Just playing around...

Since it was still raining this morning, we did not walk around the lake, but rather sat outside on the front porch while I had my coffee.

We just had a shower and that's why Gizzy looks a bit ruffled. To help him dry off, we played a game of tug-o-war with Miss Piggy, his favorite!

He hangs on really tight and I can almost lift him off the ground. I figure it's good exercise for his gums.

(Grrrrrrrr)

We end with a treat and he's off to a good start and it's only a little past 8 am.

These are his newest favorite chew sticks. I got them at Pets Mart and they're semi-soft. He also likes the Chicken Dingo sticks, but they are a bit harder and he only chews on those when he's extremely bored.

Now we're off to see what Auntie Sandy at the Bank's Lake Outpost is up to....have a nice day everyone!

My very small and simple life!

Since moving from California to Georgia about seven years ago, my life has changed drastically. Not only physically (having undergone bilateral hip replacement four years ago) but also mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Not for the better or the worse, just different.

Where I used to have a very productive and busy life, I now spend my days pretty much by myself and with the animals (dogs, cats, ducks, bugs, birds, toads, lizards, frogs, etc.) Although I know there are very good and decent people in this world, the rotten ones really disgust me and make me almost ashamed of being a human. I have to confess that generally speaking I probably do prefer the company of animals, but of course, there are exceptions to every rule and let me emphasize here that my blogging buddies are the best!!! You make it possible for me to live like a hermit by being alone - yet not all alone - and I really appreciate that!

I start my day about 6 am when I plug in my coffee pot and check to be sure Gizzy is still breathing. After all, he's getting up there. His birthday is November 1st when he'll be 14 years old, but "knock on wood" he seems to be doing fine all things considered.

I feed the stray cats every morning and as of late started to feed them at night also because I don't want to leave out too much cat food at once or else the ants will get to it. I take reasonable precautions for that not to happen, but there are no guarantees in life.

One of the strays, Mr. Bloomers (formerly Smoky) waits for me on the front porch and I let him in to eat while Gizzy is sleeping oblivious to the world.

Mr. Bloomers is skittish, but loves for me to pet him for a little while before he meows to go back out. In the winter time, he sleeps in my bedroom on top of a big pile of comforters to keep from freezing...and the rest, I can only pray for.

(Gizzy unaware of cat in the house - he HATES cats!)

Mr. Bloomers is a lover and not a fighter. He got neutered during our TNR program several years ago and is a real sweetheart, but afraid of everything, which is good so he will stay hidden and out of harm's way! (I can't believe how many people here don't like cats and would rather hurt them than feed them - and these are people who claim to be Christians - buh, humbug!)

Another reason I have started to feed the cats at night again (like I always do in the winter) is because one of the stray males that we call Legs is a real tough Tomcat and he actually waits under the car out front to see if I feed Mr. Bloomers (which I do inside the apartment) and then he beats up on him when he comes out.  Me feeding them twice avoids any friction and fighting, but I have to always feed Mr. Bloomers someplace else because Legs won't let him eat at the cat feeding station. 

As usual, the cats wait for me to feed them. They know where I live and on rare and desperate occasions one or two will stroll by looking for me. This is the female that recently had kittens so I'll have more mouths to feed since I'm pretty much the only one feeding them on a regular basis, but if this is my purpose in life, so be it.

Here is Legs. He's skin and bones and I would not be surprised if he had Feline Leukemia. He gets into the most brutal fights and I often see him with big gashes, bloodied and dirty - I feel sorry for him, but I'd be afraid trying to handle him because he could tear me a new face. If I ever get a chance to trap him, I'd like to have him neutered, even if I have to pay for it myself because he's responsible for a lot of the kittens around here.

Below is Legs and one of the black (new) kittens that I just discovered a couple of days ago. Apparently mama cat keeps them hidden till they get bigger and are safe from injury or death.

In the underbrush I got a glimpse of another multi-colored kitten. The third, orange one, was too elusive.

We also have another, young orange tabby in the group, but he's been around for over a year and this is a picture of him. Sorry the photos are so grainy, but I can't get too close because they are very quick and shy.

This is the cat feeding station in the woods with a kitchen table and another end table I found by the trash, a couple of water dishes and a board nailed to a tree, so they can eat up there since we also have stray dogs coming through eating up all the cat food - there are no leash laws here and dogs roam free and make a nuisance of themselves and people have a gazillion cats and never spay or neuter them and they always end up here, but thanks to Legs, he keeps them pretty much away or else I'd throw in the towel because I'm on disability and struggling myself.

(here's legs laying above on the board on the tree)

I feel so sorry for this cat because every little thing he gets he has to fight for. He's had a very hard life and I'm afraid he won't last too long. He's not old, but he just fights too much. I have to admit, when he first showed up in the neighborhood, I was very unhappy with having him around because I hated having Mr. Bloomers beat up on all the time...but now I can see that if it weren't for Legs, we'd be overrun by stray cats and I could not afford to feed them all.

Dinner Time - come and get it!

I often stick around from a distance to be sure they can eat in peace without any interruptions from people or stray dogs. 

So, that's what I do when I'm not out walking around the lake with Gizzy or sitting inside in the airconditioning crocheting or spending too much time on the computer.

Love you guys! ... and those of you who help the animals, I love you double!

(Excerpt from Chapter One of 'Dominion' , a book I am currently reading  by Matthew Scully)

I know that they do not have reason comparable to ours. I know that their lives and place and purpose in the world are different from ours. I know that theirs is an often violent world, "nature red in tooth and claw" as Tennyson described it. But I also know that whatever their place and purpose among us might be, it is a mysterious one beyond any man's power to know. Whatever measure of happiness their Creator intended for them, it is not something to be taken lightly by us, not to be withdrawn from them wantonly or capriciously...


