MMM, Good Eatin'

Looks appetizing, doesn't it? There is nothing quite like the taste of armadillo on the half shell, apparently, as far as some animal is concerned.

My dogs had so much fun finding this and rolling all over it. It added an extra element of fun to the pasture play for them. The loving creatures that they are, they then wanted to share the joy and rub it on me. Can you say, "Ewwww"?!

Little Chickie Pics

Pic of some of the chicks at the store Saturday:



We picked the minimum, six, then picked two more. We put our chicks in a box and left all the others. (I didn't show all the tubs of chicks, just the part of the one.) There was quite a crowd. We walked by again a few minutes later and saw this:





One lonely, scared chick peeping for its peeps. Awwww.....

Here are our peeps after we arrived home with them. Yes, we brought home the last lonely chick. You didn't think we could leave it, did you?




The food dish did not stay in the box for long. It was to tide them over until we'd washed the new feeder and water dish. The temporary water dish was removed from the box so I could get a better picture of them. It was a tad crowded in there while we were all trying to get situated.

There are nine chicks. Anyone care to guess how many will be female, the gender we want for its eggs?

He Said It, Not Me

I have not shared this story because mainly I prefer to live in denial. The very idea of snakes makes me shudder, so relaying that my husband and dog have seen more than one snake....Well, I believe my eyes might have rolled back in my head and caused my husband to wonder if we had any smelling salts. That or I might have set a new world record for "haulin' a##."

We had only just moved in last year when my husband went for a walk to take in the beauty of our surroundings. He took one of our dogs with him. Man and dog walked along in silence.

Rustling leaves intruded on my husband's thoughts. He looked around and saw it--no, saw THEM. There was not one, no, there were TWO snakes writhing on the ground intertwined. Husband stopped walking suddenly, the snakes turned their heads and looked at him, the snakes quickly scooted off, man and dog turned as one and walked away in the opposite direction.

Your first question probably is the same as mine was: what kind of snakes were they? Fortunately they were only (a term I don't normally use with snakes of any kind other than the small green garden snakes) black racers. It was mating season, according to websites. ::shudder:: That means that they probably reproduced. Ugh. Yes, I know black racers are not dangerous. It's something I understand on a cerebral level. Instinctively, though, there isn't anything I like about snakes except a great amount of distance away from me.

Hubby has been noticing mice at the barn recently. This is not acceptable, especially because our root cellar is there. His statement was that the snakes need to come out of hibernation and take care of the problem. Personally I would not call out the snakes for such a trifle when mouse traps could work, but he likes to live dangerously. He said it. Not me. I simply couldn't wish for snakes to come visit.

Hoping to keep the snakes away, I have been out at the barn setting out plenty of mouse traps left over from earlier mouse adventure. I would much rather we have to throw away the dead mouse bodies than have snakes slithering around in our midst. ::shudder::

Warning: Viewer Discretion is Advised

This could get ugly. I may be in need of an intervention. It is that bad. It's shameful. I wasn't sure about revealing it here for people to read about, but I have a probem and I am adult enough to admit that.

It is barely officially spring yet I start drooling just thinking about little potted plants that might be for sale at the local stores, the little packets of joy (seed) that they might have. I won't even tell you how I look through mail-order catalogs or the websites with desire in my heart. They'll sell me whatever I need, but even in my frenzied state I can tell that my wish list is far too long to be reasonable. This could be a problem. No, it is a problem and I know it. Help!

Which in true plant addict parlance means, "Hand me the shovel, quick, so I can get these planted before my husband gets home and sees them!"

The Couple that Plays Together

My husband and I have been through life's trials together for a number of years now and know each other pretty well. There aren't too many surprises left between us any more. There is a comfort in that although maybe some people would label it as possibly boring.

Today he was telling me about some guys at work. One co-worker is constantly looking for sex, to put it bluntly, he is a veritable chick hound. Another co-worker suggested church to him for something else but all this man had to say was, "Hey, you're right! I'll bet I could get plenty of women there!"

I believe I did surprise hubby this afternoon when I suggested after that story, "Let's go pick up some chicks!" He had just finished telling me about the co-worker and I don't think he knew what to think when I suggested that. Was I suggesting that we go cruising for women??

What he didn't know was that I had checked my e-mail while he was talking and learned from Rurality that Tractor Supply was selling chicks. We've been talking about wanting chickens to lay eggs. When I told him about the store selling them it was a race to see how quickly we could make it to the door.

