Flowers and Cats

While we are away, I want you to have something to look at on our blog. So, I am leaving you with some pictures of our flowers for so far this year. I planted some things in our front bed called celosia. They look pretty cool, but I don't think they like all the wet soil from the rain. I really hope they don't die. I am pretty sure I am done with planting pots and baskets for the summer. I planted just a few...ahem. We have also planted 2 tomato plants, a bell pepper, and a jalapeno plant. So, we'll see how those turn out. I saved all my geraniums from last year and have incorporated them into this year's pots. They are already getting some pretty green leaves. I really hope they bloom as well as they did last year.

I have also adding in some pictures of what the cats do while I am working on the gardening. I usually open the windows to air out the house and the boys sit right in the window and watch me. They like to sniff the air, which is what Sampson is doing in one of the pictures where he is making a funny face. We've been getting a lot of bird activity lately, too. The boys love it. The birds and the cats are eating us out of house and home.

This and That

Last night we had a really pretty sky while I was sitting here playing on the computer. I tried to walk outside and get a good picture of it, but the camera wouldn't focus on any of the pictures. But, here's the best one.

We have been having all kinds of new birds since we got our tray feeder and since we put the two bird feeders out front. In the past, all we had were finches, cardinals, doves, and carolina chickadees. Everyone once in a while, we'd have a goldfinch or a pine warbler. When we first put the tray feeder out, we had a red-headed woodpecker. Scott and I both saw it at different times but neither of us could get a picture of it. Apparently it is camera shy. But, he was beautiful! Also, we have had common grackles, brown-headed cowbirds, eastern bluebirds, tufted titmice, and sparrows (several kinds-song, chipping, field). I believe that we have had some white-breasted nuthatches, but they don't stick around long enough for me to get the book and look at them and the book at the same time. I also think that we had a rose-breasted grosbeak one day. I think that another factor in our increased bird activity is that Nan, our neighbor across the street has also put out a feeder. Nan's house is against the woods, so she kind of pulls them out of hiding and they realize there is all this free food and they should explore. The weirdest thing is that I haven't seen our carolina chickadees or the pine warblers since the winter time. They may be coming during the day and I miss them, but it's strange. I was telling the guy at Wild Birds Unlimited this the other day and he didn't know why either. He figures something must have changed. Maybe because we have such big birds coming around now they are intimidated. Who knows.

So, I was at Wild Birds Unlimited to make a new purchase that we had been considering for a while (since the last time I was at WBU a month or so ago). I bought a humming bird feeder. I had one before, but it was a little too high maintenance for me. This one is perfect for the lazy bird-watcher. We bought it on Saturday and yesterday we saw a humming bird at the feeder! I was so excited they found it so fast! According to the people at WBU, the humming birds are nesting right now, but once the babies leave the nests around July, we'll have tons of humming birds through early September. I am so excited! The cats seem pretty excited too!

Here's the brown-headed cowbird. I think they are very pretty birds.

I love this picture of this cardinal. You can see the sunflower seed in his mouth. We have a male and female that hang out together all the time, but it's hard to get a picture of them together.

This is the best picture I can get of the common grackle. They are pretty camera shy. But, look at those colors. They are really pretty in the right light. In the wrong light, they look like crows with yellow eyes.

Look at this cute little baby finch! Every year we get a new batch of baby finches. Aw! Isn't he (probably she, actually) cute!

See how many pine warblers we were getting back when it was cold? Do you know if they migrate? Now that I think of it, it seems like we only see yellow birds (goldfinches or pine warblers) when it is cold or just starting to warm up. Hmmmm....oh, my book says that they like insects, but since there aren't many in the winter, they'll come to the feeder in the winter. That makes sense. So, they are probably around, they just don't need us in the summer when we have lots of tasty bugs around.

Container Gardens

I hope that you all aren't tired of hearing about our house and all the flowers. I just get so happy when I see my hanging baskets and container gardens. I wanted to show y'all some of the progress we are making.

First of all, I promised the other day that I would post pictures of our newly potted container gardens. So, here they are. They are already opening up! I'll show you a picture from earlier in the week and a picture from today of the ones out front. In case you are wondering, the front little pot has a geranium in it. The middle pot, which is bigger around and shorter than the rest has a geranium, two lavendars, and two of some sort of vine-y plant that I think is called limelight. The tallest pot has a clematis that I hope blooms soon climbing up that little metal daisy I found at Old Time Pottery and two more of the limelight. I hope they are exploding by the time Tasha comes back next week!

On our back porch, we had never purchased patio furniture because we thought our space was too small. But, Tasha said to get two chairs and a small table or just put a potted plant in between them. So, look at what we did. (I have swept the porch off since I took this picture when I got home today.)



The little pot on the stand between the chairs has a pink Gerbera Daisy and a vine-y plant that I am pretty sure is call Vinca Major. I got the pot for $3.99 and the stand for $12.99 at Garden Ridge, if you want one. Also, those cute chairs were $15 each at Garden Ridge and they had all colors, including some with white legs and stuff, but I didn't think they looked as nice. I put two little candle holders out there with some Yankee Candle Company Citronella Candles that I bought a couple of years ago when I thought we'd have patio furniture sooner than this.