I am thankful for the animals. I would not want to live in a world without them!

Free freshly harvested organic sunflower seeds for my followers while supply lasts!

Ok, I've decided to harvest some seeds from the first batch of sunflowers - the ones that bloomed first. The tall ones, called "Mammoth" variety. They grow about 5-6' tall, but the actual head is not all that big, but it varies. That's what they look like:

...and a close up:

(I never allowed the exterminators to spray that area, so they are not chemically treated at all!)

I saw that the birds were not eating them and they were just dropping to the ground, so I went out and collected them. I'm finding that I'll have way too many to keep for myself, so I want to share with you, my dear blogging friends who are my followers.

I thought I'd package them in 20 seeds and this way everyone can have some. If you want less, just let me know.  I think growing sunflowers is pretty easy, as long as they are in a sunny location and you give them plenty of water, just like any other plant. I fertilized them a little with some Miracle Grow, but not very often. They pretty much took off without much of my  help, other than me supporting/staking them once they got too tall. My friend has a bamboo grove where he lives and brings me some bamboo stakes when I need them.

It took less than 90 days for them to mature and blossom from the time I planted the seeds. I started them indoors the end of February, but now that it's summer, they'll probably grow even faster.

If you want seeds, just write me an e-mail with your address and I'll be happy to mail you some. My e-mail address is:


honeybeecrochet@live.com.


While I have your attention, I want to share more blossoms from my yard that I took this morning. I found a bunch of bees on both the red and white crepe myrtles and of course, the sunflowers. I never see them on the roses. I guess they don't like roses if there's other stuff around?

 

Here are some close-ups of the smaller variety of the sunflowers I have blooming now. They are from a package called "Evening Sun Mixed Colors" and once they turn to seed, I'll be offering some of those too.

Here's a pretty light yellow dainty looking sunflower:

This one is a lovely rust color:

Here's a painted two-tone colored sunflower:

All the above pictured sunflowers grow to about 3-4' tall and some of them have three or more blossoms on the end of their stem:

The bees love them no matter what the size!

Thanks for visiting and have a lovely, sunny, sunflower kind of a day!

Hey, what about me?

(why you are the most precious flower in my garden, Gizzy!)

p.s. If I find that I still have too many sunflower seeds, I think I'll try sprouting some for eating on sandwiches and in salads. I looked at several instructional videos on You Tube. To me the following directions are the simplest, even if the guy explaining it seems a little goofy - in a cute way ;-)

Of sunflowers, birds and Gizzy's new toys!

Happy First Day of Summer to the rest of the world because I feel we've started summer here about a month ago, but I'm determined to enjoy it no matter what because I refuse to wish my life away!





Magickal Graphics

Earlier today, Gizzy and I took a little stroll around the apartment to see how the plants are doing. Most of my big sunflowers from earlier have bloomed away and are hanging their heads. We're just waiting for them to turn to seed so the birds can have a go at it.

Most of the white Crepe Myrtle is done blooming and the red or pink variety is going strong.

For some reason they are not attracting as many bees as the white blossoms, but it might be because the white ones open earlier and the bees have been waiting to attack them more eagerly...just guessing, of course!

I planted several varieties of sunflowers, so I have different kinds growing that have not bloomed yet. I'm particularly impressed with these two giants that I had to stake down for the big storms as I did not want them broken (I think I would have cried)...look at all those leaves on these flowers. They are shooting out from the stems as if they might bloom on several places, not just on top:

Gizzy looks like a little bug next to them:

I don't recall the names of them because I had my seeds all mixed up and one packet had mixed sunflower seeds in them. So far, I've had sunflowers not much bigger than a daisy and others as big as a small tree. It's been really fun to see the different colors from bright yellow to rust. Many of the smaller ones have several blossoms on top.

No matter what the size, there are bees all over these sunflowers.

(see the bee at 1 o clock? - ok, 5 after 12)

But the prettiest flower in the garden has got to be the unique and rare Gizzy-flower as they are extinct. There's only one in the whole world and I'm lucky enough to call it mine.

After we perused the perimeter, we sat out back to watch the birds on my neighbor's bird feeding station. That is always very entertaining. Even Gizzy gets into it sometimes. Sadly, I don't have a very strong zoom lens on my camera, but I think you get the idea of what transpired here:

Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal

Mr. C looking majestic all dressed in red.and Mrs. C in brown on the other feeder to the right towards the top.

Here Mr. C is getting the food

...then flies to the ground

where he's feeding Mrs. C who flew down earlier waiting for him.

Then he's going back for more to repeat the process of feeding his mate.

This went on for a good long while and it was very entertaining to watch.

Turns out Mr. C is a very good husband

and not just a pretty face!

Speaking of pretty face, here's my boy sitting out back watching me take a photo of him.

I also wanted to show you my cantaloupe that is growing in the flower bed. I just dug out the seeds from a musk melon one day and put them straight away in the soil and now, it's a big vine that's been climbing over the kohlrabi and lemon bush and producing yellow blossoms, so maybe, just maybe, I'll be harvesting some cantaloupe this year...

I also have some Kohlrabi growing along the border of this flower/rose bed, but I have no idea when/if they will make it. I just make sure everything's watered and fertilized regularly and the rest is out of my hands.

When we came back inside, we played with his new toys his auntie Sandy from the Banks Lake Outpost gave him:

I experimented with the special effects feature of the Picasa photo editing program. Gizzy sitting on the table, surrounded by his unicorn, pilgrim and purple blob stuffed toys.

The unicorn is nice, but he prefers the purple blob. You can really sink your teeth into that one:

(and we'll spare the pilgrim till Thanksgiving!)

That's about it for today. I wish you all a very cool summer and enjoy your week. Until next time. Stay well!