Grandma H hosted the jack-o-lantern carving. Courtney worked hard!
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Cousin Carson was brave and dug in, too!
Grandma H has a kitty that looks a lot like Willow! And she really loves getting loved on, by the look on her face. Or maybe she's just putting on her Halloween face. ;-)
Have YOU done YOUR carving yet? Not much time left!
(Thanks for the photos, Grandma H!)
Sit down and relax... it's a long process. ;-) Turn up your volume and enjoy!
She insisted on carrying the food and the water jug , but...
"Heady." ;-)
It's nonstop chatter all the way out there. :-)
"I got some new food, guys!"
"Not yet, guys!"
"These baby kitties like that new food."
The results of the poll "How do you typically pay for in-store purchases?" are as follows:
I guess I'm not surprised about the credit card votes... maybe a little about the debit cards, though, as I wouldn't have expected the percentage to be that high. And yeah, it seems like nobody 'typically' pays with cash anymore.
Thanks to all who voted!
I saw another one yesterday. Here are some different views.
(Click to enlarge.)
This has been educational for me (I'd never even heard of a Harris's sparrow before). I hope it has for some of you, too.
After she finished her cleaning job in the bathroom, I caught her moonlighting. I do believe she's a model. Look at those poses!
Truth be told, once I finally got her out of the bathtub, it took another half hour to get any clothes on her. Kids just seem to love the freedom of running around unrestricted by clothing. ;-)
I'd just mentioned in a comment yesterday that there hadn't been many birds around here lately, and all of a sudden I was seeing them all over!
I hadn't seen any robins for a long time, but this one was part of a small flock that appeared for a while yesterday morning. I hope they made good progress going south, because there's a possibility of more of that 'white stuff' in our near future. Aargh.
The bluebirds were still here all day yesterday! I managed to get a shot of the female this time. She's not nearly as bright and pretty as her mate, but still quite lovely. I saw both of them drinking out of the birdbath, and then believe it or not, they each took a bath... brrrr! The female jumped all the way in and did the whole splashy bath thing. The male perched on the rim and only dipped his head in and shook it as he fluttered his wings around... what a wimpy bath (not that I blame him)! ;-)
Below is a junco. They're plentiful this time of year. I guess he was camera shy, because he turned his back on me. But this was the only decently focused photo I managed to get through the dirty window under the deck.
Someone (Dale?) correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this next bird is a song sparrow, possibly an immature one. He wasn't very cooperative, either, and flew away before I could get a good picture.
Update: I knew Dale would know! Turns out it's a Harris's sparrow. See the comments for more info. Thanks, Dale!
And last but certainly not least, look at this nice red tailed hawk I happened to see land across the driveway as I still had the camera in my hand!
So, we do have birds, and Willow was well-entertained yesterday.
SURPRISE!! It's my little cleaning lady who was so busy in the bathtub that I could hardly get her out. I think she spent nearly an hour in there Tuesday morning, mainly using her bubbles to wash down the tub surround. It was such grand fun! I sure hope she enjoys cleaning this much when she gets older. ;-)
It's been raining ALL DAY again. I've hated to even look out the window. But I'm sure glad I did a few minutes ago! See what I saw!
A bluebird!
An eastern bluebird, to be exact.
(Click any photo to enlarge.)
I've only seen one here a couple different times in the spring... for maybe 10 seconds each. So I was shocked to see one on our deck railing, much less have it sit there long enough to take pics of it! This is a male. There was a female, too, only when I moved to get a pic of her, they both flew away.
They must've been hanging around the house for a while, and chirping, because Willow was intently looking out the deck windows for a long time... waiting. I couldn't figure out what she'd seen. But now I know. And they made my day!
Update, Thursday morning: They're still here! I saw them drinking out of the birdbath.
Yep, I'm still making buckets. Here are #'s 61 and 62. A customer requested this combination of fabrics. I like it!
I mailed them to Jess today for the Etsy shop, along with the Buttercup Bag (#41) and book cover (#36) below. The book cover was also a custom job. It's smaller than the others, for a Japanese paperback.
I find it hard to believe I've actually sewn that many items (not to mention 26 tote bags and 35 business card envelopes)! And even harder to believe that nearly all of them have sold!
My 39-yr.-old iron and Kenmore sewing machine have served me well. I hope they keep on keepin' on!
The sun! It was so bright after so many dark, dreary days that it nearly hurt my eyes!
Here's Willow soaking it up after it returned late yesterday afternoon.
