Life Goes On

It’s no secret that I’ve not been myself lately. Aside from having the never-ending head-cold from hell for the past couple of weeks, I’m still working through the loss of Paddy.
It has really been a struggle for me. You all know that I’ve lost a good number of much loved pets in my life. Each of those losses left a scar on my heart, but losing Paddy has been much different.
I’ve been looking out into the gardens and seeing all of the clean up that needs doing, but every time I go out in the yard I’m overwhelmed with memories.
Paddy under her apple tree

Paddy in the pond

Walking with Paddy

Teaching Paddy about picking raspberries

Paddy fixing up her house

And how empty that house is now

The memories made my heart hurt, so I’ve been just turning around and going back into the house. Too sad to do a thing.
Yesterday I went out and again was tempted to turn around and go back inside but I forced myself to walk around and take inventory of things. Talk about overwhelmed! The weeds… the work!
But I told myself… “self, just weed this one little section and then you can go back inside and be sad”

Look at those weeds!
I did it though, I knelt down and pulled those weeds and stood up and surveyed my work…

I felt the healing begin, with each weed I pulled my heart felt a little bit lighter.
I got motivated… I PULLED me some weeds! I cut back those dead perennials

And then I started noticing that the frosts hadn’t killed everything… the chipmunks planted this sunflower for me and Jack Frost didn’t kill it!

Other flowers are hanging on too…
A purple coneflower

the pot of million bells on the back deck

Salvia May Night

And this Angel wing begonia only half gave up…

While I still don’t understand why God chose to bring Paddy home to Him, I’m seeing that life does go on no matter how cold the air is or how cold our hearts feel, and even though we may have sad times or hard times that Life Is STILL Good.

P.S. Don’t forget to vote for Suzanne… EVERY DAY until December 7th!
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Updates and stuff

Wally and Stella are HOME!!! That is what the Crazy Dog People decided to name Dog-Ducks 1 & 2.
They went all out and built them a beautiful enclosure and even a house with cedar shake shingles! They moved in yesterday afternoon and they are very happy there…

They seemed to enjoy being a part of this pack…

but then who wouldn’t be!

Fall is starting to show her colors here on The Hill, this tree in Neighbor Mike’s pasture always seems to be the first to change…

(Hey, I just noticed there is a deer in that picture!)

The Cut-leaf Sumac turns a firery red but the leaves fall off very quickly afterwards…

We ummmm forgot to bring in the feeders the other night and mama bear and babies showed up again…

Paddy makes a break!

Apparently Princess Paddy didn’t want to wait for her evening stroll yesterday!
Mr. C and I were out picking up a new chain saw bar and a few other things when Neighbor Mike spotted what he assumed to be a ground hog headed across the pasture, then he realized it was Paddy wanting to go for a swim in the pool!
I guess I didn’t put enough tension on the bungee that holds the 2×4 across the gate so she can’t muscle her way out. She pushed up the 2×4 and pushed the bottom of the gate out and she was on her way. Thank You Lord that Mike saw her and rounded her up and thank You too that Duck-Dog didn’t escape along with her!
A trip to the store for some chain to double lock the gate is on the list of chores for today.
Speaking of Duck-Dog… I found a new home for him/her! Appropriately, the crazy dog couple from down the street is adopting him/her! AND, believe it or not, I got a call from a lady whose hairs I cut telling me of yet another duck-dog that was being held at a near-by humane shelter that was looking for a home! She’s bringing it out today to meet Duck-Dog # 1 and the crazy dog couple will give them both a good home where I KNOW they will be spoiled rotten!

I have an unexpected day off of work today since it’s RAINING!!! Thank You again God!

I know we’ve got to stop this, BUT

How cool is this???!!!…


Mama is teaching her babies how to raid bird feeders! Too cute…
I know, I KNOW…we’ll stop leaving the feeders out!

