This N That

We’ve been doing a little bit of organizing here on The Hill. It was spurred on by Mr. C. bringing home two old metal cabinets from his Dad’s garage. He SAID he only wanted one, and I said I would like one too. So he brought two home… guess who ended up with both of them???

He’s very happy to have all of his bit’s and pieces in order and assures me that he will be more willing to do projects since he knows where everything is! If that holds true I won’t mind that he took both of them!

I also started organizing in my garden shed and found this old plant stand that I bought years ago in Greensboro.

 

I think it looks lovely on the front porch with angel wing begonias and creeping Jenny.

A couch fulla Sassies…

My dog bite bruises just keep getting prettier.

I told Mr. C that everyone would think he’s an abuser!

Only two days til Schmenky arrives for our 17th annual Memorial Weekend Hootinanny! YAY!!

Your room is ready!

A Scary Reminder

Yesterday morning I was reading the newspaper when I heard a commotion on the deck. I got up to check it out and found two dogs in my yard, a big white shepherd/chow mix and a small brown mutt.

I went out and greeted them and the big one approached me in a friendly way. I let him sniff my hand and spoke to him and he seemed just fine. Then I slowly turned my hand to pet him and he just lunged at me, teeth bared and snarling.

Thankfully I still have a few quick reflexes left in me and I managed to turn quickly enough that he only got me in the arm instead of my face or neck! I had long sleeves on so I only ended up with a fairly minor bruise instead of a bite.

I think I’m pretty good at ‘reading’ animals but this one didn’t even give me a hint that he wasn’t going to be nice!

I went into the house but they just hung around harassing the chickens and poor Tux and Nellie. So as much as I didn’t want to, I called animal control. He came out and told me that he has had ‘dealings’ with this particular dog before. He belongs to a hoarder that lives near-by. When he approached the dog he was greeted with a snarling lunge as well. So he got the catch pole and managed to get a hold of him. His little cohort was LONG gone by this time.

Once he was on the catch pole he acted all sweet and normal! I feel really, REALLY bad that I was the one to send him to the Humane Society for an evaluation and he will probably be put onto the ‘dangerous dog list’ since this was not his first offense, but if his owner let him run around like that and he approached a little kid… the results probably wouldn’t look like this …

It was a good, but scary reminder for me that I can’t always read an animal’s temperament.

And also a wake-up call for folks that let their dogs run loose.

May Pops

The title of this post is a bit deceiving as I don’t have any May-pops in my garden, but I DO have things popping!

Can you guess what that is on the fence?

Up pops a Pileated Woodpecker!

Miss Tinkle-belle pops in every morning and every evening for a handful of walnuts.

She has not growled at me yet!

Here she is getting impatient with the picture taking… can’t feed her nuts while I’m trying to focus!

Zucchini blooms

Lots of iris, salvia and peonies

Schmenkie’s favorite… Achillea ‘paprika’

looks pretty next to the catmint

Wiegelia buds and blooms

The deck is popping with color

I saw these cute little wooden bowls a a thrift shop in Michigan… 6 for $6.00!

I tried to convince one of the Capris to buy them, but no one was interested! I just couldn’t see leaving them there so I bought them, stuffed them in my carry on bag and flew them home with me! I planted them with Million bells and put them on this triangular, tiered candle holder that seems like it was just made for them!

How cute is that?!

Puff the quail pops a sweet little egg out every day… they’re tasty!

Now I’m going to pop outside and get some weeding done!

 

 

My Ticket to Easy Street!

I’m gonna be RICH!!!

Missin DaMaMa

 

 

 

What a wonderful lady, what a wonderful Mom! Miss you MaMa.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you Moms, even if you’re just a mom to furry things!

Hey There!

No excuses, just been to lazy to type up a post.

Let’s see, what have we been up to here on The Hill?

I took a trip up to Michigan for my nieces baby shower at the end of April, she looks beautiful!

(So do the proud Grammas!)

 

I still can’t quite figure out when my nieces and nephews turned into full fledged adults!

When you live in another state, you miss a lot of growing up time and the next thing you know they are married, having children, buying houses…

Another niece is purchasing her first home…

My nephew’s son is turning into such a big boy!

Grampa and Gramma are just a lil-bit proud of him!

They all just grew up … when did THAT happen???

Speaking of growing up, Tinklebelle was released and as of yesterday was still being sweet and coming to me when I called her

Sigh… can’t we just make time slow down a little bit?

What’s Poppin

I posted this pic the other day…

this morning…

Other things poppin in the gardens this morning…

 

Ajuga is under appreciated, you need to change your perspective sometimes…

Remember these planters from last year?

