Lisa's Spot

My Trip to Alaska in July 2010

2011-02-13T16:00:00.000-05:00

A seagull at Cook Inlet outside Anchorage

Cook Inlet

If I remember correctly, this was taken from near the top of Flat Top Mountain. We only made it about 3/4 the way up.

Mt. McKinley, a.k.a. Denali. I was lucky to get a shot of the peak. Usually, there is a lot of cloud cover hiding the peak.

This is the little town of Talkeetna, AK. Very popular with tourists & locals alike. Anybody brave enough to attempt a climb of Denali, has to register here & be flown to the base camp from here.

I shot pics of so many mountains, I couldn't even begin to tell you which was which, other than Denali. We went all over the place.

Mama moose & calf grazing in the marsh.

The midnight sun, setting over the mountain in Fairbanks, AK. I shot this pic at 3 minutes past midnight, out the motel window.

This was taken at Chena Hot Springs. A lot of people like this place, but honestly, it didn't appeal to me at all.

This little squirrel was at Chena Hot Springs. He was munching on a mushroom, oblivious to the humans surrounding him.

A large stack of moose antlers at Chena Hot Springs.

Glenna & I sitting on the Alaska Pipeline.

Tim & Glenna also took me on a wildlife/glacier cruise in Prince William Sound. This was the highlight of my Alaska trip.

Sea lions soaking up the sun.

Bald Eagles were numerous around Esther Hatchery, which is a salmon hatchery in Prince William Sound.

A actually got a shot of a salmon jumping out of the water.

Mama & calf Humpback whales.

Sea otters at play.

This is the main glacier on the cruise. It's called Surprise Glacier. We pulled up about 1/4 mile away from the glacier to watch the calving. Calving is when huge chunks of the glacier break away and fall into the water. When this happens, the breakaway sounds like thunder echoing!

Still part of Surprise Glacier.

Yet another shot of Surprise Glacier.

A shot of Glenna (right) & I with Surprise Glacier in the background.

A waterfall created from melting glaciers.

Another glacier as we were driving out of Whittier. Whittier is a tiny town that is actually closed off during the winter. It is only a boating community. You have to drive through a 2.2 mile long tunnel cut through a mountain to get there, and the tunnel is only accessible during certain hours of the day. Automobile traffic must share this tunnel with a freight train. The passages are timed accordingly.

I had a great time while I was there. We also went 4-wheeling at Denali National Park. That was the first time I had ever been on a 4-wheeler, but it felt natural. I had a blast!

I'm still around!

2010-04-25T22:53:00.000-04:00

Well, surprise, surprise! The relationship was very short lived. Can't even call it a relationship, really. I really liked him a lot, but I was too pushy about it and I scared him away. He gave me other reasons, but I think he really only made it up to break it off. Oh well, nothing new. One of these days, I'll learn!
I'm still working the same, miserable job! I have an application in at Metaldyne in Bluffton, IN. Two of my sisters work there. My sister, Linda, said they are always hiring. She told me that they actually encourage family members to work together! I really hope I get on there. I'm about to the point that I want to walk out where I currently work!
Still taking pictures! Something would be seriously wrong if I weren't.

Okay, I know this was short, but just wanted to let ya all know I'm still around! The thing with John actually ended shortly after I posted about it! But, as they say, life goes on!
Take care and have a great week!
Love Ya
Lisa

My Trip To Tennessee

2010-02-24T14:48:00.000-05:00

I met somebody online, through the Muncie Newspaper at the beginning of February. He found me on there, invited me as a friend, so I accepted. Didn't really think anything about it at that time. He e-mailed me and gave me his phone #, so I called him that night. We ended up talking for 5 hours that night, and at least 2 hours every day since. On February 12, I rented a car and drove down to Tennessee to meet him. I am so glad I did. We really got along great. I only stayed til Sunday morning, because of the weather. His name is John Thompson. I can't believe how strong the connection was between us. I really hated to come home & really wish I could have stayed down there with him. But, having a teenager at home kinda put the damper on that! lol I can't wait to see him again! I'm gonna try to go down there again next month, if I can get a couple of days off from work at that time. He would love to come up here to see me, but he takes care of his mother, who is not in good health, and it's hard for him to find anybody else to take care of her. He' used to live in Muncie, but moved to Tennessee for his mother. He will eventually be moving back up here.

He took me all around Franklin, where he lives. Of course, I had my camera ready at all times! I did take a lot pictures than this, just a lot of them didn't turn out very well, cause I was in such a hurry, I didn't have my camera set right! I'm such a goober! lol

Carnton Plantation

Then, we drove in to Nashville. I'm glad he was driving, cause I hate big cities! It was really pretty cool down there. Next time I go, we'll spend more time downtown. I just wasn't up for dealing with crowds.

Tootsie's

Ernest Tubb Record Shop

Ryman Auditorium, original home of the Grand Ole Opry

This is a pedestrian bridge that goes from downtown Nashville, over to the Tennessee Titans football stadium.

Then, the trip home. :(

This last picture was taken about 10 minutes south of Bowling Green, KY, off I-65. I was driving about 70-75 MPH when I shot this! 6 hours there, 6 hours back, and only one and a half tanks of gas for the entire trip! I rented a brand new Chrysler Sebring and what a great ride! I didn't want to turn it back in! lol

Well, I don't know when I'll get around to posting again. Haven't posted in 4 months! Been living on Facebook!

Gonna go for now

Love Ya

Lisa

Don't Fall Out Of Your Chair! Yes, I'm posting!!!

2010-02-23T23:18:00.000-05:00

The Following Was Sent To Me In An E-mail

2009-10-21T21:42:00.001-04:00

This is not something that I would normally post, and some of you may not like what it has to say. If that is the case, then so be it. Your beliefs are your own. If you do not like or agree with this post, I would greatly appreciate it if you simply do not leave a comment. I don't want to know. A friend sent this to me in an e-mail, and although I am not a regular church goer, I am baptized as a Baptist and do believe in God. I don't believe that you have to show up in church every Sunday, nor have pictures of Jesus Christ or a crucifix hanging on your wall to prove that you are a believer. The way a person lives his or her life is testament to their beliefs. Whether you want to believe it or not, there is a ton of truth in this.

Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning (an earlier Sunday) - Ben Stein

I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late!!

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it . It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Hurricane Katrina).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said okay.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves..

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

If you do not think it has merit, then just discard it.. no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

Budweiser Clydesdales

2009-09-25T12:22:00.007-04:00

The St. Louis hitch of the Budweiser Clydesdales is in Jay and Randolph Counties in Indiana this week, honoring Jay Miller, who has been an Anheuser-Busch distributor for over 60 years.
There are eight of these awesome horses to a hitch. They are brought in in their own tractor-trailers, four horses per truck. A third truck carries the beer wagon and the tack.
They got the horses into the hitch while sitting in front of the old train station.
One horse prepared at a time. These animals are amazingly patient while waiting for the others to be added into the hitch.
Their tack is awesome!
This is one of the harnesses. Notice the eagle at the top.
This particular horse was seen doing this the entire time. Constantly tipping his head to the left, hanging his tongue out. I thought this kind of looked like he was telling his buddy a secret! LOL
Their feet are HUGE. They have a special rubber "shock absorber" between the shoe and hoof, to help prevent problems from walking on asphalt so often.

All the tails were trimmed with the red and white bows.
The gentleman in the blue shirt is Jay Miller. He got to take the ride on the hitch. It was all they could do to get him up on the wagon, then back down. They had to use a ladder, as he was not able to climb the built in steps on the wagon.
The Dalmatian's name is Bud. He is very patient too!

While the hitch was in motion, you could hear the Budweiser theme song being played in the wagon.

These pictures are done this way, because my lighting was very bad, and I couldn't light them properly, so I just played with the shadows on Photoshop to get this effect. It was overcast most of the day, and terribly humid.

There are two of these buckets hanging from the underside of the wagon. They were originally for watering the horses, but one of the handlers told me that they are just "all purpose" buckets now.
Bud got tired after they had been at a standstill for a while. He decided it was a good time to take a nap.

Very elaborate work on the tails and manes. All the manes were braided with red and white ribbon then the red and white rose buds tied in.

Okay, I know I said I was only going to start posting one picture a day, but you know me! At least it wasn't another month and a half between postings this time!
Still job hunting. It is so depressing and aggravating not being able to find work. My divorce was final on September 14. Chuck showed up last Thursday to get the last of his things. He still wants to stay friends. I don't have a problem with that. I think he kind of has some regrets, although, he wouldn't admit to it.
It's raining here, again. Most of this week it has rained, but luckily, the rain held off Wednesday when we went to see the Clydesdales. They will be in Portland, Indiana Saturday and Sunday.
Gonna go for now. Everybody have a great weekend.
Love Ya
Lisa

I'm Still Here!