Because after all, the couple that plays together, stays together. :)

Marketing Didn't Think This Through

We have satellite tv. Apparently there is a free-Encore channel weekend going on to promote the premium Encore channels. I don't know that there was any kind of advertising done on it, which I would think would be counterproductive, but there could have been and I didn't see it. From my perspective all I saw was that, when scrolling through the viewing possibilities for our Friday night viewing pleasure, the Encore channels could be selected. Immediately I was excited at the idea of something new to watch and started looking through the programming for this weekend.

I shouldn't have been so quick to be excited about it. One of the things Marketing forgot to consider was the scheduling for this weekend. It sucks. I mean, come on. Soul Man? Maybe it was cute back in the day with the cute guy in it, but that day was over 20 years ago. Big Trouble in Little China with Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone? It was amusing--also over 20 years ago. Hm, I guess there is a reason it's called "Encore."

Let's Try Some Raspberry Plants

Finally there are signs of life on the raspberry plant!

I bought two raspberry plants earlier this year, two different varieties because I couldn't remember which was better for our area.

Unfortunately the variety doing so well is the variety that I had decided to take back. Darn. I won't be taking it back now. It wants to live! And I want its luscious fruit. Grow, baby, grow!

How Was Your Day?

It needs no explanation, does it?

No, it isn't fun, but if it can save lives by screening for cervical cancer then it's worth it.

This is my public service announcement for the month.

First Frog of the Season!

Last night was a big night for us: hubby saw the first frog of the season!

We didn't used to have frogs where we lived in the city. All those years and not a single one. We were excited to see frogs here last year and enjoyed it every time. The recent high temperatures (hubby's vehicle said it was 80 degrees today) have apparently coaxed the frogs back out. Last night hubby saw one hopping through the still-dormant hosta bed.

Let spring commence!

Great News: The Cats Adjusted Quickly To DST

It came early this year, but we set our clocks back an hour yesterday. It's the change most of us dread because we lose an hour of our precious weekend.

The good news is that our cats took the change in stride. They kept to their regular schedule and didn't miss a beat. It's difficult for them to be upset when they did what they always do: sleep. Oh, and eat. That's very important. They were quite happy when dinner hour came an hour earlier.

So even though we had to awaken an entire hour earlier this morning and dragged all day because of it, we can fear not because our cats are not traumatized.

;) As if!

I Thought It Was Merely a Plot Device

Have you seen the movie Failure to Launch? It has Matthew McConaughy and Sarah Jessica Parker, with Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw as Matthew McConaughy's character's parents. It was pretty good.

In the movie Sarah Jessica's character has a roommate who is quite glum, something about she hasn't slept in so long because of a stupid bird that has been singing all night long outside her bedroom window. I watched the movie while multi-tasking so I didn't pay a lot of attention to the roommate's bird dilemma; I figured it was merely a plot device. I try not to base real-world information on plot devices since, as we all know, television and reality are worlds apart. With the advent of reality shows that line is becoming blurred for a lot of people, but that is a topic for another post. So I did not come away from the movie with any new bird-knowledge.


The past couple of nights I have heard what sounded like a bird singing, despite the darkness. I did not know birds would do that. In looking it up, I have learned that some do. This particular bird of torture is a mockingbird. I have listened to its call on a website and confirmed the species, although the website ran through a number of different types of call for the mockingbird. This mockingbird must be a little different because it sings the same single note over and over and over, all night long. No variation for our feathered little friend. Suddenly I can understand why Sarah Jessica's character's roommate was contemplating shooting the bird outside her bedroom window!

What Is It?

The above picture is of something I saw in a tree. It's about the size of a quarter so, despite looking somewhat like a hornet's nest, it's too small for that. It was the only one of its kind in the tree. However, nearby there were more of them in privet. The ones hidden in the privet (until we cut back the privet, exposing them) were closer to ground level than in the air.

I have googled it and don't like the answer I kept coming across, so I am putting this out there for identification. Surely I am missing something else that it could be. Any ideas?

We Had Snow--and I Missed Most of It!

I am in shock that the weather forecasts were correct for a change and we actually did have some snow Sunday. It came down quite heavily and looked quite pretty--for about half an hour. The one day I was finally able to sleep late in an effort to recover from a challenging week and feeling sick was the one day this year it snowed!

So by the time I woke up enough to stumble outside in the strong winds, it had already started melting. The light (off the snow, maybe?) was blinding and the wind was so fierce it was difficult to see, much less take a picture.

We had been going to use this as an opportunity to check for tracks outside the groundhog hole but the snow had already melted out of the pasture. It was so darned cold that our feelings were not hurt by not having to go all the way out there, lol. We went back inside and thoroughly enjoyed the heater.

At least we can say that we did see snow this year, if only for a little while.