schickHouse

Blooms & Birds

Here are some more beauteous blooms from the yard (click to enlarge). I was also privileged to catch a shot of these yellow finches.

   

      

Steve & I did a bit of googling this afternoon and identified some of our nameless flowers. We found Globe Thistles (which I LOVE, even though they can be considered a weed), Indian Blanket Flowers, Cleome "Sparkler Rose" (I think the taller version is called a Spider Flower), and Foxglove (we had white and purple blooms). One that I haven't seen here, but I think I'd like is the Spoon Daisy, aka Whirligig Flower.

Meet Goldie & Loldie

Shelby retrieved a coupon at the egg hunt for two free goldfish. She's loving them and the fact that they are all hers.

Caution: Keet Crossing

i FINALLY discovered what a keet is!!! or at least one thing they may be. you see, down by our old house in holtwood, there was a sign at one part in the road that said, "caution: keet crossing." one day (one day in all of four years) i DID see a kind of bird crossing the road there, a bit turkey-like. but this still did not tell me what a keet was exactly. and i've searched and googled and could never find the word even mentioned. well, tonite i was looking up guineafowl to see if maybe we'd like them on the farm. i'd seen them before and thought their feathers were so pretty. not even trying to investigate keets, i find this line in the wikipedia article: "The young, called "keets" are very small at birth." ha! how 'bout that. now, the birds i saw in holtwood that day were not small. so... maybe somebody uses that word for the guineas at all ages. or could still be some other kind of fowl. but i was just so delighted to finally find the word somewhere!

Another Blue Ribbon & A Piggie

had another wonderful night at the fair. a little damp & chilly, but fun nonetheless. the baby parade went on without a hitch (except i forgot angela lion's tail). we won blue ribbon for best group. (thanks, dad, for the foto!) if there was a prize for biggest fan club, we would've won that, too. thanks to all the family (grammy s, aunt sue, alec, alena, aunt sandy, uncle dan, steven, andrew, poppop, aunt chrissy, uncle jon, aunt audie, uncle arnie) who came out to see us. we had so much fun.

then we tromped on over to the arena for the pig chasing. wow, what a turnout! 5 & younger girls went first. shelby got close, and it was so much fun to watch her running around after that pig. steve got some video of that chase. next was the 5 & younger boys. i was cheering and cheering. then i saw cy just standing to the side. i thought he must've got tired or bored or disgruntled. but no, he had already caught a pig! he was in the midst of a BIG group of kiddos down at the other end of the arena, so steve & i didn't actually see him catch it. but when he came out (ahead of most of the other boys), he said, "i the winner!" wow. way to go, cy. no ribbon, but he did win $15. used to be you could choose money or piggie, but i don't think there was that choice tonite. we would've taken the piggie. it would've been our first animal on our new farm. but that's ok. cy will have fun with his prize money.

Sting Things

i've been wondering for some time now if i really knew my stuff on all those flying stinging things. of course, i don't know about ALL of them. but i've found out i knew pretty well those kinds i run into frequently. the other evening we saw a lone hornet out on the deck. down at gramma's i saw a scad of iridescent blue-black mud wasps. i learned a funny thing about yellow jackets. they live in the ground usually (like dan & sandy know). i read that if you cover the entrance (hole in the ground) of their nest with a glass bowl at night, they will become confused in the daytime as to why they can't go toward the light for food. instead of burrowing out another way, they will starve to death. huh. how 'bout that? and the last one i looked up was the regular ol' wasp. then i had to google their nests cuz i was curious about that, too. came across this bug guide that looks pretty cool. alright, all things buggie are out of my mind now.

Moths

now i know why the children run out every morning to look at the moths on our wall. apparently these parts are home to way cooler moths than i'm used to. one evening we spied these three, all within about five minutes.

this guy's picture doen't do him justice. he really looked even more like a stick than his picture portrays.

the "just-us-twigs-here" moth:

i think these would be the coolest legs to have (if i were a moth). the "pretty-as-a-posie" moth:

and this fellow always seems to line HIS line up with a line on the surface on which he's sitting. when shelby first showed me him, she said, "look. that one looks like a leaf." and i started to say, "oh, shelb. i'm sorry, that one IS a leaf. it's not a moth." but i was mistaken. i think it's cool how his "leaf" is oriented opposite of his "mothness," i.e. in the pic, the leaf is "up and down" but the moth is "right to left."

the "nothin'-but-a-leaf" moth:

Bugs

we found some bugs. praying mantis & lightning bugs.

Going On a Bear Hunt

no, not really. but it is not unusual to deer meandering up our street. it evokes a whole different feeling though when it's a black bear. yep, saw a black bear just wandering up past our neighbor's driveway the other day. i scrambled to get my camera, but he kept moving, and by the time i got out on the deck, he was gone.

All God's Creatures

i spied a scarlet tanager (twice!). i had to look in up in our bird book because i had never seen one before. i thought it might be an oriole. ours is a brilliant orange, not yet red. from what i read, this means it is a first-year (young) bird.

steve found a garter snake under his mower (lucky snake). got a cool shot of ry holding him.

and here are our three little kittens. names are still in the works. i think we have one girl & two boys. cyrus is holding "ash lee" (shelby named it ashley, but we tried to make it masculine after we found out she was a he). elle mae is gently caressing the one that was last to be named. i think they've settled on "holly," namesaked for shelby's webkinz (but elle mae chose the name). and shelby is holding "cyrus," named by none other than our cyrus. i wish you could see his face. i think he has the cutest face of the three. i'm sure we'll have more pics soon. his color is really unique. you might not be able to tell in the photo, but his head is black but he "fades" as you down his back. his face has little speckles of calico.

Last-Day-of-April Adventure

catchy title, eh? last wednesday steve came home ready to take the whole lot of us on a little adventure. he had found a new part of the many state gamelands around here. we went for a drive the whole way through and back through. highlights included a beautiful little waterfall, shelby spying "dinosaur" bones, and finding a free shooting range (both rifle and handgun). needless to say, we'll probably return. the adventure culminated in pizza at one of our favorite little places. woohoo! ~bec.