Find Elmo... no, find the feline in the pic!

Find Elmo! No... Find the feline in the tree!

I've always liked this picture. Thought I would share it with you. There's a feral cat up in that tree. Can you find it?

I also wanted to share a video of the little feral Siamese looking kittens in our yard. But I'm not sure how to upload it. Going to try...
So far, no luck.

So here is a pic of 2 of my daughter's 3 dogs. Moose is the Great Dane on the left and Willow is a rescued lab mix on the right. Willow is up in age, Moose is 3.

DH and I had dinner with some old friends this week. The guys grilled outside while my friend and I sat with our feet in the pool and talked. As hot as its been around here, it really wasn't too bad that evening. They have lots of trees around their pool and there was a breeze.  Later we had dessert and coffee inside... and talked some more.  It was great fun spending time with them. DH and I are not very social... meaning we don't do a lot of socializing - parties, clubs, travel, etc. So when we do get together with old friends, it means a lot.

And another dear friend took me out to lunch for my birthday yesterday. We went to Whiskey Cake... and it was really fun. I tried to put some pictures here, but it didn't work, but you can google Whiskey Cake Kitchen and Bar and see pictures. It is an interesting place. Everything they use there is fresh and local.  She and I split a bacon cheeseburger with home-made chips and a side order of fried green tomatoes with a dipping sauce. It was fabulous. Also we had coffee and split a whiskey cake that is covered with some sort of whiskey caramel sauce... with a cup of freshly whipped heavy cream on the side. Delicious!

I guess this is my post for the day. Reading a good book by Rhys Bowen. Think I'll go and make myself a cup of tea and pick up where I left off last night. 

Have a great weekend!

a hot weekend in Texas...

Timber Rattlesnake

My friend who lives out in Anna, TX (about 45 mins. from Dallas) caught this Timber Rattlesnake in a trap a few days ago. They were trying to catch a possum or raccoon that was after their chickens, but caught this instead. She emailed me the picture and her husband called my son who is the Curator of the Herpetology Dept. at the Dallas Zoo.  He drove to her place and picked it up. 

Mama raccoon and her 2 kits in our backyard 

This mama raccoon brought her 2 babies to our backyard this past week.  The 3 feral kittens were fascinated with the raccoon kits.

And there's no getting around it... it's HOT! We hit triple digits this week and are continuing to go there. There is some news that perhaps we will have rain on the 4th which will lower the temp just a bit. The feral cats have been laying under the fan on the back porch and we make sure that there's plenty of water out there.

I think the comments notification is fixed... or at least partially. Some come to my email now... and some don't.  But I guess some is better than none. 

And I'm posting a pic of a mug I threw using a new glaze (new for me). I like the way it looks on Spectacular clay (which is a red speckled clay). Trying it this week on T-mix (which is white). 

Blue Rutile glaze on Spectacular clay

This is the only pottery pic I will post here. I think the glaze is interesting, but those of you that would like to see more can click on my pottery blog (and if you do, please leave a comment so I'll know if that blog notification needs fixing too). I have more 'chickens in progress' pics posted there. Pottery blog is at top right under text: New Blog!

And I hope to post again for the 4th! But if not, know that I wish you all a Happy Safe 4th of July ! (and since my birthday is on the 6th... I'm happy to have made it to another year!!

As always, thanks for reading...

Notification of New Blog!

Still don't know if the blogger comment notification is fixed. I did try to fix it, but haven't seen any results yet. 

However... I did create a new blog where I can post pictures of my Cheeky Chickens and other goofy clay critters I create!  It can be found by clicking here or simply click on the text "New Pottery Blog" on the top right of this blog page!

We went out to lunch with some old friends this past week that lived with us in Florida when we were first married (1968). We all live here in Texas now, but due to distance (and life) don't see each other often enough.  Reminiscing was fun. Our kids (now grown with families of their own) were babies then. I read a quote the other day that made me think. It said, "It's better to keep old friends than to make new ones. Choose ones that wear well..." I like that.

Comment me! I need to see if my blogger comment fix worked!

Tried blogger email fix... and a visiting turtle pic

visiting box turtle

This is one of our visiting box turtles. He came by yesterday to eat, but ran very fast when he saw me coming with the camera. Believe me that old wives tale that turtles are 'slow' is NOT true. He is a fast little bugger... but I did get a pic!

I tried the blogger email fix and am waiting to see if it worked. Let me know with a comment if you get notified of this post.  

Just curious...

I'm curious. For whatever reason, I no longer get comments sent to my iPhone. Previously I've always gotten notified on my email when a comment was made on my blog... then a few weeks ago, this stopped. Now I am only aware of comments if I actually go into blogger and check. Is this something new? Anyone else experiencing this?

the weekend at our house...

cat planter with first underglaze

cat planter 

I finally got to the Ceramic shop (which is way across town... and to our dismay was also the same day that VP Pence was flying into town... got stuck in traffic for almost 2 hours when it should have taken 30 mins... ugh!) 

Anyway, I stocked up on more underglazes so I could continue with previous projects. Had run out of black so am just finishing up on the cat planter I had made a while back. He needs one more coat then I can fire him.

Not much else going on. I'm continuing this on Sunday which is also Father's Day! 

Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there! 

DH wants to go to Braum's this afternoon... so we'll be heading there in a little bit. I'll take some pics of our ice-cream choices (if I can remember to do so) and post them. 

2 hot fudlge sundaes and one vanilla malt (I remembered!)

I've got a chicken, bacon, and broccoli quiche in the oven now.  Should be ready in about 45 mins.  I have made this quiche many times and we really like it... but this time I added bacon because grandson is really a fan (actually added bacon and reduced the broccoli). 

That's about it for our weekend. I worked on my windchimes at the studio Saturday and finished a few more chickens.  Oh... I could mention that one of my pottery friends who is/was planning on moving to the big Island of Hawaii.... and just purchased her house there last January (in the area that is now for the most part covered in lava ) keeps us updated on what is going on.  She is back in Dallas now. Her house is still standing, but the area is restricted.She has a friend who is no longer able to get to his house - so is living in hers for the time being. The pictures he sends are unbelievable. She says that even if her house survives, the government may deem the area uninhabitable... and they don't know what the insurance companies will do. As you can imagine, she's pretty worried.

Hope you all had a Happy Father's Day weekend!

same o'... same o'

Nothing new to post about.  Summer is definitely here... it's 90 F today and will continue to get hotter.  Texas is not the place to be in July and August.  

I'm working on my wind chimes as my summer clay project. Haven't ever tried to make wind chimes before so it should be interesting. We have some out front that make a really nice sound and I've been wanting to get some for the tree out back... so I decided to make my own. They may be all ceramic or they may be ceramic and copper tubing. Haven't decided yet.

Also I took a Word 2016 class this past week. It was offered by the Library and was a beginner class. Now I've used Word 2007 for a long time, but probably only use a small percentage of what it can actually do. We were told that Word 2016 basically does the same things, but may just do them a little differently. Most of the things he showed us I already knew, but I did pick up a few new techniques. There's an intermediate class next week. 

I was talking to someone this past week who has recently retired and we were discussing the pro's and con's of retiring in place as to moving to somewhere they've always wanted to live.
In our cases, we both seem to lean toward retiring in place... as everything familiar is just too convenient... doctors, friends, classes, etc. (not to mention family). Not that we wouldn't mind traveling a little and visiting some wonderful places. But it's expensive to move and feel that retiring in place and visiting the other places would be the practical thing. Starting over (new surroundings, new everything) after a certain age seems difficult. But many do this... and it works out well. What are your thoughts?