2009-09-08T22:23:00.004-04:00

I know, it's been a month and a half since my last post. Blame Facebook! I spend most of my computer time on there.
The top picture is a mama and juvenile Cedar Waxwing. First and last time I have ever seen one. I had to check my book to figure out what they were.
The baby was positively adorable! I came out my back door with my camera because I saw mama flying up into my cherry tree. By the time I got out the door, she flew off, but I looked down and saw the baby on my wood pile. He never moved when I walked past. He just watched me the entire time I was out there. I took several pictures of him from different angles, then I went over and sat in the grass by the bird bath, which was about 10 feet from the baby. I talked to him the entire time and took pictures. He started chirping at mama, but while he was talking to her, he had jumped down off the wood pile and hopped clear over to me. He even let me pet him and feed him ants! I thought that was just so cool!
they say that if a human touches a baby bird, that mama will abandon it. I had proof that it isn't true.
These pictures loaded backwards! The top pic of mama and the baby should have been last.
This one should have been first! After I fed the baby, mama landed about 20 feet from us and called the baby over to her. She was feeding him, which is my proof that they don't abandon their young after human interaction.
These flowers are on the side of my garage, but I have no idea what they are called. There are a ton of bees on them all the time!
This is one of the flowers in my so-called butterfly garden. I don't think the butterflies know it, though.
This adorable little mouse was wandering around in the field at Smith Field during D.A.R.E Fair, about 3 weeks ago. The helicopter, Samaritan, was landing for people to go and look at. I was on my way out there, but got sidetracked by this mouse. I chased him all over the place trying to get pictures of him. I even caused other people to get sidetracked by him! He was a bigger hit than the Samaritan! LOL
I did manage to catch him by the tail, but never actually held him, because I didn't want to get bitten.
He was just so adorable! Funny thing is, he wasn't running around, he was hopping like a little kangaroo! That's how he got my attention.
This is just one of the squirrels in my cherry tree in the back yard.
An elk at the elk farm out in Eaton, Indiana. I have posted pictures from here before. I had gone out on a photo safari with Tank (Gary Cole). He took me out to where they have seen a friendly deer several times, but, unfortunately, he wasn't there this time.
I shot this bee and thistle back along the trail where we went to try to find the deer. The trail winds around his friend's property and back to the Mississinewa River. Very quiet and relaxing, but it was very hot and humid that evening.
This tree was also along the path. Check out the mushrooms growing inside the hollowed trunk!
This is once we got back to the river. I went down and walked out on a little sandbar. The river wasn't very deep at this point. In the spring, it will usually overflow it's banks.
This little frog was back there too. He was sitting where they sometimes have bond fires.
This was on the path as well. A beautiful butterfly on a thistle. This picture is the colored pencil filter on Photoshop.
I really should just start posting a picture a day, like a lot of people do on here. At least I would be more apt to stay with it.
I'm still looking for work. I had an interview last Wednesday at the Dollar General Distribution Center, but I'm sure I didn't get the job. I called today and the receptionist told me that if you are chosen, you are contacted immediately, and I wasn't contacted yet, so I keep looking! I've already had to get some of my mother's money from Lyle, and I'm afraid I'm gonna have to do it again. It is my money, but he has a knack for making me feel small for having to use it. I just wish he would take his 25% of it and turn it over to me. It's mine anyway! Oh well, whatever!
Gonna get off here for now. Take a shower and go to bed.
Love Ya
Lisa

2009-07-21T23:55:00.006-04:00

My computer is still up and running, but I'm still being bad about posting on my blog. I have been spending most of my online time on Facebook lately.
I took these shots of hummingbirds a couple of evenings ago on my front porch. They are getting a little more accustomed to me. The evening before, I was out back using the garden hose and a little female was just buzzing around the water coming from the hose.

I get a lot of shots of the hummers up in my trees now. I think it's so cute when they start chasing each other around and hear their little squeaks, although, I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned that.

According to the internet, this is a Cecropia Silkworm. I found it crawling up my Maple tree in the back yard. I hope it has a chance to change into the moth before a bird gets it. The moths are beautiful!

This Palomino lives over in Montpelier, along the Salamonie River. He came running over to the fence as soon as I got out of my car to take the picture. I just wish I had enough sense to carry apples for the horses I take pictures of.

These three geese were up on a hill, near a retention pond in Montpelier. I've taken tons of pictures of geese, but thought this was a good one.

This little girl was having a noggin scratch in my cherry tree.

Momma and baby. The robins seem to be the only juvenile birds I see around here.

this is a different baby, slightly younger than the previous one. Note the length of the tails.

Crazy little squirrel in the back yard.

Same squirrel, doing acrobatics after coming down out of the tree.

This shot may look vaguely familiar. I posted a picture very similar to this back in January. It is the same farm, just taken last week.

I took my grandson, Cody, to the park in Montpelier last week. Firemen's River Park. This adorable little kitty was wandering around and came over to me. She was so sweet, but terribly skinny. She just stayed around me and decided to use my over-sized purse/camera bag for shade. I used the graphic pen filter for this effect.

This isn't really a waterfall. It's coming from a pipe running under the road from the gravel quarry. It doesn't run all the time, but I thought it made a good shot, once I cropped the pipe out of the picture.

This is Cody. He will be 4 on August 27th. He had a good time while he was at the park. He had a couple little girls there to play with.

This is Starbucks. If you remember back to April or May, I had the series of pictures of the two horses aggravating each other. This is the one that was inside the round-pen, getting her butt bitten by Buck, the male Paint horse.

Well, some good news. I had a job interview yesterday (Monday). They liked me, so I will be called back for a second interview, probably on Friday. It is a receptionist position. The company is called 1 Industries. They sell janitorial supplies and equipment. Keep your fingers crossed and throw in a prayer or two or three! I hope I get it. The state is jerking me around about giving me my July food stamps. I can't wait till they lose their jobs and have to depend on government handouts, then they will see what it's like, having to wait.

Okay, I believe I'm going to get ready for a shower then bed. This will be early for me! I haven't been getting to bed till around 3:00 a.m. lately and not up till lunch time. I guess that's what depression does to a person. Last night, I got to bed at 3 and up at 9:30. I guess the prospect of a new job is kind of bringing me out of my depression. Check me out of Facebook. The link is on my sidebar. I do post some of the same pictures, but also some different ones. I posted pictures last night of my Kindergarten and first grade classes. Too funny. They are tagged so you can tell which goober is me!

Take care and have a great rest of the week.

Love Ya

Lisa

Don't Ya Think It's About Time?!

2009-07-09T00:52:00.002-04:00

I finally got my computer back last week, but I just haven't felt like working on my blog. Instead, I've been playing on Facebook and working on pictures. The past couple of weeks I've felt really depressed, not because Chuck left, but because I still don't have a job, and don't know if and when I will. My divorce should be final soon. It has already been filed and it was uncontested, so as long as the court doesn't screw around, it should be done soon! I'm actually relieved that it's over. His excessive drinking really took me down right along with him. My entire family is glad he's gone, including Michael.

These two pics of the Lilly is in my flower bed out back. Not sure what kind of Lilly it is. I've never seen one this color. Anybody know what it is called?

This is BB. She is one of Lori's horses. I've been out to her house a lot lately, taking pics of the horses. She has a new colt named Herbie (Herbert's Final Wonder). I will have to sort through and find a really good picture of him and post on the next post.

This is Cat. She is also one of Lori's horses. If I'm not mistaken, she is BB's mother. Lori, correct me if I'm wrong on this!

This is a project I worked on a couple of days ago. My Aunt Pat gave me the old window about 3 months or so ago, then my computer was down for so long, so I couldn't print any of the pictures that I wanted to use. The top left is the old WWII German prisoner work farm, the round barn is in Jay County on State Road 1, just south of State Road 26, middle left, I am told, is part of the Purdue farm, in Upland(Grant County), middle right is nestled in the middle of a woods on County Road 200 North, just a little more than 3 miles East, bottom left is on County Road 100 West about 2 1/2 miles south and the last is County Road 200 South a couple miles East. The window has all the original glass, except for the bottom right pane. I had to use a glass from a picture frame. I hope to be able to get more of these windows to do more of these projects. I do have a larger one in the garage that is for a storm door, with 8 or 10 panes, but an odd size glass and 2 of those panes are broken.

I got this shot of a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird this evening after dinner. I was just sitting in a lawn chair in the back yard and being very still.

This is a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird that I took earlier today. She is all fluffed up because I just caught her as she was ruffling her feathers. She is sitting in my cherry tree. I love watching these little guys!

This is a juvenile robin that I got early this afternoon, also sitting in my cherry tree. Mama wasn't too far away. She kept watching me, but I think she knew I wasn't going to hurt her baby.

This is just a back shot of the same baby.

I don't know the people that this dog belongs to. I was over in Montpelier, at the cemetery, cleaning up the grave of my best friend's son. There are so many mementos and flowers around the monument that the caretaker can't mow around it, so I moved everything, used the weed eater and raked then put everything back as much as where it was as possible. The dog lives directly across the road from the grave and as I was getting ready to leave, he had to come and check me out. I believe he's an Australian Sheppard. He's a beautiful dog!

Okay, I still don't have enough sense to go to bed at a decent time, but I'm going to get off here now and go take a shower and go to bed!

I'll start visiting tomorrow.

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

Still Down

2009-06-02T12:46:00.003-04:00

Well, my computer is still down. I took it to the repair shop. The mother board and processer are bad and I don't have $300 to have it fixed. I didn't lose any of my pictures, thank goodness. My older son, Ryan has an extra computer that his mother-in-law is currently using. When she gets her new one, he will get that one back for me, put my hard drive in it, as well as the one already in it, and let me have that one. I am still using Lori's computer at the time.

Well, a lot has happened since I have been without my computer. The worst of it being that my husband has left me! He moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee two weeks ago. He has left me with no job and very little money. I really wish I could start selling my photography to earn a little bit of money. Jobs around here are scarce. I have put in applications and resumes in several places, but no calls so far. The bad thing is, we had several projects started on the house. We had wallpaper peeled off the walls in the spare bedroom and master bathroom, but never got them painted. The guest bath needs to have the paper peeled and painted as well. There is no insulation in the attic. Two months in a row, my gas bill was just short of $500 per month! No way I can afford that. We were only able to afford it this time because of the money I got when my mother passed away, but all that is gone bacause we had to pay off all our credit cards so I could take over the house. It couldn't be put into my name till I got my credit straightened out.

I don't have any idea what I'm going to do.

This is a model plane that people were flying around out at the high school parking lot on Sunday. I went out there on my way home from putting my garden out at Lyle's. Ryan, Melissa and Cody were out ther flying a kite, that is, while the breeze would cooperate! Cody was riding his tricycle around in the parking lot while mommy and daddy flew the kite.

