Guests in the Garden

Now that I understand how the code works, I've officially joined with Sandee of Comedy Plus and other cat lovers for Feline Friday. You can check out other kitty images at the bottom of my post. Meanwhile, here was my original post before Sandee kindly linked me up...

It has become our tradition this season to go out early in the morning while it’s cooler to tend vegetable planters and garden plots. Today no exception, I urged that we venture outside before full sunrise. And I’m glad I did.

Before sunlight heated me up I managed to rip out a huge load of weeds. Early on in the process, a praying mantis appeared. Knowing my husband wasn’t going to slog through crabapple tree branches like I did to see the little creature, I picked it up with care. Here you can see the tiny hunter, about an inch long, in the southeast garden patch.

A Favorite Insect

We also have flying neighbors. The vultures roost together in what’s called a ‘wake’. Once warmed by the sun they take off in so-called kettle formations (like a swirl of bubbles in boiling water) before dispersing. Today I didn’t experience large numbers as in past, but still appreciate seeing them.

Parting Ways

To be honest, the above photo of vultures and below of this hummingbird were taken a little later, after my breakfast. In fact, I photographed them in the process of writing this blog post. It’s behooved me to keep my camera handy. I liked how the sun shone on this little flyer.

Pit Stop

But I am still not done. Back to earlier, near the end of my weeding goal, I heard insistent meowing and spied a little tangerine colored tabby seeming just out of kitten-hood. With stinging sweat and the rising sun in my eyes, I didn’t recognize the feline’s undernourished condition.

DH did, and fetched a large disposable cup full of kibble and a paper plate. He even went back for a water bowl at my request. Left in charge of serving the animal, I poured about a third of the cupful on the plate.

About to Dig In

Then I poured another third, and finally the entire rest of what we had. Here is what’s left:

Maybe a Sixth of What I Served

And below is another shot of the friendly, desperate fellow. This pose (I saw some male bits when he rolled around at my feet later) really shows off how thin the poor guy is. After eating, he didn’t want to leave my side. Following me to a patio chair he either rubbed himself up and down my legs and feet or lolled between them. He also let me pick him up for a minute. I’m happy to report no visible sign of fleas or any injury.

Hungry Fellow

When at last he settled on the welcome mat, I rose to go inside for some much needed breakfast. He followed me into the garage. It would seem I have a new friend, and was told that I’m no longer allowed to garden. ~grin~ The cat looked ready to dash through the front door at one point but, sad to say, we couldn’t let him inside for fear of any infection or a fight with our old female cats.

The guy wandered off before I brought my plate of food outside. If he had not, he might be in my laundry room by now. My hope is to wrangle the cat for a checkup and neuter. Maybe he could fit into our little family. I don’t know.

Of course, my husband has said for years that he gets to choose the next cat (which he repeated, tongue in cheek, today) but I know he would accept this addition. Besides, we agree that God has put each of our three kitties into my path. If we were non-believers, we’d be saying that you don’t choose a cat, a cat chooses you. My big brother can attest.

How is your day shaping up?

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Happy Flag Day (and a Bonus)

Old Glory Flying Proud

Today in the United States we celebrate a holiday created just to honor our flag. I’ve put mine out, which is rare because my Harry Lauder’s walking stick (a type of hazel) and a nearby elm tree have grown so large as to hide my flag pole from half the neighborhood.

Named for Its Twisted Branches as You'll See Further Down
Can You Spot the Hummingbird?

And there is no simple way to move the holder, a sturdy work of engineering from a long deceased dear neighbor. I’m sad to say any intent to do so is pretty low on the priority list, especially with all the summertime chores eating into my time.

Famous Scottish Entertainer
Check out that Stick!

Meanwhile, it’s a gorgeous day. I just watched a pair of hummingbirds get into a tussle over the feeder. They really spiraled high in this aerial battle! I’m overjoyed to be out in low temperatures and humidity for a change.

As for the actual ‘bonus’ in my title, my husband and I married twenty-one years ago today. My unintentional choice of date was lauded by all at our small wedding as an easy way for him to remember our anniversary but, funny enough, the date didn’t occur to me until I tore off yesterday’s sheet from our page-a-day cat calendar! It’s a good thing neither of us gets offended by such lapses.

I’ve been offered a dinner out somewhere. To be honest, I think we should count our delightful lunch the other day as adequate celebration. I prefer we cook a nice meal together and toast with some cold, bubbly Zima (we're enjoying the limited release while it lasts).

Do you have anything special to celebrate today?

