Flash Black: 2009

October 20, 2009

First Grandbaby

Nurse, quit messing with me!

I want to sleep.

She's still bothering me.

Mama, soothing my feelings.

I'm still sleepy, but a bit more comfortable with Mama.

Here's looking at you, Mama.

Ahhhhhh. I can sleep again safe in Mama's arms.

October 16, 2009

NOAH

Born Oct 15, 2009

5# 13 oz 20" long

Only 15 minutes old here and on the way to nursery for signing into this world with his daddy.

Oct 16, 2009

October 09, 2009

Mr. & Mrs. Woodpecker

The big question: Hairy or Downy???

Here's the male with his mouth full of suet.

Now, it's her turn.

Enjoyable visit with these two.

They seem to be regulars and are always welcome.

September 06, 2009

Exciting Morning

Exciting things can happen when enjoying a

beautiful morning on the deck with a cup

of coffee AND your camera.

We have three Pileated woodpeckers

in the woods behind our house but it's been

difficult to obtain photos of the family.

Here's the youngster, I think.

Today, it was different!

September 04, 2009

60 Second Flower Bed

Well, it only takes 60 seconds on TV!
My inspiration for this actually comes from

watching the programs on the DIY network.

It looks so easy when they redo a whole yard in a day.
It ain't that easy!

Here's the view from the street. Mother Nature, alias SWMBO, decided she wanted a new bed to move some azaleas that are crowding the walkway. The azaleas are in the background on either side of the tree.

Here are the ones to be removed and

digging them out was not a fun job.

Probably been here for 15 years now.

My orders were to make a bed around this ornamental peach tree, four feet wide from the tree. Knowing Mother Nature so well, I decided five feet would be better than four. She did approve after it was done. With my handy tape measure, garden hose, and stakes, I made the outline of the bed.

Here comes the weed eater to scrape all the grass down to the dirt. Works like a charm. One of the best investments I've made over the years is this Troy-built with a 4 cycle engine. It starts on second pull every time and has many attachments for us

"tool guys."

Then it's just follow around the hose.

All is working well until I ran out of gas!!!!

Off to the store for more and believe me,

by this time I needed a break.

Finished up the grass removal.

Now it's clean up time with trimmings going to the compost bin.

Hole digging time and with another attachment

to the Troy-built machine, it's sooooo much better

than that old shovel and faster.

Note how quickly the landscape fabric was installed

and pinned down with little or no effort.

It just magically appeared like on TV.

One plant in, one to go.

Plants in and watered and now time for mulching.

Waa Laaa! It's done!!!!!!

And there's room for hostas

in front and back.

I know Mother Nature is already planning

what else is going in there.

Now, the after picture from the street.

Behind the scenes, this "little" project started with coffee at noon but quickly progressed to biiiig glasses of iced water and lots of breaks for this old guy to the finish at six o'clock. If you're thirty-ish or so, go for it. At my age, pay someone thirty-ish to do it for you.

MY MOTTO:

Dig a flower bed once.

NEVER mow that area again.

And then, I collapsed for the night.

The end....

Nope, SWMBO has already pointed out more azaleas to be moved into the new bed PRONTO!

And so it goes..............

September 03, 2009

HIGH LIMB ANTICS

Sitting on the back deck,

something caught my eye.

It was this sight of a squirrel

feasting on the dogwood seeds.

I zoomed the camera in a bit

to see what was happening.

And, here it was having a meal

while hanging from

a limb with it's back feet.

It would swing over to the seeds

on the tips of the branches

with a few gymnastic movements.

Grab a seed or two.

And resume eating his feast of dogwood seeds.

August 25, 2009

Watchin' the Radio

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Shelling peas brings back memories from the past. While shelling, there is nothing distracting and other folks seem to kind of disappear not wanting to join in. Leaves lots of time for thinkin’ and plannin’ stuff. Not world changin’ things, but important stuff that’s hidden way back in your mind.

As I remember the “good ole days” of Summer, it meant sittin’ on the living room floor, windows and door opened, attic fan sucking in the cooler air of a warm Summer’s night, bowl between my legs, newspaper spread out for the shells and shellin’ peas. Mom on the couch shellin’ and Dad in his recliner just thinkin’ or whatever ole guys do, and all three of us just watchin’ the radio. What a radio it was, big Philco console with numerous bands where one could get stations that didn’t even speak English. Big antenna in the back that consisted of wires strung around two boards that rotated for better picking up the signals.

We’d get settled into our spots and begin shellin’ and watchin’ that big ole radio on a Saturday night. One could see Fibber McGee and Molly and Jack Benny live and in person. What a treat it was, just shellin’ peas.

The ole Philco did go on the blink now and then and Dad would go into the back and pull a tube or two for me to go to Crain’s Store to get a replacement tube. They had the big tube tester which also had drawers full of radio tubes. Even a child could operate it and find the tubes that needed replacement. What a trip, rode my bicycle the two blocks to the store and got to play with an electronic miracle, the tube tester. Sometimes it even took several trips to get the right tubes, a real treat. And when, after the trips to the store, with the right tubes replaced, we could gather in the living room, shell peas, and watch the radio.

What brought this on, well, I was on the back porch shellin’ peas and watching the radio in my mind.