We Got a DOG

Well…. not really, we got a DUCK that THINKS it’s a dog!
Here’s the story…
I got an e-mail from a friend telling me about this girl in town that had rescued one baby duck out of the road after it’s entire family had been hit by a car and killed.
Bless her for doing that, BUT for some reason she thought it was ok to keep the duck in a 10×10 chain link kennel with a Blue-tick Hound and a Beagle! Apparently, the dogs must not be aware that they are hunting dogs because they accepted the duck and slept curled up together in the less-than clean kennel. He/she grew into a big dirty white duck-dog.
At some point the girl finally came to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t the best environment for a duck… gee, ya think?
When I picked it up it smelled like a very dirty wet dog that had never had a bath in it’s life! I put her/him into Paddy’s pond and the poor thing had no idea what to do in deep water! So, I filled a shallow container and set him/her up in the holding pen under the back deck. It took quite awhile for the duck-hound to get into that water but I’m finally seeing some duck-like behaviour coming out.

Yesterday I put him/her back into Paddy’s pond and he/she swam and and actually had fun!


That is ,until Paddy came out to see what was going on…
Paddy slowly swam back and forth, eyeing the intruder, sizing him/her up.
Then suddenly she literally torpedoed herself towards that duck and scared the bejeebers out of the poor thing.
Apparently, Miss Paddy-Cake isn’t very good about sharing!

I will put him/her back in Paddy’s pond today while Paddy is sleeping. She doesn’t like to rise and shine until mid-afternoon at the earliest!

My plan was to release this duck at Chesley but I’m afraid it would think some coyote or fox was his friend and end up being a meal! I’m currently looking for a new home for him/her.

Trail Cams are AWESOME!

We bought the Tasco 3 Mega Pixel trail camera for $79.00 at Wally World.
It has given us proof positive that we have at least THREE different bears raiding our bird feeders! There are never more than one at a time. There is the one that I posted pics of before… she came back after I left for work yesterday!

Unfortunately for her, this big guy had emptied the feeders at around 11:30 the night before…

His coat is very thin… he may have mange or something… I hope he finds a warm place to hibernate!
This one came a few nights nights ago… we are pretty sure it is the smaller one we saw with neighbor Mike the other day.

I put seed in the feeders yesterday and we set the camera up again last night. It’s still too dark out to see if the feeders are down this morning.
I’m home from work today because… YAY, it rained last night and I’ve got to go and get some supplies later on. I’ll be anxiously watching to see if our morning bear comes back today!
After today we’ll start bringing the feeders in before we go to bed. As much fun as it is to see the bears, we really don’t want to encourage them to hang around.

I’ll highly recommend this trail cam if you’re thinking of getting one. Mr.C was looking through his Cabelas catalog and there are some that sell for over $500! This one is great entertainment and does a great job at a great price!

I think we’ll set it up on the porch for a few nights to see what critters are coming and eating the cat food!

And the excitement continues….

So after the bear sighting the other night, Mr. C and I decided that it would be fun to go and get one of those trail cameras that are motion activated so we could see if we could catch the bear in the act of raiding the birdfeeder. We went and got the least expensive one available and got it all set up yesterday.
We woke up this morning and checked to see if the feeders had been pulled down but no luck. We had our coffee and watched the news and then Mr. C left for work. Less than 10 minutes later I grabbed my keys and headed towards the door myself, I just happened to glance out the kitchen window and saw…
yes, you guessed it…
THE BEAR!!!
Although I’m pretty sure this one is not the same one we saw the other day… it looked bigger… of course it was a LOT closer too!
I grabbed my camera and video camera and stepped out onto the deck quietly and started taking pictures. The bear was oblivious as he gently sat down and softly licked the sunflower seeds out of the feeder.

When he emptied the feeder he just ambled off through the yard, jumped the fence and crossed our road. Probably onto the next stop in his birdfeeder route



BYE Mr. Bear! (I’m just guessing it’s a MR. could be a Mrs too)
I took all of these shots with my camera. I’m saving the honor of opening the pics that the trail camera got for Mr. C. I’m so sorry he missed this. Poor guy, if only he hadn’t been in such a rush to get to work this morning! There should be some good shots on that camera if we got it set up right!