The gosling and duck pics were from a farm out on Willman Road, not too far from where Lori lives. I was just bored one day and started driving around.

The lonliness is really starting to get to me. Especially if I am watching TV and there is an intimate scene on there. Just watching them kiss gets me depressed! Oh well, just something I have to get used to, I guess.

Gonna get off here for now. Hopefully, I will have a computer next week. Keep your fingers crossed!!!!

Love Ya

Lisa

I Give Up!!!!

2009-05-12T14:29:00.004-04:00

You'll never believe this. My computer crashed on me Saturday morning and I lost everything! Including about 3000 pictures! I am using one of Lori's computers to write this.

Last night, I had a little visitor. A juvenile Ruby-throated Hummingbird. She stayed perched on my feeder for a couple of hours, even when I went out there to take pics of her. She never took off the entire time I was out there. I even used my pathetic cell phone camera from less than a foot away from her and she never took off. She was terribly cold, as it was only in the mid 40's at the time, with expected low of 39. I took just over 100 pics of her. I can't wait till I can either get my computer fixed or get a new one so I can get the pics up for you. My next-door neighbor is a police officer and I told him what happened. He told me that he would probably be able to recover my lost files for me, so keep your fingers crossed!

The pics above are as-is. I haven't done anything to them. I took them yesterday. The first one is a Tree Swallow and the other is my little visitor from last night.

Gonna get off her for now.

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

There's More Critters Out And About!

2009-04-30T19:52:00.002-04:00

Hello everybody. Has everybody had weather as crazy as ours? I am sick to death of the rain. We always get it all in the spring, but never in the summer when we really need it for the crops. The fields are all flooded now, some even high enough that the water is crossing the roads in some places.
Remember that mama Robin from two posts ago? This picture is mama and one of her babies, sitting on our bird bath yesterday morning. The baby is just so adorable! I know that there was at least one other baby, but not sure where it was.
If anybody knows what this funny looking bird is, please let me know. It has long legs. The body appeared to be about the size of a grackle or a pigeon. I've never seen one before, whatever it is!
These two ducks are Mergansers, but I'm not sure which sub-species. Possibly Common or Hooded, from looking at my book, according to their territory. Both of these pictures are of flooded fields, not ponds!
This picture of a male Mallard was taken at the same time I took the pics of the Mergansers. I played with the shadows on this, the same as I did with a previous Mallard in flight in the April 7th post.
This is the same male and a female Mallard. Again, I played with the shadows.
The past few days, I've been going out to Lyle's to take care of his critters while he is down south visiting. I'm pretty sure he went to West Virginia to see his son. There is one dog, one Cockatiel, about a dozen cats(outside) and four pea fowl, one of which is the hen and the other three are males. The picture above is the oldest male's tail. I used the "fluorescent chalk" filter to get the effect.
This is the same peacock with his tail fanned. His name is Peapot!
And this is Peapot trying to figure out what in the world I'm doing! None of them are tame. We can get closer now than we used to be able to.
This is one of the many Grackles that come around here to eat. Between them and the Starlings, I don't know which are the bigger pigs! Again, I played with the shadows on Photoshop for the effect. After leaving Lyle's yesterday, I went taking more pictures, in the rain, no less! I was having a heck of a time. Taking pictures of a Killdeer that just doesn't want to cooperate is a riot! The Killdeer is part of the Plover family. They lay their eggs around gravel and their eggs look kind of like little rocks, according to my Aunt Pat. She gets these birds around her farm all the time and she finds their "nests" in her driveway. I couldn't get a clear enough shot of any, so I gave up for the day. I also can't seem to get close enough to the Horned Lark to get a decent shot. I chased one of them around for a short while too! They won!
I'm going to get off here for now. I hope everybody has a great weekend. I hope it stops raining!!!
TTYL
Love Ya
Lisa

Some Seriously Screwy Weather!

2009-04-21T00:39:00.003-04:00

I can't seem to be able to get myself motivated enough to post more often! Not sure why, cause Lord knows, I don't do anything else around here! LOL
Glenna and Tim were home last week. They flew in from Anchorage on Easter Sunday and stayed with another classmate that lives near Indianapolis that night. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, Glenna stayed with me. She wasn't feeling well most of the time that they were here. On Friday night, Glenna, Tim, Chuck and I went out to eat in Decatur, Indiana. A restaurant called The Back 40 Junction. Glenna has been there several times, but it was a first for Chuck & I. It's located in an old train station and is set up as a buffet-only place. Friday is all you can eat crab legs. That's all it took to get Chuck there! I'm not much for crab, so I had shrimp, my favorite seafood. It was really good! The picture above is me(left) and Glenna.
This is a round barn on State Road1 in Jay County, Indiana. I had to take a slight detour last week to go to Portland to Walmart to get my new glasses. I'm really feeling old now because my new glasses have bifocals! The only part that is hard to get used to is, strangely enough, when I'm eating. When I look at my plate, I have to go back and forth looking between my bifocals and the regular part of the lens.
This old barn is over in Berne. I drive over there every once in a while taking pictures of the Amish farms and buggies. I think the filter I used on this barn is High Pass.
This old wagon was in a yard of one of the Amish farms. I would love to spend a day at an Amish household just observing their ways, and taking pictures of the homes, implements and different things that they use. When I was there last week taking these pictures, I passed two teen aged Amish boys rollerblading to and from town. Quite odd watching that. I was going down the country roads shooting the farms and such, and I got behind a buggy going quite slow. There was a farm where three or four Amish boys were out playing ball. I was just barely moving because I didn't want to pass the buggy and spook the horse. My camera is always in my hand, ready to shoot whatever catches my fancy. The boys started waving at me and motioning like they wanted me to stop. I did and rolled my passenger side window down. I asked one of them if he minded if I took his picture. He said no, so just as I got ready to focus, the mother walked out onto the porch and the boys hollered "DON'T", so I didn't get my picture. Even if I would have gotten the picture, I wouldn't have done anything with it except keep it for my own personal collection. I know that they don't like having their pictures taken. Some don't mind it. When I rode over with Lori a couple of weeks ago, we stopped on the side of the road and an Amish family was coming toward us. A man and woman, holding a baby in the front, and three young children in the back. Lori shot a picture of the children and as she did, the mother was looking backward, looking straight at Lori and smiling.
This is the head of the Civil War monument in the courthouse square here in town. I used the reticulation filter to get this effect.
This is the clock tower of our courthouse. The setting sun was hitting it.
This is the same monument as the head shot above. The main focus was on the rising moon.
This is just a robin in the back yard, sitting on my next-door neighbor's fence.
Believe it or not, this is a sunset. I've been playing with Photoshop quite a bit. I finally had to buy the version that I had the trial version of. I loved it. This was the "twirl" filter. I bought Photoshop Elements 7. To me, Elements is so much more user friendly than regular Photoshop.
This is one of the Amish farms in Berne. I just played around with the shadows to get this effect, the same as I did on the Mallard duck on a previous post. I took this on our way home from Decatur Friday night. I couldn't believe the picture came out as clear as it did, because Chuck was driving and I was taking the picture as we were flying down the highway at 55 MPH!
I'm really getting tired of this weather. It just won't make up it's mind. Saturday, I was wearing shorts and it was beautiful out. Since then, it has gotten progressively colder and rainy and they are calling for snow showers tomorrow(Tuesday) then in the 80's this weekend! It's no wonder my allergies are going crazy!
Chuck is still doing well. He still hasn't had a drink, thank goodness! He has been doing a lot of work around the house. Last weekend, he installed a new kitchen ceiling light. Before, all we had in the kitchen was a small hanging lamp in one corner and small fluorescent lights above the sink and under the cabinet. Then he ripped the carpet and old ceramic tile from the master bathroom floor and put lenolium down instead. He has been landscaping the yard as well. We still need to do the guest bathroom floor the same as the master. I don't know why people put carpeting in a bathroom. It just soaks up water from getting out of the tub or shower and steam and eventually will cause mold to grow. He also had to fix or replace the faucets in the bathroom sinks and shower/tub. They were all leaking pretty badly.
Time to get off here and take my happy hiney to bed! I still don't have enough sense to go to bed at a decent time!
TTYL
Love Ya
Lisa

A Follow-up From A Screwed Up Week!

2009-04-07T23:48:00.003-04:00

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, although it sometimes seems like it because I keep disappearing from blogland for long periods at a time. A couple of readers know why I wasn't on last week because I e-mailed you. So far, everything is much better. Chuck quit drinking and knows that the next beer he touches, he's out of here! Most people think I'm crazy to take him back, but I love him and want this marriage to work. I'm not in this marriage to make other people happy.
The picture above is going into a little town in Jay County, east of Blackford County. My husband got the biggest kick out of it the first time we drove to Indiana from Florida. Our last name is the name of a small Indiana town. Even when I stop at the convenience store there, they get a laugh out of it being our last name.
This is our neighbor's house behind us. I saw this momma Robin flying up to her nest on Saturday. I got as close as I could without scaring her off her eggs. I felt so sorry for her Sunday because it just poured rain all day and was quite chilly.
Still not a very good picture of a Blue Heron, but it's a little better that previous. This was much closer to home than where I was going before. I'm going to keep trying!
Lori and I went to Berne again Friday March 27. She goes there to buy grain for the horses. Much better prices there. On our way home, only about a minute from my house, we was this odd, funnel-shaped cloud ahead of us. I took this one after I got home and put my stuff in the house. It was just drifting northward. It looks like a tornado, but it wasn't(as far as I know) LOL
We saw a lot more Amish out and about that day.
An Amishman out plowing his field. I think he must have been a teenager, because he didn't have a beard.
On our way to Berne, we turned off on one of the side roads to hopefully get a scenic route to photograph. There was an old junkyard on the road we turned onto.
These buzzards were sitting on the roof of an old tool shed just before we got to the junkyard. Somehow, we went WAY out of the way. Neither one of us is any good at navigation if we've never been on those roads before. We ended up in Warren, which was the opposite direction from the way we originally turned. I got the brilliant idea to turn left on Jeff Road, because I wanted to see Five Points Schoolhouse and an old steel bridge near it. We were already past there when we made the turn. Oh well, we saw a lot of neat things, and now that we know where we went wrong, we'll go back on purpose to get more pictures. I finally found Five Points day before yesterday.
I am going to get off here and try to get some sleep. Everybody have a great week.
Love Ya
Lisa

A Bit Of The Great Outdoors!

