sooner or later

The squirrels were on alert with tails waving and squaking loudly when the grill king and I returned from having steaks (yea - meat grilled by others!) at the local Roadhouse.

This large raptor posed for a few closeups and then decided to look for his dinner elsewhere. He sailed towards the east keeping the fading sunlight behind him.

The squirrels settled down quickly. But not one of them promised to leave the pecans alone in return for saving their fluffy little tails.



We just saw Charlie Wilson's War and I'm thinking about keeping a list of favors owed.

We've been having sunny crisp days lately. Perfect for gardening, but I have no big outdoor planting projects planned for this year. Just waiting for the squirrels to finish tilling the raised beds looking for nuts.

I do want to finish the quarter circle patio, but we still have big tree roots to remove and a decision to be made on the kind of surface to put down. If we wait, the idea will come to us. Or I'll give up and just let the grass grow back.

There is what looks like an opening between my garden and the neighbor's that Peter Rabbit would have made. It is smooth from the belly of some animal who prefers to sneak under fences than run along the top rail. There is a ghostly white cat that creeps behind the garage occasionally when I drive in at night. Perhaps this is her escape route.

I finished some swapping projects this weekend. Struggled with the decorations - still more to put away. I know they multiply while out of the boxes. Every year I have to find more boxes to store them all. Cleaned out a drawer and tossed out some stuff and have to find homes for other things.

This afternoon we will be lunching at Chuck E. Cheese's table by invitation. Short people will be running around in circles, much screaming and giggling to be heard.



My grandson found a frog for me at Chuckie's place.

Baby, it's cold outside so it must be time for my wild roses to shine.

The surprise lilies have been transplanted from their pot into the garden that is too shady for growing lettuce. I might as well enjoy blossoms if I can't grow my produce. These had been in a pot for more than a year - I was waiting till after their usual bloom season to transplant them. August and September passed with no flowers in the pot. But last month the leaves shot up just as they are supposed to and the pot was wall to wall leaves! Probably all the bulbs had survived the trauma of being crowded into the pot. Now each little bunch has plenty of room to spread their toes and grow. Next summer maybe I'll get more surprise blossoms. Here's how the ones looked in the front garden last September ... barely holding their own against the aggressive ferns.

I have been using Picasa Web Albums to host my photos here since I was in danger of using up all my alloted free space on blogspirit.com with photo albums. But I only just downloaded their photo software (Picasa2) today and I am blown away by the way it works. It has lots of interesting features and editing capabilities and the fact that I can now upload an entire pile of photos instead of just five at a time is just the ultimate in time saving. Wish I had known that before I uploaded the cruise photos - I would have done all 283 of them instead of just 50 or so.... well, maybe that wouldn't be a good thing from your point of view?

Both our cars were dead this morning. I was two hours late for work and the grill king had to catch a ride with a co-worker. His was "fixed" while we were on the cruise but died about a mile from home. When he called me to rescue him, mine wouldn't start. So he called his garage to tow in the little truck and come give mine a jump start. The suspense is killing me. Will mine be dead again this evening when I try to start it after work? Film at 11:00. Seriously, I will take a photo of the darn thing sitting there not running if it comes to that. This could be the year I make it into a raised flower bed. I could easily calculate the amount of potting soil necessary. I'm thinking maybe, bananas in the middle seat so they could grow right up through the sunroof, daisies on the dashboard, and ivy trailing out the liftgate in the rear.

These are surprise lilies. The leaves are thin and strappy and come up in the fall and die back after the hot weather arrives. Then from apparently bare dirt, the lovely delicate flowers on tall thin stalks surprise me every year. They used to bloom in August, every year it gets later. They were a gift from a friend when she heard we had bought our first house in Houston. When we moved, I moved the bulbs to the next house. This group is the faithful gang in the front struggling against the ferns. The stems have to grow up through 30 inches of overgrown fronds to find the sunshine. I have a bunch of these bulbs in a pot where I thought I was saving them when we raised the garden beds out back. So far no blooms in the pots. When it cools a bit I will have to move any that grow leaves.

