Happy Mother's Day--May 14, 2017

Happy Mother's Day!!

Things continue to be very busy here, so I am going to rerun one of my Mother's Day posts from before. My mother is a remarkable woman and this is just a small glimpse into who she is.

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Happy Mother's Day

I come from hearty stock. Thank goodness, because raising babies in my family is not for the faint of heart. Just ask my mother.

She gave birth to my oldest sister, Daughter Number One, as young woman one year after she married my father. She said at that point she knew as much about taking care of a baby as she did about being a plumber (not much). My sister did all of the fun things babies do like cry a lot for no apparent reason and never sleep. But soon my sister learned to talk. And talk. My mothered yearned for quiet.

Two and a half years later, Daughter Number Two was born. She followed in the footsteps of Number One and cried a lot for no apparent reason and never slept. Then she learned to walk. And run. And climb. And to never be afraid. She climbed the banisters, moved the furniture, scared the neighbors, and had the fire department rescue her from a drain. She didn't talk much, but that didn't matter, because Number One talked enough for both of them.

Three years after Number Two, I was born. I just didn't cry for no apparent reason, I cried ALL of the time. I cried so much that I burst my tear ducts. I cried so much that the neighbors took me with them when they delivered groceries. They hoped to provide some relief for all involved. I consumed every minute of my mother's time. Meanwhile, Number One talked and Number Two was “busy.”

My mother was tired, but the kids were happy.

Then the miracle happened. Daughter Number Four was born four years after me. She only cried when she needed something. She slept regularly. My mother was afraid that something was wrong with her. She didn't understand this kind of baby. Meanwhile, Number One talked, Number Two was busy, and I cried easily, but we were manageable now—at least compared to before. For a little while, my mother could breathe and just be very busy raising four young girls. That was until my ailing grandmother moved in. But that's another story.

My husband has a theory that the number of kids in a family is equal to the number of easy babies plus one difficult one. Thank goodness my parents didn't subscribe to that formula or I wouldn't be here. I want to thank my mother, on this Mother's Day, for not giving up when I'm sure she wanted to and giving me a great start to life.

Thankful Sunday--May 7, 2017

Red is being leash trained while he learns boundries and to come when called. 

I am thankful for buttercups.

Every year Aunt Martha selectively mows her yard to let a field of buttercups grow into a striking mass of yellow. Over the years, this became a great place to photograph her dog, Bear because he was totally black and didn't always show up well in photos.

Sadly, he passed away last year, but they have a new dog, Red. Red is a rescued redtick coonhound and has a varied, auburn coat which does not present the same picture challenges as Bear's did. However, I thought the tradition of buttercup dog photos should go on, so I took a picture of Red in them. And he looked just as good as Bear did. Enough so, that my sisters and I are thinking about having our pictures taken with the buttercups, since we also have auburn hair.  :)

So for buttercups, old traditions and new dogs, I am thankful.

A Second Look--May 5, 2017

 We are experiencing typical spring weather which means it cycles from hot and humid to cool and breezy and back to hot again. With every change, rain is sprinkled in here and there. This has been good growing weather for almost everything. The grass and its accompanying weeds have been growing like crazy and we've needed to mow at least twice a week. The trees are leafed out with only a few blooms left on them. I continue to discover new things popping up in the yard which is a lot of fun. I just wish they weren't encased in ground cover vines or poison ivy. A challenging problem to solve for sure.

Here are a few things a saw this week

 during a Second Look.

While most of the trees have lost their blooms, these azaleas are still providing lots of color. The bushes are on the side of the house and looked like they haven't had much attention except some trimming of deadwood I did earlier. However, neglect must be good, because they are really pretty.

Corral bells are blooming on the other side of the house. I can't pass them without singing White Coral Bells. Now I need to find someone to sing this with me in a round.

A salvia plant has also started to bloom in that bed.

The back corner bed is the one that intrigues me the most. Three planted ground covers plus poison ivy thoroughly cover everything. So when I discover a plant or one grows above the background vines, it is truly a fun surprise.

Recently discovered are these poppies. I see buds, so they may be blooming soon. Poppies are known for seeding and spreading like crazy. However, I think there's too much shade or ground cover here for that to happen. Also notice the vinca vines' purple flowers on the right.

The dianthus I uncovered last week has started to bloom.

Remember Miss Annie Laurie's hellebore? It needs shade, so it was planted it in this bed. I moved it from the old house and it spent the winter in a pot. It suffered another assault when I accidentally dropped it head first into the hole I dug. However, just like before it seems to be rallying. 

