Autumn cuteness

I believe this is called a "catonpillar".

Must be a type of wooly-bear. Probably indicates a very cold winter ahead.

Do you think it'll turn into a butterfly?

More Autumn adorableness....

Oh, how I wish I could get my hands on her! :)

Open Wide Pouch

I bought a little camera cleaning kit recently from Amazon. 

Here's what was in it.

I needed something to store it in, like a little pouch of some kind, but this piece is what presented the problem:

No flat pouch would do. It needed to be something kind of wide to hold that air blower tool (no, it's not a baby booger sucker!).

Recently I've read a couple of blog posts about a cute little pouch that sounded like it would work well. It's the Open Wide Pouch, from a free tutorial by Noodlehead.

I decided to use up some fabric from my stash, which for some reason contains mostly Jessica Jones fabrics. This is from one of her earliest lines, and it's called "Sunflowers" (and is now sold out).

The photos make the color look black for some reason, but it's actually a dark brown.

The lining and zipper tab are from a fabric Jess gave me, but she didn't design it. This next photo shows it slightly more brown instead of black.

Here's the wide open inside... it's getting browner (but the sunflowers are too pale)! I usually sew up a lining like that by hand, but this time I was lazy and sewed it by machine, as you can probably tell. Not a big deal, especially since it was just for me.

It was a perfect fit, as I'd hoped. Below is everything nestled into its new pouch.

The pouch is small, like only about 5½ inches across at the bottom. But there's a link in the tutorial for 2 larger sizes. It was quite simple and quick to make. I sewed it together (after having already cut it out) in an evening after supper. Just a note if you decide to make one of these, the tutorial calls for a 10" or longer zipper for the small pouch. A 9" one will work just fine. I was going to use a 9", but ended up using a 14" (and cut it off), just because the brown matched better.

Now just to use that cleaning kit to get rid of those little fibers that have been bugging me when I look through the viewfinder! At least they don't show up in my photos.

Fun on the deck

Ahh... how I love having kittens to watch on the deck again! I've missed Rainbow's kittens so much, but finally I have new bouncing babies. And they were certainly going at it late Wednesday morning! Here are 3 little video clips so you can watch the fun, too. (If you can't see them on your tablet, it's probably because you don't have Flash, so head to your desktop computer and watch from there. Sorry about that.)

Did you notice the white one jump right over Mama? Ha!

They sure do keep their mama busy. Bath time's a challenge, too:

That little "hmm?" you heard was Annabelle. She was enjoying the show, too.

Remember how Purrl had her own style of drinking? This little furball has an unusual one, too. Must be a calico thing. ;)

By the way, I've named her Autumn, because of her lovely colors. I've named the others, too. Tell ya later....

Just one photo

Due to the photo overload of the last few days and because there's something else I want to spend my time doing, you only get one pic today. Sometimes we just need to slow down and enjoy the peace while it lasts, so here's a lovely sunset for you from last week. It looks much better enlarged, so click on it to expand your enjoyment.

Ginger

There's a new member in Courtney's family! It's NOT a kitty! It's a 7-week-old puppy! Courtney just got her on Sunday. Her name is Ginger. I took Courtney home after she'd spent her after-school time here with me yesterday, so I could meet Ginger. She's a very nice little gal, but pretty wiggly and hard to photograph. :) Here are a couple of the best shots I got:

She was very happy to see Courtney when we got there.

It helped a lot to have Courtney hold her. Here's a sweet shot... just look at those faces!

Of course Courtney's kitties won't get slighted. They'll still get plenty of loving... like here with Zoey. Two sweet faces again. Izzy was there, too, but she didn't happened to get in front of the camera.

I'm sure the future will hold plenty of fun and snuggling, indoors and out (Ginger will live outdoors). And in case you wondered, Ginger is a beagle/Australian shepherd cross.

A fun surprise!

This post has been updated yet AGAIN! See waaaay below!

This post has been updated. So if you saw it before, check again at the end of the post. :)

Some of you may recall that my Mama kitty lost her first litter of kittens to a tomcat's evil ways. Poor thing. Well, as cats do, she got pregnant again soon after. I knew she'd had a new litter a few weeks ago, but I figured they were at the neighbor's, as that's where she's had them the last couple years or so. She'd been around here herself a lot lately, and I kept telling her to bring me her babies so I could see them. I knew she would eventually. She always does bring them here when they get bigger and leaves them for me to feed. Hmm.