It was sunny outside my window at work most of the afternoon but we had a hideous morning. Pouring down rain and thunder and lightning on the way to work. Then about an hour later, the lightning strikes the transformer in the alley behind us and we all jump about ten feet in the air. It's the same transformer than has been fried before. Luckily we have a medical facility in the building, so we can get bumped up higher on the repair schedule at the power company. Back up in less than an hour.

We're working along fine for another hour then, BOOM, it gets hit again and we are out worse than before - more circuits are off and power backups are buzzing from every office. Our elevator may be fried this time and the power company takes more than an hour to get here and another hour to get it taken care of the second time. We had kind of a happy hour in our kitchen with the building managment and some other tenants stopping by for crackers and dip. We had enough flash lights to loan out to people going to the rest rooms and we even had to loan our UPS scale to the clinic cause they weigh patients before and after dialysis. The bottled water delivery guy said he'd try and come back Friday after the elevator gets fixed. It may be a while before we have bottled water again....

My boss was out on a site visit and I thought I would get caught up finally.... no such luck. Well, tomorrow is another day, Scarlet. Her daughter is on her way to Puerto Rico for a friend's wedding and she's in a panic because there's another storm heading for the islands. The daughter calls me from the airport and doesn't even know what airline she's on - evidently can't find her paperwork, and I have to look on her email, fortunately she calls between blackouts or the girl would have missed her flight.

I started watering the lawn yesterday after work 'cause we've had three really hot dry days (up to now!) and the grass and plants looked like they would be dying in about two minutes. I forgot about the water running while I was upstairs on the computer. About 10 pm, it's pouring down rain and my husband volunteers to go out and shut off the water for me. So the grass is really watered now, you could say....

Cheez, what a day. It's supposed to rain more - bands of storms still in the gulf. Fortunately I didn't have to drive home through the worst of it.

I think I need to go buy some hurricane supplies, we've been clearing out the pantry lately and it's looking bare.

Blackberry Lilies



These are wonderful flowers. Only need a little help standing upright when it rains so much. Each day one or two blossoms open and then when they are done, they twist themselves tightly closed as you can see in the close up.

Afterward, the seed pod that grows looks exactly like a blackberry only not juicy and tasty. The birds ignore them and I haven't noticed any volunteers so I'm not sure what is happening to the seeds. Perhaps this year I should try to collect some and watch their progress closely.

I emptied another bobbin on the swatch swap warp tonight and filled another to be ready for the next weaving urge that hits.

I am a bit bothered by people who wait till the last minute and change their idea around and then wonder why they can't possibly finish a nice project in that fashion. A group project started months ago and simple enough but now some can't remember just what it was they were supposed to do and others say they simply forgot they had the item in their possession for five days and did nothing with it. Three reminders and three answers of, oh yeah, I'll bring that in to you. Hmm.

I don't really care if they look the fool next week. I don't plan to swoop in and save the day. I've completed my contribution. Let the rest of the pages be blank. Perhaps we can call it a "do-it-yourself" birthday gift?

Great dinner party on Saturday night: tapas and home brews at my daughter's home. The granddaughter came home with us for a sleep over and it was pancakes as usual for Sunday breakfast. She is really good at mixing now. She says she helps her mommy stir a lot. She slept right through the night on the floor - must have been that long soak in the tub playing with all the frog tub toys. She very politely asked me if she could play with "just one" of my new frogs. I asked which one and she pointed to one that was not fragile, so, of course, I agreed. So nice to have been asked first. Great progress.



On Sunday, the yard men moved heaven and earth for me. I'm working on a patio extension and there was an old stump that needed to be removed. They did a great job and moved some grass to a bald spot and placed the extra dirt in a valley near the back fence. Of course, it needs some tweaking by the designer - me, but the hard work is done. I have to come up with a nice surface treatment so we can put a table and chairs out there. No rush, summer is almost here and we won't be sitting out there in the heat.

My daughter and I went to a friend's house on Sunday. We were so intent on finishing her project of the mosaic table for her gazebo that I hardly noticed what everyone else was doing and missed most of the gossip.

Spent most of the rest of the weekend, typing frantically. Trying to smooth feathers and hold onto the reins of a runaway train of conversation.

The gold wire warp is calling to me. I have to pick up some supplies at Hobby Lobby and do the second prototype. The first is not working too well.