2009-03-25T14:45:00.007-04:00

I went out again to where the Herons are nesting, hoping to get a better shot of one. No such luck! They pretty much stayed in and behind the trees. I did, however, have the good fortune of a Red-tail Hawk flying overhead. Actually, there were two of them, but only one got close enough to get any decent pictures.
I thought they turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself! LOL
Sooner or later, I'm going to get a good shot of one of the Blue Herons!
Yesterday, I was out and about again, just not out as far. I only went a couple of miles out into the country northeast of here. The pic above is a male Mallard Duck flying. I didn't get a good enough shot, so I cropped it and played around with the shadowing to get this effect. It kinda looks like a painting.
There were some Canadian Geese out on the same pond. I got them as they were flying away.
A couple more miles northeast of the waterfowl shots, I found these horses. I see them all the time, but they are usually up close to the barn, so I can never get any good shots of them. There were three females and one male. The small one in the roundpen is a female. The Paint horse is the male.
The male was really irritating this female. I don't know if she was the only one in heat, or simply that she was much smaller than all the others.
I got a few shots of her back kicking at him.
And in these two, he found it necessary to bite her on the butt! I would have kicked him too!
And she did!
He just absolutely refused to leave her alone!
She started to walk away, but I think he must have been taunting her again.
So, she rared up at him and kicked at him that way.
Then, he decided that two could play that game. She finally walked away to where he couldn't get to her.
After I got home, I was out in the back yard shooting birds and squirrels. I left the back door open so Salem could be his usual nosey self. He wanted out bad! He is not allowed outside.
This pretty little Purple Finch was up in my cherry tree just singing away. He has a very pretty song.
This Gray Squirrel was in one of my Maple trees. Not exactly sure what he was eating. There aren't any oak trees in the near vicinity.
While I was out at the pond, on my way home, I noticed several of these black globs attached to blades of grass or other vegetation. It is frog eggs.
There should be thousands of tadpoles very soon.
Before I went out on my mini safari, I saw a bird that really shocked me for being in this area. I took pictures, but it was simply too far away to get a recognizable picture. It was some kind of gull. I tried to look it up in my book, but not being able to see much of the bird, I couldn't identify it. It was all white, with the tips of the wings being black. I couldn't see the color of the head or the feet. I'm pretty sure the tail was all white as well.
I'm gonna get off here for now. Chuck will be home tonight. He wasn't originally supposed to be,as he was supposed to be hauling a load of paper from Canton, NC to Franklin, OH, but when he got to Canton, he found out that his trailer was leaking rain water, so they refused to load him. So, he has to come back empty, then pick up a trailer and head back down to Johnson City, TN.
Everybody have a great rest of the week.
TTYL
Love Ya
Lisa

Spring Is Finally Here!

2009-03-22T15:22:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow starts spring break for our school district. At least the weather is nice for it. Not quite shorts weather, but coats aren't necessary, either. I was going to go out on a photo safari today, but I'm just too tired! I haven't slept well for the past two nights. My wonderful hubby was snoring terribly both nights! I tried to just get up and sleep in the recliner, but that didn't work either. Oh well, tomorrow is supposed to be nice, so I'll go out on safari then. There is a steel bridge the next county to the north that I want to go photograph. I've never seen it before, but it's out near a place called Five Points. There's an old school house out there as well. I've seen some pictures of it, but never been there.
I'm pretty sure I've put a picture of this old school house on my blog before. It's five miles north and seven miles east of Hartford City. The inside of it has pretty much completely fallen apart.
I know I've put a shot or two of this old farm on a previous post, probably late summer. It was used in WWII as a work farm for German prisoners. It is also on 5 miles north, but just short of nine miles east. Nine miles east is the Blackford-Jay county line road.
I had gone out to this area because a friend told me that there are always Herons nesting out in this area because the river runs by this road for a short while. I got a shot of this Turkey Vulture flying overhead while I was waiting, trying to get shots of the Herons.
I apologize that this Heron picture is not very good. I had to take the pictures from the road, as the field between the road and the nesting tree was still very muddy. I'm going to try to get back out there when it's dry, before the trees have all their foliage.
This was just along the side of the road, where the river crossed under the road.
These geese were swimming on a bit of flooded farmland on 200 North. I was on my way home from Montpelier on Tuesday, which was St. Patrick's Day. No, I wasn't wearing any green! LOL
This is Chuck standing in front of his truck. I had gone to Montpelier to take him some sandwiches because he was back in town just long enough to drop his empty trailer and pick up a full one and head back down to Johnson City, Tennessee.
I already have flowers blooming! These are in the flower under the computer room windows. Mom had planted these Daffodils and some Hyacinths when she still lived in this house. They are just starting to open up today, but I haven't taken any pictures of them yet.
I have a lot of woodpeckers around this house. I rarely saw any at the old house. This is a Red-bellied woodpecker. I'm not sure, but I believe it's a female. I think the males have a lot more red on their heads than the females. Salem loves it when I have the blinds open on the computer room windows. He sits on top of my drop-front desk and watches the birds and squirrels out back. If I don't open them immediately after getting up in the morning, he is sitting up there batting his paw against the pull cord of the blinds, trying to figure out how to open them himself. I'm surprised he doesn't just grab the cord in his teeth and jump off the desk at the same time! At least he knows that it's the cord that opens the blinds. LOL
I'm going to get off here for now. I hope everybody has a great week.
TTYL
Love Ya
Lisa

Taking The Scenic Route

2009-03-12T00:01:00.006-04:00

Surprise! It's only been two days since my last post and I'm already posting again! LOL
I went to Portland to Walmart again Tuesday. I made so many detours for pictures, it took me two hours to get home. If I go straight up SR 26, it's about 20 miles, but I went the long way out SR 27 to SR 18 through Bryant (no relation), then through Fiat, then Montpelier, then finally home. I saw some more Amish farms along the way. The picture above is in Montpelier. It is the Salamonie River.
This is actually the bottom of a tree stump. I put it on Photoshop and did the "invert" filter, which is basically the same as a negative.
This little guy was across the road from the river. He was soaked from the earlier rain.
This farming implement was just sitting out in the middle of a field near our family farmland in Montpelier.
It was the first day that I had seen the Red-winged Blackbirds. I always have a hard time getting good shots of these guys!
While I was still in Jay County, I went up a gravel road looking for barns and saw this guy in the road. I stopped and got out to take some pictures, then I picked him up from the road and put him in the grass on the side of the road, hoping he wouldn't get run over.
Finally, back to our back yard. A sparrow in the cherry tree.
I found this cocoon in one of the maple trees in the back yard when I was out cleaning up the yard this past weekend. Not sure what is in it. It is actually on old leaf that it used.
One day last week, my Aunt Pat called me out to her house and told me that the neighbor's dog had treed a young raccoon. We didn't think that it was a raccoon because of his paws. They almost looked like dog paws.
I had called Lyle and he went out there after I had left. He called the conservation officer and he's the one who confirmed that it was a variation of a raccoon. He was adorable!
Gonna get off here and get my tired carcass in bed.
Take care
Love Ya

A Bit Of A Teasing

2009-03-09T00:10:00.003-04:00

Another week has gone by without me posting anything! I am getting so bad about that. It's not like I work or anything. I've just not really been in the mood for some reason. Last Sunday, I went to Portland to go to Walmart. I bought the frames and mattes for my pictures and did my grocery shopping. I went home the long way, so I could get some pictures of some of the old barns along the way. Well, instead of turning west on State Road 18 and heading home, I continued north on S.R. 27 and ended up in Berne, Indiana. I had never been there and wanted to see it. It has a lot of Amish living in the area. It is also Swiss. So, I drove around Berne, out in the country and took some pictures of the Amish homes, as well as the Amish out in horse and buggy, having to use umbrellas as wind shields because it was very blustery.
The top picture is at the Swiss Village. It was closed when I went past.

This is one of the Amish farms. I used the "old photo" filter from Photoshop.

The same with this one.

On Monday, I went back over to Berne with Lori. She goes over there to buy her horse feed. This picture is the remains of an old train tressel over the river. The top pic was done with the "reticulation" filter.

I believe this is the "old paper" filter.

This was out in my back yard. We have had a lot of Starlings around here lately. This Red-bellied Woodpecker was on the ground eating a chunk of a suet cake. She was guarding her food from the Starling. The Starling finally got the hint and left, but not until he had circled the woodpecker a couple of times to try to find a different angle to get to the suet.

This is where the woodpecker was scolding the starling.

This one as well.

This one was after she achieved her victory over the starling! LOL

This is just a couple of sparrows on the suet feeder.

Yesterday was really pretty. We had the windows open all day. I went out and cleaned out the flower bed in the back of the house. There are already some flowers coming up, but I'm not sure what they are. We cooked out on the grill. Michael spent the night at a friend's house for a birthday party. Chuck and I stayed up until 4:00 this morning playing Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune on Playstation 3. I fell asleep on him because I had taken Tylenol P.M. because my hips were really bothering me.

The Hartford City Art Show was today. Lori and I both have photos in the show.

I'm going to get off here and go to bed.

Everybody take care and have a great week.

