The Big Fishing Trip

Sarah, my daughter, treated her father to a little fishing trip for Father's Day. He loved every minute of it! Here's a picture she took with her "disposable" Pentax Optio camera of Richard and their guide, Starr Nolan. They were on a stream somewhere near Asheville, NC.

Sarah is a bit of a camera snob. She refers to the Pentax we gave her as her "disposable" camera. That's partly because shortly after this photo, she promptly dropped it in the creek. It took days to dry out! It still works, but she went out and bought herself a new Nikon D300. It does just about anything you can imagine, including communicating to the photographer what shots should be taken! You can see some of her beautiful photography on her DeviantArt page at http://finalrice.deviantart.com.

I promised Richard's brother Jim that I would download a copy of this pic for him to see, so here it is. It's a great photo of a day that meant a lot to Richard!

Watermelons and Coyotes

We grew Stars & Moon watermelons again this year. We picked this one a little early, trying to head off the turtles! Though it was not quite ripe, it was still delicious and I love the way the seeds twirl about this matrix. What we didn't eat, we fed to our chickens who absolutely loved the special treat.

We've had a bit of trouble keeping all sorts of other creatures from enjoying our fruits this year. Since we don't use pesticides/herbicides, it makes it a challenge to keep insects away. We also entertain rabbits, turtles and deer who boast very discerning palates. Earlier this year a coyote decided to rip one of our heavy-duty garden hoses to shreds. I don't know if it thought the hose was a snake or if it just decided the hose was a great play-toy. I'm thankful, though that at least it did not decide to raid our chicken house and yard. We've done a good bit to keep our chickens safe from predators, but a number of evenings, we'd spy the coyote sitting and licking it's lips staring at the brood.

Zeus and Thor

Zeus and Thor are two pitbull mixes that we adopted in 2005. They are brothers. Their former owner was cruel and set them on fire. Animal control was called and they planned on euthanizing them, but one of the officers thought they could be saved. It took quite some time for their wounds to heal, but now they're as good as new. Zeus (the guy in the front) has a few patches on his back that will never have fur, but it doesn't slow him down any. We decided to name them after gods of fire/lightning/thunder to give them power over their pain.

Here they are on the steps with Gracie, a sharpei we rescued who lives with my daughter Sarah at night and with us during the day. She is very camera-shy and so it's nearly impossible to get a photo of her.

Dumpling and Me in the morning

This is a little acrylic painting I did recently that is inspired by my lovebird Dumpling. He's eleven years old and is a great little companion. I hand-fed him from a tiny fresh-hatched chick with no feathers. He loves me and dear hubby, Richard but is jealous of our grown daughter, Sarah. He screams at her and tries to nip her. He also hates my talking on the phone and nips at my fingers if I'm holding the phone. He loves to rip up paper and chirp to keep beat of rhythms he likes. He is thrilled with playing with whatever is on my desk. He loves to get a bath at the sink, Bath time is an early morning ritual.

Delicious Cherries

These are the first cherries we got our hands on for this season. They tasted even better than they looked!

Added a heading!

Well, I added my heading. It's a photo of my lovebird Dumpling. He is such a little cutie and loves to sit on my shoulder while I sit at the computer and work. I'm having a lot of fun working on the blog, even though it's a little minimalist right now. Just using this as a learning tool. I hope to get better at this as time goes by. However, the point to all of this is for me to enjoy myself...and I am.

Added music!

Okay, I admit this isn't the most amazing first impression, but I have limited time to add to my blog right now and I'm just playing around with the blogginess about me. I spent a bit of time learning how to add a playlist. I had a good bit of fun doing that. Hopefully, in the next few days I will learn more bloggable ways to enrich this space. So far, I'm just enjoying listening to the tunes I have chosen.

Dipping a toe...

Hi everyone! This is my first adventure into blogdom and I'm using this forum to sample, learn from and experiment with this new medium. Hopefully, no one will read this until I learn what I am doing. I fell in love with the blog world and have been so inspired by the many talented artists and craftspersons I have found on the web that I decided I had to make a presence here myself.

Well, here goes...