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...

flag in the front, armadillo in the back

Pic taken when outside waiting for the 4th of July neighborhood parade yesterday!

armadillo in the backyard 

This little visitor came by Saturday morning. He was rooting around and Polly (one of the feral kittens) was fascinated. She was following him ... but not too close. This is what caught my attention. 

In the top picture, I actually walked almost right on top of him and he wasn't intimidated - just looked up at me.  We see lots of possums and raccoons in our yard (which is by a creek) and they they are very wary, so I was surprised at his boldness. But I took pictures and he eventually went off down the rabbit hole*.

While I was out there I decided to take some pics of our figs which are getting larger every day. Hopefully they will be ripe by next week.  We have 2 fig trees;  a Turkey fig and a Celeste. The Celeste are smaller and much sweeter. We generally leave the Turkey figs for the squirrels and mockingbirds... and pick the Celeste for ourselves and friends.

and we have a *Bay leaf tree* also.  It does wonderfully well and supplies us with plenty of fresh bay leaves for cooking.

Bay leaves

* I starred rabbit hole as many of you may not know what was meant by that. Well... there's a hole in our bushes which runs directly from our backyard down an incline into the lower yard which is next to the creek. This hole and path was made over the years by the critters that have used that path for the 30 years that we've lived here. My grand daughter when she was younger disappeared down that rabbit hole to check it out. She said it was "awe-some".

Have a good week!

Definitely older...



67th birthday just passed this week!  Don't have any recent photo, but found this one of my 56th birthday taken while breakfasting at Le Madeleine's 11 years ago.  If you change the dark hair to almost white (and that partly due to radiation), I'm not that different... maybe a little thinner and even though I wear my hair in a long ponytail or braid these days, the looks the same. I'm still me... just old.

Like all of us whose birthdays fall close to a holiday, our day becomes embedded into the holiday. For years growing up, the family's 4th of July picnic was always my birthday celebration. Not as bad as having to share a birthday with Christmas... in fact, it just added more festivity to the national holiday.  And how many kids get fireworks on their birthday!!

Don't have any words of wisdom to share.  And it's not that 67 is that old.  But the fact that neither my brother nor my sister made it this far impacts me.  It's made me very appreciative of life in general, and mine in particular.  DH and I are both retired, and although not financially well off, we do ok. Our kids are all grown and hard-working, and our grand kids are fantastic. So-oo I guess what I'm saying is "Happy Birthday to me!" 









Happy 4th 2012!



Happy 4th of July!

Sitting here drinking my sweet tea... neighborhood parade just went by... and parade music is still ringing in my ears.  Everyone has their flags out.  This picture is an old one from a previous 4th.  We no longer have that flag pole.  It was taken down and never replaced when we had the wood painted.  But we did have 2 smaller flags out.  Guess we need to get around to replacing that pole.

Parade music reminds me of Mardi Gras at home (in New Orleans). I was never a big fan of the parades, but loved the music.  It made you feel happy... and carefree.  Unfortunately I've never liked crowds... and believe me, it gets crowded ! 

If I had to think of what I miss most not living at home (besides family, I mean), it would be the food.  I do love red beans and rice, po-boys, gumbo, and good seafood... like fried catfish and boiled crabs (I especially love soft shell crabs).  But we try to get our 'fix' when we go down for a visit. 

It should be a quiet day.  We don't have anything planned.  The kids may come over, but may not.  We never know.  I plan to bake a chocolate pie later this afternoon... just in case.  Besides, DH and I love dark chocolate cream pie!

Oh, just a tidbit of info here: Grand daughter called this morning at 7 am (we were still asleep) to tell us the exciting news...  the box turtle we gave her a few weeks ago just laid eggs in its pen!  So hopefully (with a lot of luck and nothing weird happening) we'll have baby turtles in about 50 weeks (I think?).

Again - HAPPY 4TH!