Mini rose

A year ago last March(?) I went to a bridal shower. There were a few games, and because I play a lot of Word Warp on my iPad I won a little mini rose bush by playing a word game. I put it outside last summer, and it did quite well. I didn't bring it into the house in the fall, but surprisingly it survived the winter! Here's what it looked like a couple weeks ago, right after a rain:

By the 4th of July, it had produced another bud and looked like this:

Yesterday morning it was almost fully open:

HOWEVER, my little bush had a definite problem. As you can see below, the second bud was gone...

... and the stems were bent over at a 90° angle:

The second bud was on the ground directly below its stem. It's right at the point of the amaryllis leaf above. Hmm... what happened to my poor little rose?!

Chances are, these littles may have had something to do with it:

Possibly?

That's a guilty retreat if I ever saw one:

I'm not totally sure it was them, though. They are rarely on that side of the house, and they haven't damaged anything else. There is also a somewhat smashed impatiens plant, which I'm pretty sure was due to an adult cat fight I heard a couple of nights ago. It could've happened at the same time, although I didn't notice if the rose stems were broken at that time or not.

I'll proclaim the kittens innocent until proven guilty, though. I love my kittens more than my flowers, anyway. ;)

Independence

Happy Independence Day, everyone! Because I haven't seen any fireworks yet this year, I'll show you the collage I made of last year's. :) Click on the collage to enlarge it, and enjoy!

And what fun would today be without a kitten update?! What are these littles doing... watching fireworks themselves???

Maybe Aggie's pointing out her favorites:

Reaching... reaching:

Calisthenics, perhaps???

Nope. Just watching Mama Rainbow, and wishing...

Purrl's getting the idea:

What they really want is to be able to get up there and drink out of that huge water bowl like Mama's doing!

It won't be long. They're getting bigger and more... ahem... 'independent' every day. ;)

Happy Holiday, folks! Hope you're doing something fun today, and maybe even taking in some fireworks somewhere tonight! Enjoy!

Just pretty

Some flower photos I took awhile back and didn't get posted......

Osteospermum:

Non-stop begonia... not the best photo, and it's a little splattered with rain and soil, but so full! I don't think I've ever had one with so many blooms at once as this one has:

And the lovely dahlietta:

I'm glad I took those pics when I did, because the osteospermums and dahliettas have almost stopped blooming, for some reason. Maybe they don't like our crazy weather. I don't, either, as a matter of fact. Nice days are too few and far between.

Really, Sammy... PINK?!

Kittens always seem to love the little "puffball" toys, and Sammy is no exception. He had a great time with this pink one, all by himself.

The boot cleaner also seems to be a favorite place to play.

Do you know what this is?

Three or four years ago, I noticed a new plant growing on the north side of our row of lilac bushes (probably "planted" there by a bird as it... well... you know). At first I thought it was wild raspberries, and I was delighted. But it didn't turn out to be that, and I've continued to wonder what it is. This year as I mowed past it one time, I noticed that it was very full of blossoms... little insignificant-looking white blossoms, hanging down.

It suddenly dawned on me a few days ago that I should take pictures of it and try to figure out what it is. Thanks to all the rains, the mosquitoes are terribly thick this year, and the north side of the lilacs is one of their favorite spots, so I went out in full sun, thinking they wouldn't be so bad. Wrong. They were awful! It was like a Deep Woods Off commercial! I had to take pics really fast or get eaten alive, so the photos aren't the best. But here's what the bush looks like now. Maybe someone can help me identify it (Grace?).

A cropped close-up of the leaves:

And the berries as they look now:

I did lots of Googling. Finally, in the process of writing this post and searching some more, the closest I could come was a wild black currant, as shown here. Whaddya think? Is that it? Anybody else have bushes like this?