Blossoms, Seeds and a finicky eater

I'll start out with the pretty blossoms behind my back door :

That's the back door to my apartment - I love to sit outside,  listen to the bees and smell the blossoms while reading a book or crocheting a little something just for fun! (with Gizzy by my side, of course!)

That's my South Georgia snow - I'm constantly sweeping blossoms off the back porch, but I don't mind!

I apologize for not being a very active blogger, but I know you understand that this is my only opportunity to enjoy the outdoors before it starts getting too hot again!

I also planted some lettuce seeds last week so that I can (hopefully) keep in fresh lettuce and maybe lose some weight this summer:

I planted these seeds last Monday and after keeping them moist and in the sunshine, one short week later, they have sprouted, look:

I'm so excited, I feel like a mother hen when her chicks have hatched. 

As soon as they grow a bit larger, I will put them in planter boxes and hanging pots because this is not the place to grow vegetables on the ground (apartment living, stray cats and wild critters.)

Lettuce have a pretty shallow root system, which should work well for container gardening. I will start more seeds in another week to keep them growing in intervals for a constant supply of fresh lettuce - at least that is my plan.

Now to my finicky eater - yes, the Gizz!

Can you believe that?

He fights me tooth and nail, but when I allow him to skip meals and wait till he gets hungry, he gets sick and vomits, so that won't work for me.

Doesn't he just look pitiful in that bib? But if I don't use it on him, all the food ends up in his fur around his neck.

The first thing he tries to do is cover the food up with whatever is available, a towel, a rag, whatever, just to let me know he's not interested. If he's on the floor, he shoves the plate all around the room with his nose until it ends up somewhere under a chair or the table...I have taken to hand feeding him, which does not help, but it's better than cleaning up puke... 

Sometimes he eats on his own (without the bib) but mostly it's been a struggle.

As I sit here typing with the apartment wide open, I hear the birds singing and chirping and my neighbor's wind chimes ringing since we have a very nice breeze today - Gizzy is snoring and I'm going to make another pot of coffee (I just have a small coffee maker.) It's going to be another beautiful day.

I wish you peace!

P.S. Have you guys voted yet for my crochet team's challenge called "Singing in the Rain" ?  I crocheted the blue bird holding the yellow umbrella (see side bar), but please feel free to vote for your favorite entry!

Singing in the Rain 

Thank you very much and have a great day!

Video clips, photos and Giveaway Winner!

I figured out how to get my video clips from Tuesday's walk onto YouTube for you. The first one is of the view of the trees, sky and clouds, but more importantly the chirping and chatter of the birds. What can I say: "I love it!" (I said that about four times on the clip, it must be true!)




Here are some flowers and blossoms I saw on our walk:

The above photos are of the Japanese Magnolia (not Tulip Tree) that bloom every spring and later fill in with their leaves; whereas the Tulip Tree blooms with their leaves on and in another color, generally yellow. We do not have them in this area, at least I have not seen any.

Everything's popping open - I sure hope we won't have another cold front coming in...not for me, because I'd like it, but I don't want the flowers to shrivel up and die.

We had some very choppy water today...it was quite windy!

Gizzy pulling "duck duty" (LOL) keeping them in the water and out of the street!

(what have we here?)

I sneaked up on this turtle as quietly and gingerly as my body would allow, but just one step further and he hopped off his perch and plunged into the water...glad I got this shot!

Gizzy looking all clean and fluffy - he just loves these long leisurely walks around "his" lake!

OK, one more...

(Not bad for 13, don't you think?)

I love this mirror image when the clouds and the tree reflect in the water!

Picture perfect!

I was walking with my head up in the clouds!

Some were actually quite dark and threatening looking, but it never rained!

The last video is of the bees and the buzzing sound, but there was quite a bit of static/rustling sounds due to the wind. It was pretty windy, but you may still be able to hear some of the buzzing as the birds sing and the bees dart in and out of the branches.

Hope you enjoyed these images - also, the winner of my January Giveway is:


Rudy's raiser of Rudy - the dog with a blog!


CONGRATULATIONS! Enjoy your pretty nails!
(I will e-mail you now!)

If life were a bed of roses…

in the South, they would be Camellias and Gizzy is lying in it:



Gizzy and I had a shower together this morning and he’s all clean and fluffy and King Tut…etc. He knows he’s got it going on! Oh, yeah, baby!



On the way down to the lake I pass several of these bushes in all colors and varieties – one bush even had both kind, solid and striped.



There’s these pretty single layer white ones – one of my favorites, but they don’t seem to last as long.














I was just playing with the photos on Picasa:



Mom, what are you doing?



Anyway, this was just a preview of what’s to come, because I took a lot of pictures today and two movies because I wanted you guys to hear all the birds chirping and tweeting and the bees buzzing – yes, we have tons of bees already swarming around the blossoms of the trees that are starting to open …ok maybe I can do just the bee pictures today and save the rest for later:



I took this photo against the sun, so all you can see is the silhouette of the bird, but he was as happy as I was on this glorious, cloudy and sunny day. He’s just singing his little ole heart out on the tip of that branch – singing his song onto the Lord giving thanks for being alive – that’s exactly how I felt today!
Then, to my surprise, I saw this Bradford Pear starting to bloom and it was full of bees – I actually got some good photos of some of them:





You can see the old fruit from the previous blossoms still on there – they are all still falling off…







I was looking up and got this big ole Zeppelin…incoming!!!!! (look in the center!) That's a honey bee from below!



These photos are of the regular pair tree (don’t know the proper name) but in the late summer/fall, I harvest them and cook them into the best pear compote because they’re not really fit for eating raw…they’re kind of green and hard, but delicious when cooked.



I have a whole bunch more from today and I’m having a problem with signing into my You Tube account to upload my two video clips…when I get prompted to sign in, I get the error message back saying “Account Migrated” – whatever that means…I know I’m at 93% with Picasa/Google/Blogger, so maybe that could have something to do with it. It’ll be my own personal little challenge that I want to forget right now because I’ve got to get serious and do some work!

Hope you enjoyed the blossoms! I figure since I don’t get any snow, I get the white blossoms of the tree and that reminds me of snow, especially when they are all open and in full bloom! Cheerio!