Sooo..... I was surprised - but not too surprised - to see this sight Saturday morning:

(Did you notice anything familiar-looking there? Keep that thought.)

He (she?) was sure a hungry little thing.

Later he was up on the deck, and even peeked in the window, but he was moving too fast for a good photo.

Later yet, he and Mama were napping on the deck step. I sneaked out the door with the camera. Of course Mama heard me and got up to come to me. Baby started following her, and I snapped this just as he saw me:

Yeah, he's very wild and didn't stay around long! Zoom, and he was gone!

But doesn't that nose remind you of Georgie? :)

Late afternoon brought them both to the deck again. And he was hungry again!

Then they left, and I haven't seen him since. :(

Mama's been back, but no babies. It's very likely she has more. I wonder which she'll bring next... and what color it'll be. If I can get a pic, I'll show you!

*********

Well, I get to update this post before it even gets published! I wrote it Sunday afternoon and scheduled it to post this morning. But yesterday afternoon I had another surprise!

Look! A Sammy look-alike, too!

And look next to "Sammy"!! Is that an adorable face or what?!

Yep, three!

Plus one more, a dark orange one, that disappeared and didn't come back.

This little calico gal has won my heart already!! Isn't she gorgeous?!

They have such a good mama. She always takes great care of her babies.

Now... if only they were tame so I could cuddle them! I have NO kittens to cuddle right now. Boo. I'm working on my little silver tabby. Sunday I was able to pet her for quite a while... and then she woke up and was instantly gone! Ha! Stinker.


Update: They were ALL here this morning, so here's Punkin (Punk for short) - so named already by Jess, since I proclaimed it hers, along with Bert and Betty. :)

And the whole crew at breakfast:

Oh, gee... one more photo. As I'm sitting at the computer in the basement writing this, the babies started peeking in the window under the deck. Annabelle was up there on this side of the window going nuts, and I just had to snap a pic of Punkin... growling like crazy! Pretty brave, little Punk!!

Okay, I'd better call it quits and get something else done today! I foresee lots more fun (and photos) ahead, though.

Update to the Update: Well, so much for getting anything else done. LOL Mama brought one more!

And while we're at it, a better look at the front end o' the Punk...

... just before she and "GeorgieII" took off. :)

I think this post should last the rest of the week, don't you? ;)

Or not. If my plan works out, there'll be another surprise tomorrow... and it WON'T be a kitten. Of course if Mama brings another one, I'll have to post that, too....

One more monarch

I've helped add one more monarch to the almost-endangered species! One of my chrysalises hatched early Friday morning. I didn't see it happen, but I've seen enough of them hatch to not feel bad about missing this one. It's really very cool, though, so watch one if you ever get the chance (although you have to be right there ready, because it happens very fast).

It was not the greatest day weather-wise to be a new butterfly. It was very windy and somewhat foggy in the morning, but at least it got up to about 80° in the afternoon. I took my butterfly outside on the north side of the house (wind was from the south) and set it free. It was not eager to let go.

I put it on my impatiens plants, and later in the day it was gone.

Okay, you've probably had your fill of monarch photos. ;) That'll be all for this year, even though I have two more to hatch yet. They'll look the same. Isn't it amazing, though, that every monarch has identical markings? Every dot and every line, the same. A friend happened to send me photos of one the same day I took these. Our butterflies matched perfectly! :)

No more monarch photos, but I do have something cute and new to show you tomorrow. It might not look new, but it is! ;) Be sure to come back and see!

Wild sunflowers

Oh, dear... another photo-heavy post. But hey, that's what this blog is about, right? "A Photo's Worth a thousand words"! So I'll let the photos do most of the talking today. 

I actually took these three weeks ago, and every time I've thought about posting them, I didn't know how to narrow them down, because I love how they turned out, and I couldn't decide which ones to eliminate! The subject is all the same... wild sunflowers, of which we had a lot alongside our driveway, and the evening sun was just right for photographing. So here ya go... ENJOY!

Oh, yes... I have a lot more. :) But ya get the idea.....