Love Ya

Lisa

Another Blustery Day

2009-02-28T15:15:00.005-05:00

Okay, because of the crappy weather, today's pictures are from March 2006. These were all taken at Busch Gardens, Tampa, Florida. I only put the bird pictures on here. The top picture, you can just block out that awful part of me. Just focus on the bird! Yes, I have lost some weight since then! LOL

I don't know what species most of these birds are. Parrot family, but I don't know any more than that.

I just tried to pick out some half-way decent shots.

These were some type of ducks.

This is the same parrot that was sitting on my hand drinking nectar. I thought it was so cool to have that bird crawl onto my hand to eat.

This is an albino Peacock. He was quite the show-off!

Another parrot.

This one is an African Grey (gray?)

This is a Spoonbill roseate.

And last, but not least, this is a Scarlet Ibis.

Okay, it was short and sweet! Hope you enjoy the pictures. At least it gives the illusion of being warm!

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

It's All About The Geese!

2009-02-18T18:36:00.002-05:00

Okay, today's post is nothing but Canadian Geese! I took these yesterday. I got over 100 shots of them, but only had a few really good ones.

There is a pond across the street from our hospital. I see the geese flying across in the evenings from my back yard, and found out that this is where they are landing.

There was a minimum of 50 out there yesterday. A lady who is a caregiver for a couple in the apartment complex beside this pond said she had counted 130+ a couple of days ago! They will only hang out here at this pond for a couple of weeks, according to the caregiver.

I just about froze, standing out there taking pictures!

I wasn't wearing any kind of jacket. The temperature was around 40 degrees F, but it was rather windy. I only wore jeans and a tee-shirt.

My hands were the coldest!

I wish I could have gotten some closer pics of them, like I did at the horse show in New Castle last August.

I didn't get a chance to see any of them flying in or away this time.

That's about it for now.

I'm going to get off here and start working on fixing dinner.

Everybody take care and have a great rest of the week. I hope we don't get the snow that they are calling for tonight. I'm OVER IT!!!!!! My garden and flower bed are hollering for me! :)

Love Ya

Lisa

Still Waiting For Warm Weather!

2009-02-15T23:57:00.003-05:00

I am so over the cold weather! We had a bad rain storm Wednesday evening. It had been raining all that day, broke for about an hour or so, then cut loose again! I had gone out for a short walk to try to relieve some stress. (Gonna be dealing with a lot of that for quite a while!) When I was on my way back, it really cut loose. Rain, wind and hail. It was all hitting me in the back. I was completely drenched by time I got home. I was walking past a friend's house when it really started. When I got past the front of the house, I heard a loud cracking sound, like a board or a tree limb snapping. I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary though. When I finally got home, I called the friend and told him what I had heard. He said that he didn't hear anything, but he would go out and check on it. I also jokingly told him that I was tempted to run up on his front porch to wait out the rain. He just said, "well, I was home, you should have. I would have taken you home." I just laughed and said, "Oh sure, now you tell me!" While I was talking to him, I had to step outside because Michael and Jason had the TV turned up loud playing video games and I couldn't hear. I was getting wet standing out there, so I stepped into the furnace closet. I was even getting wet standing in there because the ceiling was leaking. Shortly after, the ceiling collapsed! It had been in bad shape for a while, but finally gave in. Chuck, Jason and Michael put a new roof on the closet Friday afternoon. They still have to put the new insulation in the ceiling on the inside, but at least the outside is done. Now I have a huge mess to clean up. Plaster, chunks of wood and shingles and wet insulation! YUK! I saw my friend up town the next day and he said that he couldn't find any damage. That's good!

The picture at the very top is of our local Lake Placid. I know that there are several Lake Placids around the country, but I'm quite sure that ours is the smallest of all of them! If I'm not mistaken, the building on the far side of the lake belongs to The Assembly Of God Church.

The next picture is just a couple of Canadian Geese on a frozen pond. It's really strange that they don't seem to leave here in the winter any more. They used to always fly south, but I guess this is far enough south for them now.

This is just an old barn when I was out driving aimlessly around last Sunday. I ended up in Dunkirk, Indiana, via the back roads.

I thought this horse was so cool looking with it's markings.

This was taken on Valentine's Day. It's in our next door neighbor's yard. We call it a bird bush, because there are always several birds in it. I just liked the way it was holding the snow.

Gonna get off here now and go to bed. Michael has school tomorrow, make-up snow day, even though it's a so-called holiday. Just another excuse for the government to take a day off and get paid for not working!

I see that I have some new members on my followers list. Welcome, everybody!

I will come visit people tomorrow. Everybody have a great week.

Love Ya

Lisa

I Just Couldn't Resist!

2009-02-10T23:31:00.008-05:00

Hi everybody. I went out for Chinese at lunch time yesterday(Monday). I just had to get a shot of this. Notice the billboard above the restaurant. I thought it would make a funny picture. No offense intended to anybody. I love Chinese food!
Glenna's Section

Glenna and Tim live in Anchorage, Alaska. Sunday, they went out driving around. The temperature was somewhere between 10 and 15 degrees below zero F. These are some of the pictures they took while they were out and about. There are truly only 3 pictures here. The rest are simply Photoshop. They e-mailed me the original pictures and I did the rest. These are all looking out at the ocean. I'm not sure which mountain that is across the bay. I know it's not Mount Redoubt. The first of each picture is the original.

The second is simply enhanced. It was very foggy there that day.

The third is slightly over-contrasted. You know how I love to over-contrast some pictures!

The forth is using the "watercolor" filter. The same with this set. First is the original.

The second is enhanced. The third is over-contrasted. The forth is the watercolor filter.

This set is a little different. Still the original on the first.

The second is antiqued.

The last is antiqued with spotlight added. Notice, it looks like sunlight hitting the water just left of the center of the page.

They asked me to post these pictures on my blog, so here they are for you to enjoy!

Gonna go for now. I will probably post again tomorrow. I went out on Sunday myself and took some pictures. I wasn't very happy with the results for the most part, but I did get a couple good shots.

Good night, or good morning. Which ever applies to you when you read this.

Love Ya

Lisa

Winter Thaw

2009-02-08T11:24:00.005-05:00

Okay, call Ripley's Believe It or Not! I've been up since 4:00 this morning! Chuck's son came to visit, so we had to go clear down to Indianapolis to the Greyhound station to pick him up. His bus came in at 6:30 a.m. The pic above is obviously Lucas Oil Stadium, the new home the the Indianapolis Colts. The stadium is directly caddy corner from the bus station. We didn't have daylight until between 7:00 and 7:30 and I took this pic shortly after 6:00, so it was a little too dark to get the actual building.
We actually got up to 51 degrees F. yesterday. Most of the snow is gone, except what was plowed up into huge piles in parking lots and along the roads.

This Red-bellied woodpecker has been around quite a bit lately.

Same bird, just on the ground picking a corncob clean. That's okay. There's plenty more where that came from.

This poor Bluejay was having a major bad-tuft day! LOL

One of the few bird pictures I actually took while I was outside. As I said in the previous post, I take most of my bird pics from a chair looking out my kitchen window.

I thought that this little sparrow was so cute!

Female cardinal in the cherry tree. I can't wait for summer so I can pick some fresh cherries, if the birds and Michael don't beat me to them!

This is a European Starling. This is the first year that I ever saw them in the winter around here. Normally, I only see them for about a month during the middle of summer, about the time that the Grackles are getting ready to leave.

A White-breasted Nuthatch on the suet feeder.

This is the same cat from my previous post that was trying to camouflage herself in the snow.

My squirrels had disappeared for a short while. I think it got a little too cold for them.

I had gone out to Lori's last week to try another shot at getting pics of the horses playing in the snow. Her friend, Stan, was there with another gentleman working on their well pump. This is Stan and Val's dog, but unfortunately, I have forgotten the dog's name. Lori would toss snow balls and I would take the picture while the dog was jumping to catch them. Then we switched.

This is one of Lori's horses rolling in the snow. His name is Taxes because he was born on tax day.

This is yet the newest member of Lori's horse family. This is Goldie. When Lori got hurt, she was trying to coax the three adult females into the round-pen so she could let Goldie out for her first romp in the snow. We were hoping that Goldie would try rolling around in the snow, but she still wasn't really too sure about it.

Well, I think that's about it for now. I'm going to go and visit some more of you folks now.

Have a great week!

Love Ya

Lisa

My Belated Birthday Card

2009-02-05T15:57:00.001-05:00

I hope this works. I tried to put it on my side bar, but couldn't figure out how.
http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=1763706652141&source=jl999

Thank you to Patty Lincoln

Let Me Try This Again!

2009-02-04T23:24:00.004-05:00

The last time I tried to post from my computer, it disconnected on me just as I hit "publish post"! Talk about aggrivating!!!
I finally get to thank Merle at Merle's Third Try for the Honest Scrap award. She passed it along to me when my internet was down. Here's how this goes.
List 10 honest things about myself
Post the award on your post and blog
Put a link to the person/persons who you received the award from.
Nominate at least 7 blogs which show "honest scrapness"
Be sure to link to your nominees in your post.
Let them know they have received this award by commenting on their blogs.

1. I just quietly turned 46 years old on January 30th.
2. I am scared to death that because I have already lost my father, mother and maternal grandmother to cancer, that I won't be far behind.
3. I have been married three times. The first two marriages were horrible. The current quite good.
4. I have 2 sons. Ryan will be 27 in May and Michael just turned 15 in October. One grandson, Cody, will be 4 in August. One daughter-in-law, Melissa. I love them all. A big part of why I moved back to Indiana from Florida.
5. I have a terrible weight problem. 17 years ago, I went from 180 pounds down to 125 pounds, then turned around and got pregnant! The pounds have been packing on and slightly dropping since. My highest weight got up to 212 pounds about 3 years ago. I am only 5 feet, 3 inches tall, or should I say short (vertically challenged!)
6. I am extremely lazy! I will stay up til well after 1:00 in the morning, but stay in bed til at least 10:00, if not later!
7. My husband gets very aggrivated with me because I rarely talk. If I don't have anything interesting to say, why speak!
8. I love to home can fresh vegetables and make my own jelly.
9. I would rather be taking pictures than keeping house, although, I do make time for that as well.
10. I love all different kinds of music, as you can tell by my playlist. I'm sure a lot of you were kind of surprised to see Glen Miller's "In The Mood" on there.