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Recalculating & a Little Mayhem

Not much of an adventurer, I haven’t driven north of Dayton, Ohio via Interstate 75 in many years. Anytime some obligation forces us to travel that direction, it makes more sense to bypass the city.

Yesterday, however, was a different story as SO and I took a little road trip to buy cat litter. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, surely we could get non-clumping Tidy Cats almost anywhere.

But we save money buying huge bags at a members-only warehouse club store. Ordering and paying online means a quick trip with easy pickup, too. I don’t even have to get out of the car until the bags are wheeled over for me to load. (SO has a bad back) Alas, our local Sam’s Club didn’t have the litter in stock, or so the website indicated. Had I known this right away, my suggestion would have been to try the local sister store, Walmart.

Without consulting me, my dear partner went ahead and ordered from another Sam’s Club. Told this one was in Fairborn, I decided to make lemonade out of lemons, proposing lunch at a rather interesting place we visited many months ago after visiting the Wright-Patterson Air Force Museum. Not a chain restaurant, a nice change of pace, the Wandering Griffin is also a microbrewery.

Fortunately, I talked him into both shopping ahead of eating and firing up the navigation system before I backed out of the driveway. As it turned out, my plan to traverse the usual route around the city would have taken us far out of our way, as would dining in Fairborn.

It was interesting to see parts of Old North Dayton again, if only from the freeway. Little had changed that I could tell except for one important thing, the very Interstate, a long construction project making the road a bit safer.

At least I extracted a promise to dine at an old downtown favorite called Thai 9 in the historic Oregon District. Requested super spicy, their massaman curry with tofu is wonderful. SO appreciates the sushi menu. Heading south after a long wait at the understaffed Sam’s Club, I once again engaged the nav system.

That turned out to be a mistake. One thing wise engineers changed was moving the Third Street ramp from a left lane exit to the more logical right hand side. I almost missed it, our map system out of date.

Oops. Oh, well. It’s not the first time we have been mislead. One time our old portable Magellan told us we’d reached our destination when I pulled into a cemetery instead of our Indianapolis motel. I am happy to say we made our way to the Marilyn Manson concert okay that night; we just couldn’t find our car afterward.

Hey, it wasn’t our fault the venue directors herded everyone out of one entrance, confusing our sense of direction. We walked the huge lot for at least two hours before someone with a golf cart rounded up us and some other unfortunates. Apparently, folks getting lost happened on a regular basis there. I wonder if they have since changed their silly practice?

Yesterday I saw the exit sign in time and safely changed lanes. Perhaps we should have used his smart phone for the hour round trip. Either way, I am grateful for GPS.

Have you ever wandered around lost for hours at a time?

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Dangly Bits – A Walk Down Memory Lane & Major Pet Peeve

The best traits passed on to me from my dear departed mother revolve around the arts. She read to me as a child, procured my library card at the earliest age allowed, and encouraged my overall creativity. My father bequeathed me her (sadly) unused sketch book and box of pastels purchased in the early nineties.

Mom also shared my persnickety approach to language. We often discussed linguistic pet peeves, debating if we missed our calling by not getting into teaching English literature. Odd as it may sound, I don’t think either of us had the patience to work with children every day.

Today, one of my biggest annoyances with the media is dangling participles, hence the goofy title opening. While I’ve noted an increase in that as the Internet increases civilian participation (by the way, I support free speech for all even if it is poorly expressed), most talented writers I know make the mistake now and then. Some are dear friends, too, not that I would call them out on it.

I’m concerned that editing seems to have fallen by the wayside. The lame (main) stream media perpetrates this crime on a regular basis. The writing quality on a favorite television show, “Mysteries at the Museum”, caused me to pause the video stream yesterday to jot something down.

Check this out: “Founded in 1791, visitors to the Albany Institute of History and Art…”

Really? Current visitors are as aged as this oldest among United States museums? Perhaps it’s time I take a trip to Albany.

Any idea why we call it a pet peeve?

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Time to Relax

Well, that title is not spot on as I’ve got laundry washing/drying. Thank heaven I don’t have to do it all by hand like my ancestors. Later SO and I plan to process and cook the chard I harvested.

Meanwhile, I borrowed a clever idea from dear Pam Jackson and brought out a fan to enjoy my patio despite the humidity. But my morning was busy. First I washed dirt off our garden plot plantings the best I could after last night’s hail. Don’t want some soil pathogen causing disease if we can help it. Thank heaven we saw little damage from the blessedly tiny ice chunks.