The Capris are planning on coming for another visit soon… wonder if I’ll be able to convince anyone to sleep in the camper as we always set it up about 10 feet from the birdfeeders!

P.S. I have more exciting news to share but I’m going to save it for another day since I usually don’t have anything worthy to post about!

Big Excitement!

Mr. C has been distraught that he hasn’t seen a bear all year while I’ve seen several. So this morning we got up early and drove into town to do some grocery shopping. As we rounded a corner on Browntown road there was a young bear right in the road. Just a small one, but Mr. C was so pleased that finally he saw his first bear of the year!

We came home and split a bunch of wood for later this winter and then both of us jumped on the lawn mowers to git-r-dun.
After we finished that up. we decided to take Paddy for an afternoon stroll on a different route then we usually take… we took the hill along neighbor Mike’s place and planned on heading down towards Rocky Lane. The sound of Mike’s pool was distracting Paddy and she really wanted to go for a swim.
Mike saw us and came out with a pear for Paddy and we stood on the hill just shootin the poop when a movement in the horse pasture caught our eye… it was a deer running at full speed. THEN we looked behind the deer and saw ANOTHER BEAR running after the deer!
Then the bear must have smelled us because it stopped and stood there for a minute trying to figure out where we were. Mr.C decided to see how close he could get and snuck down the hill along the brush line and got within 30 or so yards of him. THEN some-one’s boxer(dog) off of Rocky Lane got a whiff of the bear and the chase was on! Mr.C said that the last time he saw the bear he had jumped between a split rail fence and sent the top rail flying into the air! Needless to say, Mr. C will go to bed a happy man seeing TWO bears in one day! I won’t remind him that since I saw both of them as well that I’m still way ahead of him on bear sightings this year! Not that it’s a contest or anything…

Stalker!

He hangs around, under the cover of the drooping Japanese Maple, just waiting for his chance to grab his next victim…

I guess that explains why so many frogs have moved over to Paddy’s pond!
I’ve tried to catch him a couple of times but he’s a smart one, he stays right on top of the rocks of the waterfall where he can quickly slide under cover.

Meanwhile, the Porcelain Vine is really full of beautiful berries this year.

It’s been parched here on The Hill again. There is a chance of rain tonight so I’m praying! The gardens are really looking crispy. Things will need to be cut back extra early this season.

Sunrises, Bugs and Blooms

On the days when I get on the road to work at just the right time, God will bless me with this and I know it’s gonna be a good day…

This is the entrance to the Rappahannock Cellars Winery

Sunrise is too early for a wine tasting though.

Then, when I get home, if I have time after all of the critter care, I’ll take a walk around the gardens and try to get pics of pretty things to post for your enjoyment.
This year I planted Zinnias. The variety is called ‘State Fair Mix’. They are very tall and great for cutting. The blooms are large and the Flutter-bys love them!

The Bumble bees love the sunflowers that the chipmunks planted for me.

I’ve come to the conclusion that chipmunks have something magic in their saliva since every sunflower that they plant seems to grow (not usually in the best places) Yet the row that I planted of different varieties for cutting don’t even germinate!

O’well, no matter where a sunflower grows it’s gotta make you smile.
TGIF… have a great weekend y’all!

Rain, GLORIOUS Rain!

Prayers have been answered. Thank You God!

A Late Night Visit

Looks like the neighborhood black bear decided to pay a visit to check out the bird feeders last night…

Those aren’t cheap Big Lots shepherds hooks either, those are heavy metal, not easily bent!

Neighbor Mike tells us that someone on the other side of Rocky Lane is feeding them and that they’ve counted FOURTEEN different bears, going through 500 POUNDS of corn a month.

