I’m back and with a Blog Award!

October 16, 2011 — Debbie

My blogging friend, Maggie, was generous enough to bestow upon me three blog awards.  One for each of my blogs!

Thank you so much Maggie!

The rules of this blog award are to list 7 random things about yourself and then pass the award to other bloggers. I plan to do the 7 random things about myself on DorkyDeb.com so I thought I’d do the 7 random things here about things related to nature or this blog.

1.  I haven’t updated this blog with new photos since May 21st, 2010.  (hangs head in shame.)
I hope to go back and fill in posting the photos that I took and would have shared during that gap in posting. If I can ever find the time and energy to do so.  ;)

2.  I had a different layout for this blog, but I changed it.
Why? Well that would be because the developers that created the layout decided to “update and improve” it, causing those of us that use it to need to install and update. I installed the update last night and it majorly munched the blog. Not cool!  It deleted all of my customization and all sorts of minuscule little details. I did not like the “improvements”, not at all. So I decided to move on to a different theme. Those of you that have been here for a long time, will recognize it as I have used this one before (albeit in different colors). I still have some work to do on it though. It’s not as flashy and fancy as the last theme, but it WORKS properly. I like it ok. And it loads much much faster.

3.  I once photographed a pair of flies mating while sitting on the back of a frog.
True story.  I’ll show you someday, if I ever get caught up on those back photos.  ;)

4.  I once rescued a baby snake tangled in a thick spider web.
You can’t say that isn’t “random”!  LOL

5.  I photographed a Northern-Fence Lizard this year for the first time.
In theory, they are supposed to be common in our state. But I had never seen one in person before.

6.  I had a praying mantis as a “pet” for awhile this year.
He was awesome.  I took lots of photos and video of him to share.

7.  I got bit by a skink this year.
That was new. But no injury, just some surprise.  :)

And I am passing this award on to…..

Mary at Faith, Fabric & Photos

Congratulations, Mary!

I will be handing out more awards later when I complete the award on DorkyDeb.com  Thanks again Maggie! And thank you to those who read this, I am sorry I was absent here for so long!    :)

Posted in Awards, Blogging, Miscellaneous. No Comments »

An Update

July 8, 2011 — Debbie

I am sorry I am so behind in posting new photos.  Other things have taken up my time recently, but I am still taking photographs of “anything and everything that interests me”  ;)  and I hope to post many new photos as soon as time and energy allows.

Thanks!

Debbie

 

Posted in Blogging. 2 Comments »

Mother’s Day 2010

May 9, 2010 — Debbie

It’s not every day that you are greeted at your door by little people with flowers and a balloon.  :)  But it’s nice!

My two oldest went to my parent’s house for a little while on Mother’s Day and during their visit, they came by and brought me a Happy Mother’s Day balloon and flowers “they” got me.  ;)
They are at an age (6 & 7)  where getting a photograph of the two of them together where they aren’t moving, talking, and/or making silly faces is nearly impossible.  So I take whatever photo I can get.  LOL!

(The flower is an annual called a Lobelia.  I kept the basket on our outdoor table all spring/summer and it flowered the entire time.  My mom and my husband helped me keep it watered on days I wasn’t feeling well.  I was really impressed by how many little flowers it ended up making, and how long it kept them.  It was quite a nice gift.  :)   And outdoors it did not have a strong odor, which is a nice perk for those like me with allergies.  I took better photographs of it that I will share later on, as I come to them.)

While the older two were visiting their Grandma for a few hours, my husband and I took the baby out to get some new photographs of her.  Here is one of those:

I hope all the mothers out there had a lovely day!

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Posted in Blogging, Lobelia, Miscellaneous, Plants. Tags: , , , , , , , . No Comments »

Front deck

May 7, 2010 — Debbie

I took all of the Rhododendron photos from here, on the front deck.

The deck was covered in maple seeds from the huge maple tree.
I don’t spend nearly as much time out here as I would like to.  My health issues keep me inside far too much.
Most of my photo taking is done in short trips outside.  When I was healthier I would spend almost all of my time outside.  I miss the things I used to be able to do, more than words could ever say.  If there is something you want to do, you should do it while you can, because you never know what tomorrow might hold.