Now, I'm going to break the rules on the next part. I don't like to select just certain people for these awards. I feel like I might be upsetting the people that I don't choose. So, if you are visiting this post, please feel free to take the award on over to your own site.

This Blue jay shot is my pride and joy up to this point. I couldn't believe how well it turned out. I took it last Wednesday when we had our big snow storm. I think we ended up with somewhere between 8 to 12 inches of snow, depending on the area.

I shot this over on the Mississinewa River on January 26. I thought they were called gray geese, but my late mother and my step-father got me a National Geographic Complete Birds of North America book for Christmas, and when I looked the birds up in the book, it says that these birds are called Swan Geese. Id never heard of such a thing.

This is the bridge that I was standing on taking the pictures of the geese.

This is a female Red-bellied Woodpecker.

This is just an icicle that I shot out of my kitchen window. The shot was so over-exposed that you couldn't see the icicle at all. So I put it on Photoshop and clicked on Enhance then Auto levels, and this is the result!

These two cats belong to Lori over at ProPhoto By Lori. I took it a couple of weeks ago. I had been out there the day previous to take pictures of the horses out in the snow, but an accident happened before we could. While Lori was trying to get the 3 older phillies into the round pen so she could let the baby out, one of the horses kicked her in the head. She is doing better now. She still has some slight bruising. She was being quite stubborn and wouldn't go to the E.R. Shame on you, girl! We finally managed to get some shots earlier this week. I haven't edited any of them, so I'm not posting them on this entry.

One of our many male cardinals. All of my bird shots that I get since living in this house have been taken standing on a chair and shooting out the kitchen window.

This is a Brown Thrasher. This was the first and last day I have ever seen this breed. In the last couple of weeks, I have decided that since I have this bird book now, that I am going to try to see how many different breeds of birds I can get shots of, print out a 4x6 of the best of each, and put in the book on it's respective page.

This is one of the neighborhood cats that I feed. She stayed right in this spot for quite some time waiting for the bird snack that never came. She is actually a gray cat, but you'd never know with all the snow all over her. The birds were smart enough to wait till she was gone to come in for seed.

I think this is my longest post yet!

I'm going to get off here now and get to bed. I have to get up with Chuck in 4 hours to fix him breakfast and get him a lunch and snacks ready to take with him. Yes, I will go back to bed, then back up at 6:30 long enough to get Michael up for school then back to bed.

TTYL

Love ya

Lisa

Here We Go Again!

2009-01-23T12:52:00.002-05:00

Sorry I haven't been posting for a while. Last Friday I had done a complete post, and just as I hit "publish post" I lost my internet connection. No, I didn't neglect to pay my bill. I made the mistake of trying to switch from AT&T to Vonage for my phone service. What a mistake! Take my advice, don't use Vonage. They were horrible. Now, I'm waiting for Vonage to surrender my phone number back to AT&T. That won't happen until January 28! No phone line, no internet:( Once again, I am using the computer at the public library, so, no pictures for this post.
Must go for now. I have an appointment to get my hair cut, not that it's going to help anything! LOL
Take care and have a great weekend.
Love Ya
Lisa

Playing With Photoshop! :)

2009-01-06T01:35:00.003-05:00

I have been absolutely horrible with keeping up on this blog and visiting all of yours! The holidays are finally over and things are back to relatively normal, if there is such a thing! Chuck is back on the road and Michael is back to school. I am back to part time peace and quiet. I had to pick up some bottled water for Chuck and take it over to where he drives for and leave it in the car for him to pick up on the way to Michigan. He was down in Indy all morning and afternoon. On my way, I stopped out at Glenna's house to see what the workers had accomplished, if anything. I don't think they have done anything since I was out there last. The back French doors were standing wide open, causing the furnace to run constantly. The basement is flooded. The sump pump was replaced in November and repaired in December. I think her ex has been out there messing around with things. He has no right to the house, and is not happy about it.

These top two pics were of what's left of a tree out on 200 N. 300 E. here in Hartford City. It was on my way back and forth between home and Montpelier. Same pic, just turned to black and white.

This was the sunset over a farm on my way home from Montpelier. This was how it actually looked.

This is the same picture, over-contrasted.

Same farm house, just a different shot. Also over-contrasted. The lighting was simply adjusted differently for each pic.

Again, the sunset on my way home. First pic is as it was.

This was also over-contrasted. It gives it a more dramatic look, I think!

These last two pics are at the clerk of courts in our local courthouse. They are no longer used, but still part of the office.

This second pic is just a close-up of the file drawers. The courthouse was built in 1893. I'm not sure how old these file drawers are, but they are obviously quite old!

These little sparrows were hanging out in the neighbor's bush and my cherry tree yesterday.

Gonna get off here for now. I will try to post and visit more often. Maybe since things are not so hectic around here any more, I will be able to.

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

I am an
Echinacea

What Flower
Are You?

Downey Woodpecker

2008-12-30T00:16:00.004-05:00

Hello everybody. I apologize for being so far behind. The above Downey is a watercolor manipulation. I love playing around on Photoshop, especially if I get bored!

This is the same pic, just cropped and turned black and white.

This is the original shot, cropped down.

Same bird, different shot. This one is "lighting effects"

This is one of my Santa ornaments. As you can tell if you have sound on your computer, I still have my Christmas music on here. I love listening to it. I usually start listening to Christmas music right after Halloween!

This is Salem under the Christmas tree. He has been practically living there since the tree went up.

this is one of the neighborhood kitties that I started feeding here at the new house. She has such a sweet face.

This is out on 2oo N, 100 E. I have wanted several times to stop and get pictures of this pond while it was iced over with snow on the ground. I finally got around to doing it.

Christmas was pretty good, all things considered. Lyle, Ryan, Melissa and Cody came over for Christmas Eve dinner. We exchanged gifts. Lyle broke down. I knew he would. We all wanted Mom here for Christmas, but it just didn't work out that way. Today(December 30) would have been her 68th birthday.

Gonna go for now.

Love Ya

Lisa

Who Left The Freezer Door Open?

2008-12-22T00:34:00.002-05:00

BRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!! Man, is it ever cold out. It is currently -4 degrees F! The wind chill factor is about -25 to -30 degrees. We usually don't have it that cold until January.
This picture is the hornet's nest in our next door neighbor's back yard. Fortunately, it has been broken, so no hornets in the spring, not for a while at least.

I caught a shot of this female cardinal up in our cherry tree. I tried to get a shot of her while she was at the feeder and on the ground, but she didn't feel like holding still for any length of time.

Believe it or not, this is the first Red-headed woodpecker I have ever seen! I have seen Downey and Red-bellied, but never Red-headed. (S)he showed up a couple of times the other day, but not at all since.

this is the same woodpecker. This was actually the first pic I got, but when I loaded them onto my post, it put everything in the wrong order!

This little dove had been in my feeder, but when I stepped outside to get the shot, it jumped down to the ground. At least it didn't take off. This same pic was on the front page of the local newspaper on Thursday.

Mom's viewing and funeral are tomorrow, (Monday). Here is a link to the funeral home if you would like to leave an on-line condolence. If you don't want to, that's okay. Her name is Myrna . http://www.keplingerfuneralhome.com/.

I'm going to get off here so I can get to bed. We have a lot to do tomorrow, as we are having the after-service dinner here at our house. The funeral home already brought a couple of tables and several chairs.

I would like to thank everybody for leaving condolences either on my last post, or e-mailed directly to me. It is greatly appreciated.

Love Ya

Lisa

Mom

2008-12-18T07:33:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to let everybody know that my mother, Myrna Towns, passed away at about 6:30 this morning EST. I want to thank everybody for your well wishes and prayers. I'm not sure when the funeral will be, but all arrangements are already made.
Love Ya
Lisa

Candy Recipes As Requested By Don't Feed The Pixies

2008-12-12T10:38:00.002-05:00

Okay Pixie, here's the recipe!

Divinity

4 C. white sugar
1 C. white syrup
¾ C. water
Place above ingredients into large saucepan over low heat. Cook to 255 degrees. Pour over 3 stiffly beaten egg whites at a slow trickle. Stir constantly while syrup mixture is being poured in. (Best if done with 2 or more people). Once the syrup mixture is blended in with the egg whites, use an electric mixer to begin the stiffening process, adding vanilla during this process. (1 tsp. if pure vanilla extract, 2 tsp. if imitation). You may add food coloring at this stage, if desired. Once mixture is stiff enough to start to bog down mixer, switch back to large, very strong spoon. Continue stirring until shine is gone from mixture. You may add chopped nuts during this stage, if desired. Once the candy is set up, use a spoon to dip out small bite-sized amounts of candy onto foil or waxed paper to dry. Dip finger into water between scoops to push candy off spoon without too much stickiness to fingers.

I'll post more later. I have to work at the middle school cafeteria today and was invited to their Christmas party afterward at the Pickle Lounge (bowling alley).
Take care & I'll talk to you later.
Love Ya
Lisa

Christmas Candy

2008-12-10T17:07:00.004-05:00

Sorry I'm just now getting around to posting this. I would like to thank Merle from Merle's Third Try as well as Nancy from Nancy's Nonsense for this award. They both presented it to me at the same time! Stop over and visit them! I really don't know who to send this to at the moment, so I will post the names of the recipients on my next post.

