Feeding Time

It just doesn't get much better than this!

Garden Beauty

Found this beauty in one of my flower gardens the other day. Nice surprise!

The Weekend

This was Memorial weekend and we stayed busy. Jordan and Elizabeth came up to the mountains to go camping. On Sunday they came by my mother's house for a visit and we met them there. On Monday they came by the RV to see where we are living right now. It was fantastic to see them again. We had a cookout for lunch... burgers and hot dogs etc... Later, after they left we had several of our neighbors over for BBQ ribs. It was a fun weekend.

Jordan and Grandma have some special time together

beautiful Elizabeth

Jordan and Grandma

Elizabeth and Jordan

First Look

We got our first look at the little baby birds today. We invited several of our neighbors over for a BBQ ribs cookout for dinner tonight and while we were visiting we saw the little birds come up to the opening and peep out. I grabbed the camera and snapped a few pictures. They are so ugly they are cute. We have also discovered that both the mother and father are feeding them.

We Have Babies

Grasshoppers, worms, crickets...OH MY! An Eastern Bluebird has moved into one of our bird houses and the house is now a home. Yesterday I noticed wonderful sounds coming from the bird house and saw the mother bird there perched outside with food in her mouth. All day long she made trips every few minutes with some sort of insect in her mouth. As soon as she lands on the perch the babies start singing. This morning she is at it again. The sounds are so sweet. So far we have not bothered to look inside for fear we may scare the mother away for good so for now we are enjoying watching her bring food to her babies and listening to the beautiful music nature is providing for us. Below are a few of the many photos I took of mother bird yesterday.

Little Silkie Chicks

Thursday was Hannah's 8th birthday and I picked her up after school and we visited my mother for a few hours. Mom has recently obtained two tiny silkie chicks and Hannah enjoyed playing with them. They are so cute and Mom is thrilled to have them. When they are grown they will have feathers on their feet. Right now they are yellow but as they grow they will turn white.

Enough Already!!!

David has always horded wood. It is some sort of compulsion with him, he can never have enough of it around. Years ago we had a wood stove for heat in the winter time and even then he was always gathering any wood he could find. Last year when we were camping at Lake Hartwell he would scour every campground we stayed at picking up all the wood left behind by other campers. It was awful! We ended up packing wood with each and every move we made from campground to campground. We didn't need it but if it was available he grabbed it and added to his pile. He would unload it all only to reload and move it every 14 days. Now we are at a more permanent RV site and we have a small chiminea for fires on Friday nights. I said a "small" chiminea! I thought we have enough wood to last for a very long time. Then today David came home with yet another truck load of more wood! It was free so he had to take it. Good grief! Enough Already!!!! It is a sickness I tell you... a real sickness! We now have piles of wood everywhere.

pile #1

pile #2

pile #3

pile #4

piles #5, 6 & 7

and now with another truck load he is going to add to the piles!

ARGH!

Fuschia Beauty

My fuschia plant is full of blooms and buds. It is so pretty so I thought I would share a little beauty with you today. Hope your day is wonderful and full of beauty.

Sunshine and a Dragonfly

OK, so it has been rather boring lately and I have nothing worth blogging about so... you are being treated to more of my garden flags today. Lucky you!

Here a Chick... There a Chick...

Everywhere a chick, chick... You may recall that a few weeks ago I posted some photos here of the little chicks that my parents had just received. I saw them again last week and my have they grown! Below are a few photos of the same chicks. They have now been moved to their fancy coop outdoors.

Hey Jamie, check out that chicken foot... that would be a delicacy in the Dominican Republic!

Cards 101

Well, a little research provided a ton of info on playing cards. It is believed that playing cards originated in China around the 10th century AD. The three cards we know as the KING, QUEEN and JACK are the KING, VICEROY (or CAVALIER) and SECOND VICEROY (or KNAVE). Here are a few things I discovered about the various suits in different countries.

Arabic: coins, cups, swords, polo-sticks

Spain: coins, cups, swords, cudgels

Germany: hearts. leaves, acorns, bells

Switzerland: acorns, bells, roses, shields

France: diamonds, hearts, clubs, spades

Italy: coins, cups, swords, cudgel-shaped batons

Apparently we use the French version here but when I have been in France all the cards I have seen do not have these suits. For anyone interested in learning more or seeing pictures of the various suits and how they have evolved click here: CARD HISTORY

One more interesting thing I discovered... the cards we have from Spain only contain 48 cards in the deck rather than 52. The 10's are actually the second viceroy/knave cards.

Regalos de España

My sweet sister, Debbie, brought back a couple of gifts for us from her recent trip to Spain. My gift is the cutest wine bottle apron. It is made to look like the traditional Flamenco dancers costumes of Sevilla, Spain. It is absolutely adorable. She brought David a pack of playing cards. The picture on the front of the cards is of a bull fighter. Ronda, Spain is well known for the beautiful bull ring there. The cards are different from most we see here in this country as you can see in the last photo. Thank you Debbie, you are so thoughtful!

wine bottle apron

wine bottle apron and playing cards

showing are the "king" cards, the remaining cards of the deck are in a stack with the front side showing.

from the left to the right I "think" they are spade, diamond, club and heart, however the spade looks more like a sword and the heart doesn't look anything like a heart

now here is the funny part, check out the "queen" card in the middle! The cards we would call queen are of males on a horse. Showing are the "king", "queen" and "jack", perhaps they call them something else in Spain.

Caught in the Act

We hung four bird houses a few weeks ago and had not seen any signs of birds occupying them. On Saturday we both worked outside all day and I kept seeing an Eastern Blue Bird flying back and forth to one of the bird houses. I could never see it actually go inside but it would fly there and land on the little perch, sit for a few seconds then fly away again. This went on over and over. Finally I walked over to the empty lot next to our lot and just stood there watching for a while. Sure enough the little bird came back and was going in and out of the bird house. At one point it sat inside with just its head peeking out and I felt it was time for the camera. Sorry to say the photo I managed to get was not the most flattering but I did catch it in the act of actually going in the birdhouse. I hope the other houses are as active. I want them all full!

Tiny Turtle

Look what I found today! I spent some time weeding my flower gardens and was putting up my gloves and tools when I saw this little guy. He is tiny! I have never seen one this small out in the wild before. I picked him up and he quickly withdrew into his shell and took his dear sweet time in poking his head out again for me to take some pictures. I put him in one of my gardens and after he felt safe enough he took off. I have never seen a turtle move as quickly as this one does, nothing slow about him! I don't know if he'll like staying in the garden or not but for now that is where he is. I hope he will hang around.

this will give you some idea of his size, slightly larger than a quarter

Simple Pleasures

Over the years I have become disgusted with how unflavorful fruit is these days. It seems everything is genetically or chemically altered, grown to be bigger and prettier but has no taste whatsoever. Sometimes I crave the taste of a small, sweet, ripe strawberry but most of what I can purchase is huge, partially green and no flavor. I always purchase organic when it is available but even then the taste is not as flavorful as I would like. Well one day this week I saw some tangeloes in the grocery store and bought one. I didn't want to buy more than one since I wasn't sure how it was going to taste. I just finished eating it and to my surprise it was absolutely delicious! It was juicy and bursting with wonderful orange flavor. I savored every single bite. It is those simple pleasures that make life so grand.