Back to cute...

 

baby bunnies on daughter's bed

If you enlarge the pic and look carefully, you will see 6 baby bunnies; 3 white (one hiding under front black bunny) a salt & pepper bunny in the middle, and 2 black...

These are my 'back to cute' pics... 

Not a lot else to say. Garden growing, but seems slowly. We did lose both the squash and the zucchini already - guessing due to the triple digit temps. But the rest looks OK. 

My curly parsley has it's first caterpillar... (probably a Black Swallowtail)

Yellow &black caterpillar in the middle...

Actually I saw a 2nd catepillar on the other parsley just a little while ago... so I guess they've found the parsley. DH said to pick it off, but I haven't the heart.

It's time to head off to my dental appointment. How I hate those... and this is a new dentist. But it's only for a teeth cleaning (and yes, these make me nervous too). Will comment more about this when I get back.

Back from dental appointment. I liked them! It was an easy cleaning and I liked both the dental hygienist as well as the doctor. Luckily after x-rays, etc. he said that my teeth were in good condition. I am missing 2 on one side that I might consider implants or a bridge... but he wasn't pushing for either (I appreciated that). 

Since we are on standard Medicare, we have to buy separate dental insurance... and the last dentist we had (although very good) was not in our insurance network. After spending a lot this past year, we decided that since we were paying for dental insurance, we really needed to get with one that was within the network. So-o when I pulled out my wallet to pay when leaving this new dental office and the receptionist said, "no, no charge today... your insurance should cover it 100%" - I thought, "YES!"

Oh, I'll close on a kind of funny note.  Last week I went for a haircut. Well, when I was sitting waiting for my turn, Shelley was cutting the hair of an elderly man. When he was done and was leaving, he stopped in front of my chair and just stared. 

I looked up and said a hesitant 'hello'... and he said, "You look exactly like my grandma!"... (my first thought was 'wow, your grandmother must be old!')... then I realized he meant how he remembered his grandmother.  I didn't know what to say and I'm not good at spur of the moment stuff... so I just said, "Really?" and at that moment Shelley walked up and called me in. 

Later I thought I should have said something. I wanted to say that I thought this was nice as I don't look like either of my grandmothers. One was born and raised in New Orleans and the other in London, but both died when I was a baby... but I have seen pictures. Anyway, I thought it was a strange occurrence.

A few funnies...

Hugs (virtual),

Rian

a little rant I'm afraid...

DH and I will both be 77 next month.  And they say that 'wisdom comes with age'. I'm going to say that apparently this is not always true. There are some things that have happened over the last few years that I never thought would happen. 

Katrina was the first of many... growing up in New Orleans and living through many a hurricane (we never evacuated), Katrina was an unexpected blow to my mind. Granted it wasn't the hurricane itself that was the problem, but the levee breaks and the failure of the pumps... but Katrina was the cause. 

Next was Trump winning that Presidential election. That really blew my mind. How could that happen? But it did.... 

And then came the Pandemic! Wow! It shouldn't have been a surprise (we'd been warned of this possibility for years), but it was... and we're still living with the consequences.

And the January 6th attack!

Then Russia invading the Ukraine! Really? In this day and age, I still find it hard to believe that a country would take this action.

Then the school shootings! 

Now Row vs Wade overturned!! 

What is happening to our country?  Someone wrote somewhere that the inmates were now running the Asylum... I hate to say it, but this may be true. 

I don't know the answers... and even if I did, probably half the country wouldn't agree. This is such a sad state of affairs for the U.S. ...and for the world. 

What happened to 'United we stand, divided we fall'? 

The 4th of July is just around the corner. We should celebrate... but instead, I fear it's coming. I fear that some misguided and misinformed individuals will use this date to do something stupid. 

I hope I'm wrong.

Sorry for this uninspiring post. It wasn't planned. I hoped to post more baby bunny pics and other simple joys of life (like my garden's progress) ...but somehow my mind went bonkers.  Forgive me.

Hugs (virtual),

Rian

late Father's Day post... and other things

This last week has been one thing after another. I'm not going to mention everything, but it seems like we keep experiencing or hearing about things that tend to be not uplifting. 

It started last weekend when DH woke up with the left side of his face drooping. He had had a strange ear-ache the night before, but it wasn't bad and we didn't think much about it.  But with the drooping, we worried that it could possibly be a mild stroke (tia?), so we went to the doctor's Monday. He diagnosed Bell's Palsy and put him on steroids and an ointment for his left eye.

We also tape up his left eye at night as it doesn't close completely. I've heard of this before, but have never known anyone who had it. They think it's caused by a virus. One of my daughter-in-laws (nurse) said that they have been seeing more of this (Bell's Palsy) lately... and some research is being done on whether it's related in any way to Covid. It hasn't gotten any worse... and may be a bit better... but we're supposed to see an ENT sometime this week.