No eggs in the nest yet, but there continues to be work on it. 

Car Shopping

There comes a time in every car's life when the repairs cost more than the car is worth. And when it's not safe to drive because you just know the transmission is going to fail at any minute, even though the two different shops you took it to can't seem to repeat the symptoms you're describing to them. Well, that just happened to one of our cars. Thus, we recently went through the dreaded process of shopping for and buying a new car. And during this process, we encountered some of the worst and the best people in the business.

We started to visit dealerships after we had narrowed our choices of what we wanted. At the dealerships, we were approached by a sales person as we walked in the door. I think they take shifts on who is on front-line duty as we were only approached by one person in each place. We saw the cars, asked our questions, and took the person's card because we wanted to honor the time they spent with us since they work on commission.

In between these onsite visits, we registered with Costco and True Car program through our credit union. Dealers have agreed to honor set prices for those participating in these programs.. After your online registration, sale people start contacting you either by email or phone or both. What all this means is that we had several dealers contacting us about buying a car, some we had seen in person, and some we hadn't. Whatever the case was, we tried to honor the first point of contact.

And here's where it gets interesting.  At one dealership, we had only spoken on the phone and exchanged emails with Kevin, so we asked for him when we visited. The person who approached us as our front-line contact said Kevin wasn't there that day and proceeded to wait on us. We listened, took his card, and left. Something didn't feel right, so we sat in the parking lot and called Kevin. And guess what? Kevin was at work that day.

On the other side of town at another dealership, our first contact was in person with a very nice young man, Mike. Later we got a call from Barry, who represented the Costco program there. So when we went back, we weren't sure who to talk to. Barry stepped up and started to work with us. However, do you do you know what Barry did? He called over Mike and showed him how to handle the paper work. Also, Barry said that Mike could have all of the commission on this sale. They were both so nice and such a contrast from our earlier encounter, we wanted to buy a car from each one of them.

But alas, we didn't. And we didn't buy from Kevin or his dishonest co-worker, either. We bought from a third dealership where we dealt with a low pressure, friendly, knowledgeable salesman. Turns out he had the best car and the best deal.

So there you have it. How we got our shiny, new car that doesn't surge every time the transmission changes gears. And how we learned there are a lot of nice, honest people out there, but you have to keep your radar on just in case.

A Second Look--April 25, 2017

We've had mostly warm days with plenty of rain and things are growing fast and furious these days. I don't think we've been below freezing for a few weeks now. The grass is especially happy in this kind of weather and we had to cut it twice last week.

All of this rapid growth is interesting to watch along with the various perennials that are emerging--some of which I recognize and some of which I don't. There are a few I'm still on the fence about as to whether they are are weeds or not. I have a lot of learning to do in this area. Unfortunately, the poison ivy and other invasive plants are starting to leaf out, too. I learned my lesson in my old yard and know it's best to spend a year or two trying to eliminate the vines and invasives before doing much else. Otherwise, we'll end up with more problems than we started with. I have so many ideas that will just have to wait.

While all of this is exciting to discover, the most exciting thing is what I discovered a couple of days ago. I found a nest being built in one of our nest boxes. It looks like a bluebird's nest although I haven't seen any bluebirds around. Time will tell.

Here are a few pictures of things I've seen during the past week. Some of them don't show exactly what I want, but it's been raining for a few days now and that has prevented me from venturing out to take other shots.

Except for the dogwoods, most of the trees are done blooming and are now leafing out.

However, you can still find a few lingering blossoms like the one on this apple tree.

Several bushes are in full bloom like these azaleas.

And the 4 or 5 lilacs that are in the yard. I really need to count sometime. I haven't seen many bees. Mostly carpenter bees like the one on these lilac blooms.

This back corner bed looks like it was a very nice bed at one point. Right now the ground covers have totally taken over, but I see various things popping up. Earlier there were a few daffodils blooming here. Now I also see day lily and iris leaves.

I uncovered this plant in the corner bed which looks like it could be a dianthus.

Nearby, were some coral bells.

The yellow lamium in the corner is pretty, but very vigorous as most ground covers are.

Outside of the formal flower beds, I found a few of these volunteer purple flowers from the neighbor's yard. 

And a nice patch of violets.

As I've been digging around in various places, I've found the soil is rocky with both big and small rocks.

We cleaned this corner out and then I planted grass seed. This is an attempt to have something competing with the weeds that will try to take back over.  We may add flower beds here sometime in the future.

The grass is coming up, but I don't know how well it is going to compete with the hardy weeds.

This looks just like the pine needle bluebird nests we got at our old house.