This "bedspread" is actually several batches of homemade divinity. I went with my Aunt Pat over to my Aunt Linda's on Sunday to make the candy. My cousins Cheryl and Julie were there as well as Aunt Linda's step-daughter, Cindy. Grandpa rode over with us. He mostly sat in the living room and watched the Colts football game.

This covered bridge is in one of the local cemetaries. It is at the Garden of Memories north of Muncie. It's not very old. It wasn't there when I moved to Florida 21 years ago. It spans over a creek between the actual cemetary and the funeral home.

This was just a "drive-by shooting"! On the way home from aunt Linda's. I was sitting in the back seat, so I didn't have a very good view of what was coming up. I'm surprised that this picture turned out since we were moving.

This is Aunt Pat and my cousin Julie. Julie is trickling the boiled sugar, syrup and water mixture into the whipped egg whites. If you have never made divinity, it's time consuming and hard on the arms, unless you are used to going to a gym. It's very hard to make divinity by yourself! All of us were taking turns doing the stirring.

This is Aunt Pat and my cousin Cheryl. This is almost the last stage of the divinity making. It gets very stiff and hard to stir. A couple of years ago, we broke 2 or 3 spoons! It has to be hand stirred first, while mixing the egg whites and syrup mixture together, then use an electric mixer on it until it gets too stiff for the mixer to run properly, then hand stir again until it loses it's shine. Then it's finally ready to spoon onto the foil to set. Grandpa likes it better while it's still in the mixing stage than when it's completely finished. He likes the texture better.

Aunt Pat taking her turn on the final stage.

Cheryl working on the mixer stage.

Cheryl and Julie working on the first stage. Cindy is in the background.
Sunday was actually our 5th wedding anniversary. Chuck had to leave to head to Tennessee and I went to make candy! Nice way to celebrate an anniversary, isn't it! LOL I got all my Christmas cards out yesterday. I made my own cards this year. Some had to be store bought because I ran out of home made cards.

I finally got my music playlist to work on my side board. What a hassle!

Gonna get off here and finish my house work and fix dinner.

Every body take care and try to stay warm. Happy summer to Merle's Third Try , Jen's Chronicles and Noel About Town Photos and anybody else who is in that part of the world.

I'll try to post a little sooner next time!

Love Ya

Lisa

What A Weekend!

2008-12-01T01:55:00.005-05:00

Hello everybody! I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. We had our family Thanksgiving at my Aunt Pat's this year. We usually do it at my Aunt Linda's in Anderson, but it's too far for my mother to travel in her condition. Aunt Pat lives here in town. We were going to have it at Grandpa's, but he only has a single-wide mobile home, so not a lot of space.

Mom's not doing so good. We'll be lucky if she makes it to Christmas. She has been turned away from her chemo the last 3 weeks because she has been so weak. She is in bed at least 18 hours a day now and has absolutely no energy. Please continue to keep her in your prayers.

Ryan, Melissa and Cody were over Friday evening. They saw me at the store when I was getting batteries and other things for Christmas decorating. After they were done shopping, they came over. Cody helped me decorate the tree. He actually did a pretty good job of it.

This is the face he makes when ever somebody tells him "cheese it"! Yes, that's me with him.

This is a nuthatch in my bird feeder. They come around here far more than the old house.

This hornet's nest is in my next-door neighbor's back yard. It is actually hanging over our fence! I hope that's not a sign of things to come! LOL

The Black-capped Chickadee is another bird that I hardly ever saw at the other house, but they are all over the place here. Strange what difference 1 mile will do! I have no idea what kind of bird this is. I have never seen one before. He kind of looks to me like a brown Nuthatch. Abe, any ideas?

This is our house decorated for Christmas. Chuck and Michael spent the entire afternoon Saturday hanging the icicle lights.

I saw this doe on my way home from my mother's this afternoon. I had to drive pretty slow because we had snow last night and this morning, and the country roads were a mess. On my way out to her house, I started fish-tailing, and I was only going about 25 mph. I shifted into low gear and kept it there the rest of the trip there, and again on the way home. It was really foggy today, but it finally cleared up this evening. We are supposed to get more snow through the night and during the day Monday.

This is the Blackford County Historical Museum. I have never been inside because they have such strange hours, but I'll eventually make it up there. I just love the old house!

This was the scene at my bird feeder this morning! While I was sitting here at the computer, I could hear them all take off at once. They would all get spooked, take off into the cherry tree, then go right back for a few seconds, then repeat, several times!

This was my first picture this morning. This little cutie is the one that scattered all the seed that the birds were eating off the ground.

Gonna get off here for now and get to bed. I have a lot of straightening up to do around this house.

Everybody take care and have a great week.

Love Ya

Lisa

I Love Delapidation!

2008-11-23T00:21:00.005-05:00

Okay, I know this woodpecker has nothing to do with delapidation, but I think she's cute. Not sure if she's a downey or hairy, though. I've noticed her around the past couple of days, pecking away at the frozen suet cake.

This old house is out on north of town. It sort of reminds me of my grandparents' old house before they had it torn down, especially because of the front porch on the right side of the house.

I took most of these yesterday(Friday) while I was driving back home from Montpelier. I had to take an ice scraper over and put in the car so Chuck would have it when he got home last night. Of course, he didn't need it once he had it. He needed one Monday night when he came home. The car was all frozen over, so he just had to start the car and let it run for a while.

This is off 400 East, if I remember correctly. I kind of took the scenic route coming back home.

This one with the grain wagon was also on my way home. Not exactly sure where I saw it. I was zig-zagging all over the place.

This old barn is in southeast Montpelier. I went with Lyle on Thursday and he was showing me some old buildings. I think I have posted another pic of this old barn back in the summer. This old farm was used as a German prisoner work farm back during WWII. Most of the buildings have fallen down, or in the process of falling down. The buildings that housed the prisoners are down, but the rubble remains. Only the barn and 5 outhouses still stand, in addition to a couple of grain bins. They are currently being used by whoever does the farming around there.

This is an old school house on State road 18 east of Montpelier. People lived in it for a long time, but has since been too run down to live in. When I lived with my grandmother, this house was on the way from Montpelier to her house out on county line road. Her house and barns are gone now and 2 other houses have been built on the property. I hate the way it looks now, but I guess that's because it's not home any more.

These two Red-tail hawks were sitting in the tree on the south end of Lyle's woods when I went out to the house the other night. One of them had been in the middle of the road feasting on a freshly killed opossum when I drove up.

Thisis an oil well that has recently been put in a field in Montpelier. That is the main reason Lyle took me out driving around on Thursday. This is on the corner right before my grandmother's old farm. I don't know how far they have gotten on drilling, but there are 3 huge storage barrels near it. You can see that there was a little bit of snow on the ground at the time.

Gonna get off here for now and get to bed.

Everybody take care and have a great week. Have a great Thanksgiving!

Love Ya

Lisa

Sixth Picture In My Sixth File

2008-11-19T23:07:00.004-05:00

Carla passed this post along to me. I am supposed to go into my picture files, go to my 6th folder and find the 6th picture in that file. Jimmy, here's that barn I told you about. It is located in the middle of a small woods on county road 200 North, just a little past 300 East. In the summer, you can only see the roof because of the heavy foliage, but in the fall and winter, it is very easy to see. I love old delapidated barns and other buildings. They are so cool to photograph. Now for the rules of this post. The rules"…Find the 6th folder in your pictures directory and post the 6th photo in it.
So here are the instructions:* Go to your sixth picture folder then pick your sixth picture.* Pray that you remember the details.* Post it on your blog.* Tag 5 others, leave a comment to let them know they’ve been tagged. I will tag 5 friends, but please don't feel obligated if you don't have time. I found it only took a few minutes and was a lot of fun! Here are the taggees.

Fugazi Foto
Libs Private Paradise
Jen's Chronicles
Arlene
Merle's Third Try

TAG, You're it!

Love Ya

Lisa

Winter's Coming!

2008-11-19T01:27:00.006-05:00

Brrrrrr!!!! It's cold outside! It is currently 21 degrees. We had a slight dusting of snow Monday, but it was all gone today, except for what stayed in shaded areas. Today was very pretty, although still cold. At least it wasn't as windy as it was yesterday.

I know it's hard to see, but there are a few snow flakes blowing around in these pictures, it wasn't dust on the lens! LOL This is my little red barn out back.

This is our house with snow on top of the bushes and roof. I still have pumpkins out by the lamp and indian corn on the front porch.

These two pics were taken tonight(Tuesday) at Glenna's farm. She got it back in the divorce. She is going to rent it out, and the guy that is going to rent it is going to do the necessary work on it before moving in.

These are the bushes in front of her front porch. I had to go out there and leave a key for the Amish gentleman to fix the busted water pipes and service the furnace. He is the same guy that Glenna had build the house about 15 years or so ago.

These are just several different shots of the sunset on my way to her house this evening.

Different stages and different locations. I kept stopping in the middle of the road to take shots.

Good thing it's out in the country. No traffic!

Almost done!

I nearly blinded myself taking these crazy pics. There were a lot more, but not real good shots.

The reason I am just now posting again after my last post is because the last time, my computer was set up on the floor of the spare bedroom. The desk was in pieces laying around in the room, and concrete floors are NOT comfortable to sit on, especially with osteo arthritis in the hips! OUCH!!!!! So, I finally got a long enough phone line to reach from the phone jack in the dining room out into the Florida room, where we intended to have the computer set up in the first place. I got the desk back together Sunday night and brought the computer out after Michael went to bed. I'm still trying to get everything squared away, but it is taking a while. The spare bedroom and both bathrooms are going to be stripped of their wallpaper and painted, eventually! Most of the carpet needs replaced. Chuck wants to rip most all of the carpet out and put linoleum floors in the bathrooms and hard wood floors in the living room, dining room and bedrooms. Of course, this will all be in the not-so-near future. That's money we don't have! We will just have to be happy with the repainting for now. A room at a time.