Another friend lost her daughter to breast cancer recently and her sister just fell (83) in her home and hit her head. She has a brain bleed and is in the trauma center in New Orleans. Then our daughter called last night to say that her best friend's mom was ill with what they thought was the flu when she passed out and started having seizures. She was rushed to the hospital.

I'm like... what is happening? I know we're all old, but does everything happen at once?

***************************

I'm writing this on Father's Day (Sunday), but will probably not post it until Tuesday. I have more to say, but oldest son and his wife are coming in for a visit and I have things to do. Monday our granddaughter is spending the day, so blogging is probably not on the horizon until Tuesday... or later. 

Now Tuesday:  

We had a wonderful visit with oldest son and his wife Sunday. Ate, talked,  ... and talked and talked! They also brought Winston, their Golden Doodle... who would get excited when he saw the ferals in the backyard through the kitchen door. The ferals didn't pay much attention to him - since they were outside and he was inside.

Yesterday we had our granddaughter for the day. Spent some time outside, then walked in the mall, then home to play games, eat lunch, and watch a movie. I'd never played Jenga... built a pretty high tower too before it fell.

Now for some cute pics of Bun Bun's latest baby bunny batch. She apparently had 3 blacks and 3 whites this time:

 

That's it folks! The strange, the fun, and the cute! Life seems to be bringing it all... Guess we'll take it, enjoy what we can, and get through the rest as best we can. 

I hope you all had a nice Father's Day - either with your fathers or with the memory. My dad was a wonderful man. Loved him dearly... and still miss him today. But I know he's still around (and not only in my heart).

Closing with this pic I came across on Pinterest. Loved it! 

Thanks for reading this jumble of a post... and if I haven't commented much on posts lately, it's just been that sort of a week (or weeks).  

Hugs (virtual),

Rian

Animal hodge-podge and general updates

Moose napping

Daughter's Great Dane napping on the sofa... most likely daughter is napping on the other end. 

Winston and Huno

Son's Golden Doodle, Winston, and his found box turtle, Huno.  Winston has this thing about finding other critters and keeping them. He doesn't harm them, but just likes to play. When they were in Granbury, he had a toad. But my son didn't think Huno (the turtle) was much fun, so recently he got him a bunny. This is Winston's new bunny, Cadbury.

Cadbury

Cadbury is adorable, but I worry that he is a bit delicate looking for Winston to play with... he might need a more substantial bunny like those in my daughter's yard... (which by the way, she sent another video of them running around. This one is easier to see.)

These 2 (BunBun and Mr. Chocolatte) already have a set of 4 baby bunnies about 6 weeks old and just delivered another batch. Daughter doesn't know yet how many, but she can see little pink bodies in a nest. She is beginning to understand the term "breeding like rabbits". (Remember to click several times to get video to play)

Now for some updates:

White Face's 2 kittens seem to be holding their own... still eating and hiding out on the side of the house.

Some other black feral mama recently brought her 3 kittens (maybe 6-8 weeks old) to the front to eat the other evening. She had 2 blacks and one little gray (reminded us of our Ghost) with her. 

AND SURPRISE! 

DH and I spent last weekend in the Pearland area (close to Houston, TX) visiting his brother and wife. Hadn't seen them in over 2 years. It was so nice to sit and talk after all this time. We had a really nice visit... even went out to a few restaurants to eat. (We went early and really enjoyed ourselves... just hope we didn't screw things up by doing this). They are vaxed and double boostered. We are vaxed, and single boostered... so we felt relatively safe.

And lastly, we spent yesterday with our 9 year old granddaughter. She's out of school now and will be coming by more often since the summer is here. I had to laugh as she is a 'talker'... had to tell her once while we were grocery shopping to "Please stop talking for a minute... I have to think". She said OK... (and it really was only for a minute).  She also brought a bunch of games with her - and we played every one of them. Here is a pic of her setting up one:

Setting up game called "Cat Crimes"

We had a fun time shopping, playing games, eating ice-cream and watching Harry Potter (the first movie - hadn't seen it in ages - the main characters were so young).

Well, that's my news - thanks for reading - nothing terribly earth-shattering, just life around here. BTW, the garden is doing well... added 2 more herbs (thyme and oregano) that I picked up in Houston. We also brought home some cuttings of their beautiful Night Blooming Cereus in exchange for some cuttings our our Spearmint. (Spearmint has almost covered our front lawn. It smells wonderful and DH uses it in his Sweet Tea - he makes fantastic sweet tea!)

Tomorrow is Friday, so wishing you all a wonderful relaxing weekend! It will probably be hot - they're saying we will be hitting triple digits here. So stay inside out of the heat - and put out water for any critters outside that may need it... 

Hugs (virtual),

Rian