Look at all of the baby million bells poppin!

I love springtime!

Thursday Evening Stroll

I spent most of the day giving Pudge’s pond a good cleaning. The algae had made the water look like pea soup! Today I’ll be working on hooking up the ultra-violet water clarifier so it shouldn’t happen again.

He quite enjoyed the fresh water!

 

His bear is hanging on the fence to drip dry, he wants to rescue his bear!

Every night he takes it in the water and wrestles with it and ‘drowns’ it. The coolest thing happened the other night. I was out there for our nightly ‘family time’ and I said, “Where’s your bear Pudge? Go find your bear!”  He immediately dove down and started swimming around the pond and a few seconds later he surfaced with his bear and brought it to me! It was clear he understood what I wanted. Amazing! It wasn’t coincidence either, the night before that I asked him to find his bear and he tried to bring it up but couldn’t because it was stuck under a branch in the water. I could see the branch shaking like crazy (the water was green so I couldn’t see what he was doing) and he kept coming up and going back to that spot. So I got the net and found the bear right where he was diving! He is clearly brilliant and understands his ‘mom’!

Here he is last night enjoying his dinner.

Other shots from around the garden last night

The columbine is especially pretty this year

I planted two pink dogwood along the fence in an attempt to block the view of the not so attractive barn.

 

Clearly they’ll need to do a bit of growing before they block anything!

Everything is so far ahead of schedule this year.

The peonies and iris are popping

 

Not complaining, but I’m a bit apprehensive of what  kind of summer we’re in for!

 

Latest Paint Class… and Tinklebelle!

Painting class again yesterday! On tap was and apple orchard with a cow and pond.

I skipped the cow and added a couple of boulders and came home with this…

I didn’t HATE it, but didn’t love it either so I played around with it this morning.

I like it much better now…

No pond is complete it my mind until it has one of these…

The BEST part of the day is when Terri, teacher extraordinaire, gave me this!…

I had to bring Miss Tinklebelle to class a few times and Terri just loved her, so this is REALLY a present for Tinklebelle!

I love it!  THANK YOU Terri!  (click her name to see her website!)

Speaking of Tinky…

She’s growing fast!

 

This and That

I skyped with Schmenky yesterday and she asked me what was new. I told her nothing… I totally forgot about the new resident here on The Hill!

Meet Puff…

So named because when we approach her cage she poofs all of her feathers out to make herself look as big as possible.

Someone turned her into the Blue Ridge Wildlife center, and of course they called to ask me if I wanted to take her since she isn’t native to Virginia. She is a Coturnix Quail. Apparently the authorities seized a bunch of animals for neglect and a few escaped. Kind neighbors captured Puff, and now she is all ours!

Everyday she leaves me one of these…

Aren’t they precious?! Compare to the chicken’s..

According to the internet, quail eggs are a delicacy and will cure all kinds of ills! We just may have to get a few more!

She is in the basement beaver room which is now housing Barnabus and Maximus since Pudgie has moved outside.

We will be building a bigger and better enclosure for her and her future covey-mates.

Wandering around the yard

I noticed that my hydrangeas are resprouting leaves where the frostbitten ones are…

maybe I’ll still get blooms!

I spied these infant pinecones…

So pretty!

Not so pretty…

But he’s sweet!

 

We’re Making A Meadow!

When we first moved here to The Hill, we were told that the previous owner was obsessed with mowing. That the guy was constantly out on the mower.

My theory is that it was his only escape from the 3 whiney children that they had! Oh my gosh, they were brats!

I digress…

Anyway, we have kept up the mowing over the years because it seems as though everyone else wants to keep their yards mowed around here. But I have often said that we should let the front hillside just grow into a meadow and only mow it once a year. Finally Mr. C has come around to my way of thinking. We’re going to start out small and still mow the entire perimeter of the property and see how it goes. We’re starting off with a section of wildflowers and grasses.

We hope to provide even more wildlife and birds a place to enjoy with us here on The Hill.

First I sprayed out an area

Then tilled out the dead weeds

We raked them up

(that’s Neighbor Mike’s house )

And then we sowed the seeds. And planted some divisions of oat grass.

 

I’m going to drag the sprinkler down there and get them watered in this morning.

I’ll keep you updated on how it goes   grows!

 

Another Painting

Last Wednesday’s paint class was stressful for me.

We were to paint a hummingbird with a couple of fuchsia blooms.

I was excited to do it because hummingbirds and fuchsias both remind me of my mom.

