A Strange Bird

A visitor after a thunderstorm. 

Outside

Signs of early Spring and a curious squirrel.

Around the garden

Meet the cheekiest bunny ever. He/she is not the least bit intimidated by me standing on the stairs and taking pictures. Those carrot tops must be yummy. And it is a very good bunny too, only takes one mouthful from each plant. And I have to apologize to the bunny, it is actually the squirrels who are stealing the tomatoes.

Weekend

We had a nice long weekend, interrupted only by that pesky grocery shopping, which I hate but needs to be done every now and then. The temperature has come down thanks to the first hurricane of the season to hit the Carolina coast. We got a little rain from it, but not as much as we had from other storms in the past, so putting water on the garden was the first thing I did every morning.

We stocked up on fresh fruits and vegetables again and all the makings for cold dinners because we are heading into another week of temperatures in the 90s. Yuck!

Taking advantage of the cooler weather I baked something yummy for the weekend. You can find the recipe here: bake or break
The crust needs some tweaking for my taste, it is way too sweet for people who eat little sweet stuff and it got rather hard, next time I will reduce the baking time for it and use less sugar. The yellow color is from our farmer's market eggs, which have deep yellow, almost orange yolks.

I snapped a couple of pictures of our bunny, through the fly screen, so they are a little fuzzy. It is a very pretty bunny with huge dark eyes. It is really happy that we don't mow that often and is merrily munching the plantains which are plentiful this year.

I even found some time for a bit of crochet. I am still working on squares for my various blankets, but I could not resist another test square for a project that has been rattling around my mind for a while. This time with worsted weight yarn.

I started a batch of fermented pickles, took a FB fast on Sunday, raided the 'Free for Kindle' section on Amazon and started reading one of my 'bucket list books'. "Ulysses" by James Joyce.

Have a great week everyone, stay cool and be kind to yourself.

Buns and Roses

Garden Bunny

We have a bunny on our property that visits the garden. And because it is such a good bunny and never nibbles on any of my veggie plants, I leave the occasional carrot out for him. I love the big eyes on the little guy.

Fall

The squirrels are in a hurry to store food for the Winter (as frantic as they are I wonder how bad this Winter is going to be).

Beautiful colors.

Matching slippers for warm toes (I just finished a pair for myself with the yarn left over from Del's slippers).

Comfort food for dinner on cold evenings.

I love Fall!

All Grown Up

Beauty In My Garden

More Signs of Spring and a Visitor

Our camellia is in full bloom and I decided to cut a couple of blooms for the vase. Miss Kitty thinks they are pretty (and they look tasty too).

The lilac bush has promising buds and I hope that we will not get any more hard frost.

When I stepped outside I spotted something unusual in the carport and when I went to check it out I found this. A tiny little snake.

The little brown cat took an immediate interest in it as well and was very disappointed when I took the new toy away. I carefully scooped it up with a small rake and took it to the other side of the garden where it slid happily into the grass. I like snakes.

Catching Up

I had a bit of an off week and did not feel up to much of anything. I did not do any sewing as I had planned to do, the broken AC threw me off. We also had bad weather, heavy rains, a power outage, no phone for almost two days and I was in a bad mood. Now things are lightening up a bit, my favorite season is about to begin and it is time to make a new start.

Let's start with another lovely birthday present I received from my friend Sabine in Germany. The poor package had quite a round trip because of a little mistake in the address and the postman not coming to the door to ask if this might be me. She sent me place mats, coasters and napkins with a pretty lemon pattern to compliment my kitchen curtains.

Here are some pictures taken the morning after the big rainfall, it looks like Fall has come early.

Miss Kitty had a new visitor in the garden this week. A female squirrel who is not very shy and figured out how to get the seeds out of the sunflower heads we tied to the stair rails for the birds.

More pictures can be seen here.

We are getting ready to participate in the annual yard sale at our church next Saturday. Yesterday we got the boxes with the stuff we want to sell down from the attic. Today we are going to sort, price and pack everything. Miss Kitty is a little worried because we are using our old moving boxes and she remembers them all too well. Every time she sees them come out in large numbers she thinks we are moving again. Poor thing.

I found a book in one of the yard sale boxes that I thought I had left behind in Vienna. I was looking for it earlier this week because I wanted to give it to a little girl in our church. I am so happy I still have it and can give it to her. It is a children's book about ballet, when she was asked what she wanted to be when she grows up she said 'a ballerina', so I hope she will enjoy it.

Out and about on a Saturday

First thing we did this morning was sleep in. :) After a nice leisurely breakfast we went on our way. First we checked out the yard sale at our church, which benefits Relay for Life. We had contributed some stuff and it would not be a yard sale had we not bought something to even the score. :) I found two nice pieces of fabric and I never could resist a cute kitty cat. The whole purchase came to $1.25, which even we can afford.

After filling up the car we went to the Farmer's Market to check out what's available already. Oh how I wish I had a garden! The market was full with plants, flowers, tomatoes and herbs, lots of beautiful kitchen herbs! I know one thing, once I do have a garden, I will have purple and yellow flowers only, lots of veggies and lots of herbs. Since we have to wait at least another year until we will qualify for a mortgage, I have a lot of time to dream and plan.

After the market we drove to the Environmental Center and walked the greenway. It turned into quite the nature walk. In the parking lot I saw a lizard, which kindly posed for a picture.

My smart book about backyard fauna told me that it is an Eastern Fence Lizard, cute little thing, looks like a dragon. :)

We also saw a bunny (in the distance on the left side of the picture), Del caught a goose in flight and I really begin to appreciate the makro function on my camera for taking pictures of flowers and insects. The whole area is now bright green and looks like a jungle, we had plenty of rain and the level of the lake is high. We also saw lots of turtles, but did not get close enough for a picture and a chipmunk hiding in the undergrowth. I love walking there, hearing all kinds of birds and every so often something rustling in the dead leaves besides the greenway. It was nice and warm and sunny today, with just a little bit of a cool breeze. I hope the cold weather is now behind us and we can go walking more often. Here are the other photos.