After gardening I went to the gym for weight training, showered when I got home, and harvested the aforementioned chard. Meanwhile, I’ve been busy on Facebook before I start writing. You see, weekends are for Rainbow Snippets. Mine for the week is on my adult’s only Sand Castles blog for content of a sexual nature (once again, though, more comedic than steamy).

How is your Saturday progressing?

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Darla's Discoveries (How to Live Trap a Spider, a Little Biology Lesson, and My Latest Misadventure)

Warning: Don't like creepy crawling things? Then please give this a skip (includes a photo).

I don’t know what it is about our house with all the centipedes and whatnot, though we can probably blame the wooded fields out back. Or maybe it’s me, the one forever coming across big bugs, usually when naked and legally blind sans eyeglasses entering the shower stall.

A few summers ago I discovered a very large spider in the floor drain between my washer and dryer where it resided for several weeks before moving on. You see, we try our best to release native species back into the wild rather than destroy them and I couldn’t figure out how to do so in that particular case.

(Trust me when I tell you one or both of us would have been injured had that spider ran at me.)

Here's the live trap trick I discovered. The best case scenario is when your insect or whatever resides on a flat, open surface. From there you need some large glass or plastic cup, thin stiff paper (like an envelope), and a little fortitude. Fortunately, today I spied the similar beast pictured below before it settled into the drain. And it’s a good thing I wasn’t home alone, because this harmless arachnid drained all my fortitude.

These so-called fishing spiders have the ability to hunt underwater, trapping air in a surrounding bubble like a self made diving suit. I figured that explained the drain lair, though they’re just as successful on the ground (years ago I spotted one on our driveway). At least these home invaders found me on dry land, as well.

My first Southwest Ohio encounter was in a canoe, when collision with an overhanging tree branch dislodged a huge spider and knocked it into our boat. By some miracle, my hysterics did not capsize us before my then-fiancé flipped our uninvited guest into the water where it stood atop unfazed like some creepy, eight-legged messiah.

Today I actually shook in my sandals until DH answered my frantic phone call and came downstairs to help wrangle the creature. I fetched a big plastic cup and piece of stiff paper from our new mattress cover packaging (why I went downstairs in the first place, to launder the cover). This photo is taken on the other side of the laundry room wall, near the stairs.

Why You Shaking, Lady?

Sorry it’s grainy. I was also too nervous to think of using a flash, though maybe that’s just as well as it might have spooked the poor thing. As it was, this peaceful hunter stood still for the procedure, and SO got a good chuckle when I reacted to the tease, “It’s all yours now.” I got called “cute” several times while overseeing disposal down the hill and swear the thing sailed like a flying squirrel on the way.

My Foot for Comparison in the Calm Aftermath

On that note, I should be glad we haven’t been invaded by destructive rodents. However cute, they can also carry disease.

Are you having a mildly exciting day like mine?

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Positive Sparks Monday June Fourth – A National Treasure

To quote Annie of McGuffy’s Reader, the bright spirited blog where she created Sparks Mondays, “I believe we are meant to be lights in this world. If we allow our light to shine, we can see where we are going. It is then that we can begin to truly see each other clearly. Together, we can light up the entire world!” She is currently on a blogging hiatus. Please keep Annie and her loved ones in your prayers.

As a child I admired Sammy Davis, Jr. as a great comedian and singer. He always struck me as a super cool fellow with a heart of gold. We lost him to throat cancer back in 1990 but something made  me think of him yesterday.

Looking up a biography, I was horrified to learn what terrible racism he faced, especially in the military. The hatred mystifies me, and it never occurred to me the reality of his youth. Call it denial if you will, I never wish such treatment upon anyone and guess a part of me wanted to believe this man I admired was spared the cruelty.

I decided then and there to find a quote from him for today. As expected, there were a plethora ranging from comedic to regretful to nostalgic to poetic to uplifting. It took me two seconds to find and decided on this one:

Image Courtesy of Brainy Quotes

Did you ever see a Sammy Davis, Jr. performance?

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Harvest Time! (and Link to a Rainbow Snippet)

Today we harvested a bunch of chard. For the first time, there are leftovers of the stuff, wilted in butter and white wine with onion and garlic, then dressed with parmesan cheese and fresh lemon juice. We reserved the wine and lemon for next time, too. Yum!

Healthy and Delicious

Meanwhile, if you’re interested, I have posted a Rainbow Snippet over at my Sands Castles blog. This one displays my attempt at silly and salacious humor and its strong inference to sexuality is why I posted on my adults only site. A number of authors share tidbits from their LGBTQIA+ related writings. You can find the Facebook page here if interested.

Do you like bad puns?

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