarming our feeder this afternoon, click on the extended entry. Hope everyone is having a great weekend! 🙂

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