I took this next pic just a few minutes ago. I want to have something to look at when a new rainy spell sets in again on Tuesday. *SIGH*
We would occasionally have gorgeous sunsets... like this one from October 3rd.
(Click to enlarge if you're needing a "fix"... or even if you're not.)
The results of the poll "How often do you floss your teeth?" are as follows:
I used to be a "What's flossing?" person until about 17 years ago. Wish I'd been a "once a day" person before that like I am now. My gums would be in better shape. I know... it's a bother... but such a worthwhile one!
Thanks for voting... and for being honest! Now floss those teeth... every day!! :-)
Yep, as you could tell from the previous post, it was Courtney's daddy's birthday yesterday. Courtney and Grandma did lots of cooking to prepare a special supper for him.
The cooking also served as a diversionary tactic intended to prevent the cranky spells that seemed to result from Courtney being sick during the past week. It worked! We actually had a very good day... cooking turned out to be a great hit. 'Course it took a little ("little"???) longer than usual to get things ready, but I allowed for that, and supper was only a a few minutes late, most of which was caused by the potatoes taking longer than the recipe said they would to get done.
Ah, I digress. Enough of that. Here's a little of our cooking process. Watch the face... she was working hard!
Look what else happened during our cooking. YUCK! At least it didn't last long enough to even coat the ground. It didn't distract Grandma's helper from her work, either!
Continuing on with Daddy's favorite scalloped corn, which Grandma always makes for his birthdays.....
Courtney was very careful, and there wasn't any spillage to speak of. Well, except for a little bit of cocoa which Grandma spilled onto the counter. Courtney got a kick out of that. :-) Oh, and Mommy... when you wash Courtney's outfit, take note of those little bits of chocolate stains. They happened when the sleeve dipped slightly into the cake batter as Courtney was sprinkling the chocolate chips on top! And when you're not sitting still, they kinda get spread to various parts of the clothing. Oopsie!
Our cooking efforts were richly rewarded with lots of raves from Daddy! Success!!
I mentioned last spring that I might toss my hibiscus plant rather than bring it back in for the winter, since it's so old and needs to be in a bigger (harder to handle) pot, etc. But I couldn't do it. I brought it in a week or so ago, and this is what it looked like yesterday. It had seven flowers. And look at all those buds! So I guess it'll be around for another season, at least!
You really should click on the link above to see how it looked then compared to now!
(Click either photo to enlarge.)
Sorry to bore you with more of these awful pics, but hey, if I have to look at it, you do, too! ;-)
No, these are not from Saturday's snowfall. I took them just a few minutes ago. Most of Saturday's had melted, but the birdbath hadn't even thawed out completely.
Notice the little white streaks... it's still coming down.
And it's not even the midpoint of October yet.
*SIGH*
Indian summer is coming, though, right? RIGHT???
But never fear... I do have some much prettier pics to show you. I just didn't get around to posting them yesterday!
This is what we got up to this morning.
That ain't marshmallow creme, folks.
(Click to enlarge... if you must!)
Courtney managed to squeeze in a little harvest time last Sunday when it wasn't raining. She was helping her other grandma and grandpa. She's always a willing worker!
Looks to me like she had a pretty fun time!
Thanks for the pics, Grandma H.!
Yeah, believe it or not, this is one of the "babies". They've gotten quite big. And 'tame'. And PATIENT! :-)
(Click to enlarge.)
I was amazed that he let her pick him up... and at how still he held for her! He doesn't even hold still like that for me! (Maybe I don't squeeze him hard enough?)
Here's a demo on picking up and holding a kitten... or at least how Courtney does it. ;-)
Well, it did go away Saturday evening for a bit. The sun was peeking out of the clouds just enough to hit the windmills, and I thought they looked kinda cool with their blades "lit up". Normally they just look gray in the distance.
You can still see areas of light showers over the horizon. It didn't rain on Sunday, but it was of course too muddy to be in the fields.
And it's back to more rain. All_day_long yesterday, with more on the way. The fields are ripe for harvest. It can quit raining anytime now. WARMER would be nice, too... we're 10°-15° below normal!
The sun also gave nice color to the freshly washed grain.
(Click any photo to enlarge.)
(My apologies for making you homesick again, Mark.)
Even if there's not much there (this is a fairly young tree), the contrast makes for rather pretty pics.
This young weigela bush below HAD more there... till deer ate the tops off of every branch the other night. Grrrrrr!