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Posted in Blogging, Maple tree, Miscellaneous, Plants, Rhododendron, Trees. Tags: , , . No Comments »

Will’s birdhouse

April 3, 2010 — Debbie

My parents got our son a birdhouse kit for his birthday and recently my Mom and the kids put it together and painted it.  I think they all painted on it some.  I love how it turned out.  I think it’s adorable!   When it was finished they hung it in a tree in our yard.

I never dreamed anything would nest in it this year.  I thought it would be at least next year before something would.  But (as I am behind in posting) I can tell you that something already is.  But I won’t tell you what.  You’ll just have to wait till I get to those photos.  ;)

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Posted in Birdhouse, Birds, Blogging. No Comments »

Pollen!

April 3, 2010 — Debbie

Pollen was absolutely horrible today.  I only went out for a short time today (with a mask) and go so very sick from it.  Even though I showered immediately upon coming inside my lungs remained flared up the rest of the day and night.  This does not bode well for me for a good pollen season.  :(

I later heard something in the news about this being the worst tree pollen season in decades.  After the day I had, I believe it.

I did manage to take several photos close by the house in my short time out.  I will share some of those next.  Nothing terribly exciting but… I’ll share anyway.  ;)

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Posted in Blogging, Pollen. No Comments »

Hot!

April 2, 2010 — Debbie

Today it was 90 degrees outside!  Which is shockingly hot for April 2nd here.  I noticed something interesting.  Wasps were really aggressive all day long.  Even other people were commenting on it.  Which is odd because typically this time of year here they are flying around looking for places to make a nest.  And they aren’t typically more aggressive until later in the summer.  And by that time they have their nests set up, etc.  But I’m thinking now that their aggressiveness must be tied more to temperature, than to what stage they are in.  Because during these warm days they have been as mean as they are in August.  And the temps today are about what they are in August.  Just a random observation.

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Posted in Blogging, Insects, Wasps, Weather. 2 Comments »

How you know you have a small dog

April 2, 2010 — Debbie

What I am about to describe happens so often and I always say, “This is how you know you have a small dog.”
We have other dogs but our very small dog is Sniffer.  (Our son named her Sniffer several years ago when he was very young.  He said, “Because she sniffs out crunchy treats.”  Due to her habit of following the kids around cleaning up their crumbs.)

Sniffer is a rescue.  1/2 Chihuahua and 1/2  Jack Russell Terrier.  And she would like to be about as onery as you would imagine a cross of those two breeds would be.  But I am very good at training dogs.  So she’s a great little girl, with very few of the quirks of a toy breed.  And we just love her to pieces.

She’s actually about 10 pounds, but you would never guess it by looking at her.  She is quite small.  But her body is very compact and muscular, so she weighs more than you would think by looking at her.

When she goes out to potty she sometimes likes to nap in the sun at the back steps.  If she relaxes enough to go into “dead dog” sleeping mode, she attracts vultures.  It creeps me out a little.  If you think about it, they are just hoping one day she’ll be dead and not sleeping I guess.  So that’s kinda morbid and gross.  But since she’s not dead and just napping, and they never get too close, it’s mostly just funny.  Sometimes I’ll let her out and then be washing the dishes and I’ll look out the window and see big shadows going across the yard and I’ll know the vultures are circling her again.  LOL!   They never land in the yard, but they do circle.  If we step outside they usually leave, or circle very high, instead of down so low.

Today I decided to try to get a video clip of them.  You can’t see Sniffer in the video clip, but she was sleeping on the sidewalk and this is the turkey vultures circling above.  They were very high up by the time I took this clip.  I apologize in advance for the shakiness.  My current neurological symptoms make it hard to hold a camera still.  They were lower in my first clip, but I was too shaky to make it worth uploading.  I did a little better for this clip:

And here’s a photo of sweet little Sniffer.  Otherwise known as Vulture bait.   ;)

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Posted in Birds, Blogging, Mammals, Pets, Turkey Vultures, Video. 2 Comments »

That time of year again…

March 27, 2010 — Debbie

My father out readying the lawn mower for another grass cutting season:

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Posted in Blogging, Uncategorized, Weather. No Comments »

Black Ice

March 24, 2010 — Debbie

I didn’t take any photos today.  But I just wanted to note that we went from flowers to black ice overnight.  We had a very heavy frost and woke up to lots of black ice everywhere this morning.  Lots of dangerous steps and driveways when people woke up today.  And the frost finished off my crocuses as well.  The Easter lillies have survived, but with some damage.

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Posted in Blogging, Weather. No Comments »
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