Edit: Mr.C. has informed me that I got the facts wrong, they counted NINE bears, not 14.

I feel like…

… a wrung out dirty dish rag.
The heat and humidity have been just oppressive here on The Hill these past couple of weeks. It’s just miserable and it sucks the energy right out of a person. The gardens are withering and so am I.
Praying for rain.

Man It’s A Hot One…

…like seven inches from the midday sun….
Miserable outside… just plain icky! Guess I can’t complain too much though since this is the first real summer-like heat we’ve gotten this year.
I only worked for three hours this morning before I just couldn’t take it anymore.
We had a productive weekend here on The Hill. Mr C and I spent all day on Saturday repainting the shed and replacing all of the trim boards.
We went for a more rustic look this time…

I even started cleaning up the areas on either side and behind it, that was long over due!
Tomorrow it’s back to the wildlife center, hope the heat doesn’t kill me!

Whoop…Der It IZ

It’s a German Johnson. B.L.T. season has begun!!! WOO HOO!!!

Last evening we had a short thunder shower and then God saw fit to bless us with this…

Life is good!

What’s Bloomin?

The gardens are really blooming right now. When company comes in two weeks the show will be mostly over… doesn’t it just figure?!
Better show off some stuff while I’ve got the chance…
The Callas look good this year…

This red day lily has finally decided to bloom again after I divided it two years ago!

The Mordens Pink Lythrum is especially yummy this year, it loved the spring rains.

It’s a shame that nurseries around the country have been banned from selling this plant. They fear that it MAY cross-pollinate with the wild Lythrum that has become an invasive weed in many states. I have found it to be very well behaved and just about the least invasive plant I’ve got!

The Stargazer Lillies are filling the evening with their scent.

The tree-form hydrangea that I snagged off the clearance pile for $10 is bloomin pretty, although I don’t think it’s terribly happy where it’s planted.

I need to get some major weeding done. I’m smacking myself for allowing Mr.C to convince me that we didn’t need to mulch this year!
But this is what has been keeping me busy the past few days…

Painting shutters! YUK!

A Prickly Endeavor

For the past few years I’ve known that the arbor I had built at the top of the back hill several years ago was succumbing to the elements. I’ve been hoarding new cedar branches with the thoughts of building a new one. But the thought of tackling the huge New Dawn Rose that is growing on it had discouraged me from actually getting started.

When we went out to check the chickens one evening Mr.C pointed out that the arbor “might need some work”…

Um, yeah… I guess I’d better get on that before it collapses right onto some one’s head!
So, I began the slow, tedious and job of trimming back the vicious rose without sacrificing the long canes. After many scratches I was able to pull the canes away from the arbor and fold them back while I worked on the new one.

Since no cedar trees were available for the four main posts, I had to use treated fence posts for those. I ran out of branches so I’m not satisfied with how it looks yet but here’s what I’ve done so far…

A View From the Bedroom Window /Part 2

Bedroom Window Part 1 was back in the springtime.
Here’s some July views…

Front Porch Sittin

My new blogging friend, Angie, at Homegrown posted a picture of her beautiful and inviting front porch. She asked that other people do the same and send her a link so she can come visit.
Since I love my porch too I decided to join in…
Welcome to Sassy Cat Hill

There must be a cat on the porch at all times (in this case on the step)

The front porch furniture is looking mighty empty right now

The side porch is too

Hopefully, if all goes well, those seats will be filled with company soon!

But the best part of the porch…
…this VIEW!

Ahhhhh yes, I think a long slow glass of icy lemonade is in order!
Life IS good!

Check out Angie’s place and if you decide to join in on the porch sittin let me know too!

Another I HATE Nature Day

Mr. C just came in and informed me that he found Howard’s body while cutting the grass. He said a hawk got him from the looks of it.
Right now, I’m giving Old Mother Nature the finger!
I just don’t like her at all today.

So now Hannah is by herself and Howard is buried next to the other twin that I never even got a chance to name.