I absolutely HATED what I did with the flowers and kept trying to redo them and I kept making them worse. Finally I just painted them out using the background (sky) color with the thought of starting over. I never even GOT to painting the hummingbird which is what I really wanted to paint the most. I left class feeling pretty defeated and thinking that I should probably just stick with mosaics. I came home and repainted the flowers and still hated it. So I put it all aside and found a different picture to try to paint. I’m still not happy with the results of the flowers, but I’m fairly pleased with how the hummingbird turned out.

Still very amateurish, but I AM an amateur, so I need to learn to cut myself a little bit of slack.

I guess I’ll keep trying.

 

Meet ‘Tinklebelle’

Little Miss Tinklebelle has been a resident here on The Hill for a couple of weeks now. Her eyes were still closed when she got here and she is growing up fast!

 

She and her siblings were blown out of their nest during a storm. Unfortunately a dog found them before the dog’s family did. Tinklebelle was the sole survivor.

We Match!

Last week I took Pudge for a walk and the sunshine on his fur was so beautiful!

I thought to myself…

“I wish my hair was that color”

Then it hit me, I have the knowledge and technology to make it happen!

I think I got it pretty close!

In other news this Easter weekend,

The crazy Dog Family came for a visit! Somehow the camera only focused on the Crazy Dog Baby though.

He is almost always smiling!

He wants a kitty!

On Easter Mr. C and I took a walk on The Greenway

I do SO love a beautiful weeping willow!

And we got to see this Black Crowned Night Heron catch a fish.

 

I hope that your Easter was as beautiful and blessed as ours!

Sassy Soft and Warm

Whenever I brush the Sassy Cats I don’t let the fur go to waste. I put it into the decorative part of a plant hanger for the birds to use as nesting material.

It warms my heart to know that these Chickadee’s babies will be snug and warm surrounded by Sassy softness!

Update…

There is going to be some comfy Titmouse babies too!

Good-bye Old Friend

You soaked away many an aching muscle

But alas, your time here on The Hill has come to an end.

Thank you for your service.

Happy Friday

I knew it would happen, it IS only March, but this made me feel oh so sad…

These are old time mop head hydrangeas. They bloom from buds formed on previous years stems. So if we get prolonged cold temps the buds will die and there will be little or no bloom. Because of this strangely warm winter, I had leaves popping all the way to the top of the stems! I was looking forward to some massive blooms this year. Earlier this week we had a hard freeze and all of the leaves are brown and mushy. I have no idea if one freeze will have also killed the future blooms, I guess only time will tell.

The freeze didn’t kill off all of the blooms around here though. I went to do some flower arrangements at Chesley this morning and I used the beautiful dogwood branches, crabapple branches and purple plum branches in them.

Dining room arrangements

Parlor arrangement

Kitchen pass-through

And this one will be placed on the mailbox post before the big gathering tomorrow.

I surely hope I’ll be able to make some hydrangea arrangements this summer.

Some Sassy Sweetness

Bits and Casey sharing a (rare) amicable moment together enjoying some fresh air.

Then Kubota couldn’t resist the allure of an open window and pushed Casey out of his way.

Casey was a bit miffed

But he exercised a bit of self control (again… rare)

Casey: “Being good is HARD!”

Bitsy looks on… slightly stunned that he’s behaving!

What I’m loving this morning…

Nellie has her own little shelter on the back deck complete with a heated bed, this morning it is raining and she sweetly shares her space with Tux.

A quiet, rainy Sunday morning here on The Hill!

Buying Stock in Ibuprofen

I am feeling every muscle in my back, shoulders, arms and legs today.

I spent the entire day yesterday HAND trimming and renewing the forsythia and wiegelia shrubs along the driveway. They got some LONG over-do haircuts! If you don’t get the old wood out of there the blooms start to decline.

Half way done

Mr C had to take the truck and trailer and dump them and I filled them both right back up

All done!

What’s that in the background???

Another load!

Grrrrrrrrrrooooooooooaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnn!

Lots of pretties are blooming! Redbuds and the dogwoods are gonna bust out today or tomorrow

Mohawk Viburnum

And this the the crabapple we got to replace our old Bradford pear

 

Lots of seeding had to be done after digging up the stump from the pear!

On another note, this was last Wednesday’s painting!

I was essitted to do this one since it’s so ‘me’

I wasn’t happy with it when I brought it home so I played with it some more and got it to where I like it.

This one will even get a frame!

Another Commission Complete

A friend commissioned me to make this owl mirror to give as a wedding present.

The requested colors pushed me out of my comfort zone again, but I’m pretty pleased with the end result.