Dawn419 & doc's LSTA: Confounded Computer!!!

[SSDreamin]

Wow! What talent! Making it rain TWO TIMES!

Yay on getting everything cleaned out around the chick-n-barn! Looks really good I would leave the poke there too. I know Pileated's can be destructive, but I think they are so cool looking! We have a mating pair here that come to my bird feeder, which is about 10 feet from my front door! I want to get a picture of them too - they call out quite a bit before they come in to eat, but I keep missing them anyway :/

 

[Denim Deb]

I'm jealous. We don't have the pileated woodpecker around here.

And Dawn, I'd leave it too. I was leaving a poke last year because I had birds eating it and my son decided to be helpful-and cut it down. I need enough land so I can have a wild area for the wild critters to live.

 

[lazyday]

I so do hope your paw paw tree makes it . The persimmon trees around here really didn't produce fruit . I will miss making persimmon bread but next year I will just enjoy making them a little more. we have a few pileated woodpecker and on of them is really huge. Love to hear and see them.

 

[Dawn419]

Howdy SSD, DD and ld!

I hear our Pileated way more often then actually seeing them...especially with the trees all leafed out. The other week, I was headed around the back of the camper to fill water jugs and hear this awful racket in the area I'm heading to. I set the jugs down, peak around the camper and one of the poke trees back there looks like it is in this mini windstorm for the way it was being thrashed around. Then the big boy hops on to a bare section of stalk...it would have made a gorgeous picture!

Doc is pretty good about leaving my little treasure troves of nature and science experiments alone but he has this knack for finding my hidden gems...like the piles of hidden wood that have something growing on them (fungi, moss, lichen, mushrooms). I always stash them in out of the way places (or so I'd thought). Just started another stash after coming across some neat branches while demolishing the brush pile and will get pix of that tomorrow.

Been feeling puny most of the day with sinus pressure, so I haven't really accomplished much of anything, except for sipping on some fire cider tea. It's gotten the right side of my head opened up but the left side is fighting it and I feel lopsided. :/

Did the civilized visit at moms' yesterday and it was sad to see some of the younger area of Meyer Lemon trees succumbing to the heat and drought, but the big trr is still growing strong with lemon in various stages of ripening.

Didn't get there early enough to take a walk up to check on the suspect Pawpaw, maybe on Saturday but we're having a family get-together so it may not happen then, either.

Well, I think I'm going to get off of here, fix something to eat and go to bed...

 

[Denim Deb]

Good night! Hope you feel better in the morning.

 

[Dawn419]

Finally over the worst of the sinus attack but still a bit stuffy occassionally...couldn't have anything to do with the dusty, dry, breezy conditions, could it? Still slowly puttering out around the garden but not a lot has been accomplished due to the temps being in the low 100's again this past week.

We got our new 10-in-1 kitchen appliance a few days ago and I'll be trying it out here in a bit as I'm making a batch of homemade soft pretzels to take to the family dinner tomorrow. Wish I hadn't volunteered as I really don't feel like messing with it but I do look forward to the taste-testing after the first round is finished!

We realized a possible dilema concerning our new kitchen toy...it should have been an 11-in-1 so we could reheat the coffee! There's no way the micro and new toy will both fit in the sorry ecxuse of space that is labeled a kitchen. Guess we'll just have to make half pots instead of full ones for a while. Could be worse!

Hope everyones' week went well and wishing all a terrific weekend!

 

[Denim Deb]

Dawn, to reheat that coffee, use solar power. Just stick a cup of it in the window of your vehicle when it's sunny out, and walla, hot coffee!

 

[Dawn419]

Deb,

I'm threatening to turn the Buicktruck into a solar oven/dehydrator if doc ever finds his Jeep and retires her. She gets so toasty-roasty with the windows rolled up on a hot, sunny day that I'm sure I could bake and dry fruits/veggies in it so reheating coffee shouldn't be a problem!


Didn't get to try out the new 10-in-1 kitchen toy last Friday for my pretzels since my flour had hatched some small critters. So I called moms to ask about making them at her place on Saturday, got the okay so we're good to go, right? Wrong! Mother Nature paid an early visit and something in my chemistry (at THAT time) will not allow me to make anything that involves dough.

Saturdays' dinner was awesome...we had a family soup dinner. My BIL was complaining that the weather was too hot for soup, and it had been. We told him we'd crank up the AC and tape pix of flames to the woodstove and fireplace and we'd pretend it was cold out. Lo and behold, we had a weather system move in on Friday that gave us a bit of rain and it continued on into Saturday with showers off and on all day and a high temp of 78F! A perfect day for soup!!!

We still need to get the tires for my truck, but the money is put aside and hopefully we'll take care of that next week during docs' week off. The Buicktruck is apparently jealous of the attention the Dakota is getting and doc had to replace the bearings in the front passenger-side brakes on his last 3 days off and her tires are looking like crap right now, too!

I'm glad that I changed up the orchard fence over the summer...it is now also serving as a puppy playpen and doing a fantastic job! Cheyenne loves hanging out in it and its giving her and the chickens/rabbits a chance to get acquainted (with barriers).

One of my Georgia Jet sweet potato vines is blooming right now! Such pretty flowers!

Pretty mushrooms in my Spearmint natural log planter:

Pix of my new, "secret" wood stash aka natural science experiment center:

And in closing...a neat swagbucks story that happened today. They were giving away 25 swagbucks to random members who posted a fashion statement comment. So I posted my "bad plaid" tale and ended up being chosen as a random winner!

The "Bad Plaid" tale:

One of my favorite comfy outfits is a pair of flannel green plaid pants and a flannel blue shirt. I just about live in this combo when the weather is colder and never even though of what a loud combo it was, since I normally just wear it around the house. Well, there's been a time or 3 that I've actually gone out into public dressed in this combo and never understood some of the "looks" that I got...until I saw a pic of myself in this fashion statement!

 

[SSDreamin]

Is that something you buy to put on the wood Dawn? Never seen blue like that on my trees around here!

Guess I'm lucky - the only people that get weird looks around here are the ones dressed all fancy, and the look is usually accompanied by an eye roll and a muttered 'tourists!' under the breath, before the obligatory head shake Can't wait until my friend from across the state - who HAS to have lots of 'bling' and the clothes that go with it on - comes to visit! I'm gonna make her stop at the store, just to see the reaction!

DH is just like your BIL. He's allergic to soup until about October!

Cheyenne is really growing!

I have pointed out that my black truck would make a great dehydrator too, IF I could get all the dog hair out of it The dog loves to come along on trips, but UGH! the hair just goes flying everywhere!

 

[Dawn419]

Nope, nothing we've bought to put on the wood, SSD...just good ole' Mother Nature at her best! Not sure what it will evolve into and thats why I try and make the secret stash piles whenever something like this catches my eye when I'm out in our woods. We also have some that is lavender and some that is the color of orange sherbert, too. Looking like Isaac will be bring us some rain on Friday, so that should get some more "stuff" popping out on twigs/branches on the forest floor.

I fit in just fine out here in that outfit. Got the "looks" back in TN and the funniest part was that the area is really not much different from this one. The "looks" were even better when doc and I showed up in a store wearing our full biking leathers.

Cheyenne is growing like a weed! She just turned 16 weeks old yesterday. She's all legs again, in this latest growth spurt and the cat can walk under her now. I suspect she won't be as small as her parents and am blaming it on all of the bunny gold she's been stealing from the garden!

The Buicktruck is sporting a fine fur coat, too.

Well, gonna get off here for now and batten down some more hatches...Isaac should be visiting on Friday but it's been crazy-windy since yesterday and will be worse on Friday!