This is a closer view of the container garden beside the chair. It has a Gerbera Daisy, a pink Geranium, and two Lavendars. You can see that the Geranium is starting to open up! Yay!






This is the first thing people see when they walk out our back door.
Here's a closer look at these two container gardens: the small one has a pink Gerbera Daisy and the big one has a pink Geranium, a Gerbera Daisy, and two Lavendars. These Geraniums are opening too. You can see that in the picture with the grill, they hadn't started opening up yet and now they are starting to open. Also, we really need to clean up the grill. Does anyone know what we should do?

My hanging baskets are really doing well. I put a picture of them up the other day. Well, they are already getting fuller. I took a picture of the fronts and the backs of them. I know it is kind of darker from the back because the house was kind of overshadowing. But, I want your opinion...do you think that the backs of the baskets look better and I should turn them around? We hung a bird feeder on the back so that the boys can sit in the guest bedroom and watch birds there too. We just love our cats.

Okay. I think that this is enough for this post. I have some "inside" pictures too, but I'll wait until we get more done today and then post the "stages" of our staging. (Yeah, I started this last night kind of late so I had to save it and finish it today.)

Our um...NON-Feathered Friend

Well, I was getting tired of seeing my face pop up on the blog each time I logged in, so here is a new post. Thanks for all the nice comments about my hair. We've been very busy. We have re-listed our house with a new real estate agent. We are having a lady come in to stage our house. There will also be a professional photographer coming in to take 30-50 pictures of our house to post on the web and our listing agent gets a "showcase" listing on Realtor.com. So, I really hope it sells soon. I am tired of all our stuff being in storage and I have a feeling that even more stuff will have to go.

This past Saturday, we had an interesting visitor. Scott and I had gone to see my grandmother, Meme, and when we were pulling into the driveway, I noticed a "bird" at the feeder. I thought, man, that's a huge bird, what is it. Then, I looked closer and realized it was a squirrel! He saw us seeing him and stopped eating and held on completely still for a second. Then, he just kept on going like, oh well, they will have to come shoo me off if they want me gone! What was I to do? I went inside and stood next to the cats and took pictures, of course!

This same little guy was hanging around on Sunday when we got home from church. I tapped on the glass and everything and he wouldn't budge. So, Scott unlocked the window and started to open it and he fell off like someone had shot him and ran off. The cats had tried to duck their heads out the window (like they could get through the screen) to go get him. I do think that if they really wanted out, they could definitely break through the screen, they are pretty strong, but they don't know it. I'll leave it that way.

Anyways, enjoy:

Another Cat Video

A while back, I posted a really cute video of Sampson and said that I would post one of both of our cats watching birds later. Well, it's later. Here it is. Super funny. Super cute.

Our Weekend

Scott and I have been having a couple of nice weekends in a row where we haven't had any real plans on Friday or Saturday night! It has actually been quite nice. Friday night, we played games together and then watched one of the free OnDemand movies through our cable. Scott beat me several times at Battle Ship and then we played Jenga, which I never get tired of playing. Saturday, we did a bit of tidying up around the house and then I did some scrapbooking while Scott played Wii. I have a corn plant that has gotten quite tall, but through the many times it has been moved, all the leaves on the bottom had fallen off and it was very top heavy. Even staking it wasn't holding it up. I noticed that over the past year, it has grown some "baby corn plants" at the bottom. So, Scott and I whacked it off! Our office looks twice as big as it did before. Here are some pictures.

Then, I decided that I wanted to go back to Medieval Times at Discover Mills, so we bought tickets and went there on Saturday night. We had been once before with some of our neighbors and it was a lot of fun, but I wanted to go again just Scott and me. The food is really good. Here are some pictures we took. Theres one of Scott and I and one of the "king" that we took before the show. They don't like you to take pictures during the show because they have live horses and it could upset the horses and the horse and its rider could get injured.

Sunday was happy hour for the birds! A lot of times we have time to spend relaxing before we leave for church, so yesterday I opened up the blinds for the cats to watch the birds and I think that I got more entertainment out of it in the morning and in the afternoon than

the cats! Sunday morning, there were 5 finches on our bird feeder at one time. I think that some of them look like babies. Then, under the bird feeder was this chipmunk who was scavenging around picking up seeds the birds dropped. His little cheeks were getting so full! We checked outside our house for holes and didn't see any, so I guess he lives elsewhere. Scott had to work after church (they were having server problems at his office), so I was watching tv/watching the birds and I saw a humming bird getting nectar out of the flowers in my hanging basket! I didn't get a picture of it. We also have doves pretty often. I think they are mourning doves. They usually eat off the ground because they are so big, but lately, they have been sitting on the bird feeder to eat. I am afraid they are going to break it because they are so heavy!

I definitely think that this one is a baby. What do you think?

Here is one of our mourning doves. Today, I looked out and saw three of them in our yard picking up seeds out of the grass. The cats get so excited about these huge birds!

So, that was our nice, relaxing weekend. We stayed busy, but nothing was planned. Ah...

I am once again adding a disclaimer that when I save my blog, it does not look so jumbled. If anyone knows how to make it save my changes, please share. Blogging is not making me feel relaxed right now!