Gonna get off here and go to bed. I have been working at Northside Elementary School last week and this in the cafeteria as a substitute lunch lady. It's only a couple hours a day, but every little bit helps. I make more per hour there than I did as a cashier at Save A Lot. Two dollars more per hour. I hope the work keeps up so I can have some Christmas money.

Everybody take care and have a great rest of the week.

Love Ya

Lisa

Honey, I'm Home!!!!!

2008-11-11T00:52:00.004-05:00

OMG! What an experience! I don't ever want to do that again! The only way I will ever move again will be when we hit the lottery and pay somebody to move everything, better still, just buy all new. There is still so much to do. A little more junk in the old garage yet to move over here and get this place organized. I am terribly uncomfortable at the moment. I am having to sit on the floor to use the computer as the desk is still in a million pieces around the room.

I would like to thank

Reader Wil for this Kreativ Blogger award. I'm sorry I haven't posted it sooner.

I would also like to thank Patty

OLD LADY LINCOLN for this I love your blog award. I recieved both on October 28, much to my surprise. I know I am supposed to choose a certain set of people to recieve these awards, but I enjoy all the blogs that I read, so I invite all my readers to help themselves to either or both of these awards.
Meet Chloe. She lives directly behind our new house. She is three years old and very loving and playful. She is so funny to watch when she has her eye on the squirrels.

I took this pic of the chubby little cardinal yesterday,(Sunday). He was sitting in our cherry tree before swooping down to the feeder.

this old water pump is in the field across the road from my friend, Nila's house.

Night time shots of the courthouse and it's clock.

This little guy was on the fence behind our old house before we moved. I really miss my raccoons and opossums. Yesterday and today were the first I have not fed them. I really feel bad about abandoning them. I know they can forage for themselves, but I still feel bad. I already have several squirrels in the feeders here at the new house.

My friend, Glenna, and her boyfriend Tim were home for a few days. Her divorce hearing was Thursday. She got her house back, so she is going to get it back in shape and start renting it out. They left today, although they missed their original flight so had to go standby. She called from Seattle just before 10 p.m. our time. They were waiting to see when they would get their connecting flight to Anchorage. Their original flight was at 9a.m. Talk about a long day!

I am going to get off here and get to bed. My hips are killing me sitting on this floor. Carpet over a concrete floor. OUCH!

I will start visiting your blogs tomorrow.

Love Ya

Lisa

Hurry Up And Wait!

2008-10-28T00:44:00.002-04:00

Hello everybody.
I swear, I don't know how someone could work so hard, yet get nothing accomplished! I have been working on the house, getting it ready to move in, but it seems like I haven't done anything. The final move is this weekend! The house was such a mess, and the guy that just moved out had the nerve to tell my mother that he left the house cleaner than what it was when he moved in. I swear, if he wasn't a cop, I'd deck him for being such an ass. He painted over wallpaper, put huge nails and screws in all the walls, took a huge shelf out of one of the bedrooms, hooked up a dishwasher and screwed up the sink plumming in the process, left oil all over the garage floor, let the kids have Kool-aid all through the house leaving pink stains in every room, nail polish in the carpet, holes in the walls. All this without any permission and thinks he should get his deposit back. As if!!! I hate stupid, inconsiderate people!

Can you tell I'm aggrivated?

Michael wanted me to tell everybody Thank You for all your birthday wishes. He couldn't believe so many people left the message for him.

These are all older pics. Still from October, but I haven't been taking any pics lately, since I have been working on the house. The bridge is from springtime.

Chuck and I went to Portland Friday night to Walmart. It was a little after 10 p.m. when we left to go over there. On the way, we saw two deer along the road. One had crossed the road in front of me and the other one stayed where he was until we passed. Thankfully, I wasn't going very fast, or I may have hit the first one. We got home around 1:00 a.m. and stayed up talking until about 4:00 a.m.! Can you say Tired Puppy! I'm still trying to catch up on sleep!

It is currently 32 degrees F. They are calling for snow tonight. We had a little bit of sleet around 6:30 this evening. It only lasted for about 5 minutes.

For some strange reason, my pictures are posting in the opposite order that I selected them in. Don't know what's up with that.

Gonna get off here for now. I have to work at the middle school cafeteria again tomorrow.

Everybody have a great week and wish me luck on the moving process. I'm gonna need it!!!!!!!!

I more than likely won't post again until after the move, but I will definately be checking your comments.

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

Moving Day Is Drawing Closer!

2008-10-23T00:49:00.004-04:00

Hello everybody. Obviously, this hawk didn't want to be bothered with me. I only got a couple of not-so-good shots before he took off. The take off was the best shot!
Moving day is getting closer and closer! I'm not looking forward to the move at all. I have been at the house all week cleaning, trying to get the place ready to move in. I took a couple of boxes down as well as my plant stand. Of course, my plant stand hasn't held any plants for about a year. They all died on me. I think I could kill silk plants for that matter. My plant stand usually holds pictures, figurines and nik nax to collect dust! LOL I am making the Florida room into my computer room. It will also hold Mom's refrigerator as a back up with ours in the kitchen. I will also have my sewing machine out there. It is not a heated room, so we are going to have some kind of space heater out there. Kerosene heaters are a little too pricy for our budget. The only thing that I don't like about the house is that the bedrooms are all very small. We won't even be able to get all our bedroom furniture into our bedroom. My dresser will have to go into the "guest" bedroom.

The kitchen, however, has more space than my current kitchen. The best part is, the cabinets in the utility room are huge, so that will be my pantry. I will take my two cabinets from here and use them in the computer room there. I'll have Mom's washer and dryer which are much newer than mine.

I was packing a few things up from the "sitting room" here, which is what I took to the house already. Salem decided he was going to help me pack. Some help! He just wanted to take up space in the boxes! LOL

I took this shot of the moon this past Saturday. The "slash" marks at the bottom and right are actually tree limbs from the tree across the street from me. I knew that once the moon got any higher, it wouldn't be as large. This is the best moon shot I've gotten yet.

This is an older picture. About 2 years old. I took it with my Kodak Easyshare. My friend, Glenna, had asked me to e-mail her some of my "coloring book" pictures of Blackford County. She is a registered nurse, but she is currently working with children who live in a "home". The children are there for various reasons. Abuse is the main reason. She printed out the pictures that I sent her and took them to work with her for the kids to color. The kids range in age from about 6 to about 17. She is, in a way, a teacher. After her son died, this is the first thing that has made a difference in her life. When the children do well with lessons and tests, she gives them the coloring sheets, or she has also bought several used movies and takes them in for the children to watch. Most of them have never seen a Disney movie and absolutely love watching the ones that she brings in.

This is the Mothodist Church in a little village southeast of Hartford City called Millgrove. It's very tiny. I don't think that there are any businesses there any more. There used to be a feed mill and a cabinet business there, but the last time I went through there, I didn't see anything but houses, probably less than 30 houses.

Gonna get off here and get my beauty sleep! It doesn't work, but it sounded good! I would like to know where the term "beauty sleep" ever came from. Maybe if I call it "rich sleep", I'll wake up with more money in the bank. What do you think? LOL

Everybody take care and have a wonderful day. Today is my son, Michael's 15th birthday. Wish him a good one!

Love Ya

Lisa

Fewer And Farther Between

2008-10-19T10:50:00.003-04:00

Hello everybody. It's been a long week. My mother's tennants moved out of her house last weekend. We are going to be moving into it, but it needs a lot of work first.
I was on my way home from Mom and Lyle's after taking Mom home from her monthly class luncheon. I saw this hawk at the last minute sitting on a utility pole. I had to go up to a driveway and turn around. He flew down from the pole, to the ditch in the field on the other side of the road. I got a few shots of him in the high grass. I think he was looking for a late lunch.
This shot I had to turn into a coloring book because I had it too far overexposed and couldn't correct the lighting on Photoshop, but I liked the way he looked, so I did the coloring book, but left the color in.
I took several pics of him both in the grass and on the pole. I'm surprised he stayed there as long as he did with me being there, although I never got out of the truck. I shot all the utility pole pictures out of the windshield of the truck and the ditch pics out of my rolled down window.
This is my favorite shot of him on the pole. Actually, I like them both!

What's an autumn-time post without some more autumn colors?
This is another shot of the Mississinewa River. From the same location that I shot the pics a couple of posts ago. I just had more time to sit where I wasn't supposed to! NO PARKING!
A little bit different angle. I used the "lighting effects" filter on Photoshop for this, without using the texture on it. The ones I posted previously with lighting effects had texture added to them.
This barn in out on county road 100 West. I was on my way over to Muncie to get ink for my printer. This pic was on the east side of the road, so I had to enhance the pic. It was rather hazy from the morning sunlight.
These are just a few elk on an elk farm on the way to Muncie. I pass this farm right before I hit the bridge over the Mississinewa River. Lori and I went out in May and took pictures of the elk. That was the first day using my Canon that my cousin gave me. At first, it was a little difficult to told the camera still as it is rather heavy. Robyn at the News-Times showed me the camera she uses, and it is extremely light compared to the Canon. I don't remember off hand, but I believe it was a Nikon.

The weather is nice and cool and the leaves are all over the ground. Nice and crisp. Weather and leaves! LOL

I'm going down to the other house today to do a little bit of cleaning. The bonehead that lived there before had the water turned off and it wasn't even in his name. It was still in Mom's name. But at least the electric is still on. It's in his name! Go figure!!!

Gonna go for now. I am sorry I haven't been posting more often, but I will try to do better.

I would like to say thank you to all of you who read my posts regularly and also thank my new readers for stopping by.

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

Civil War Days 2008

2008-10-13T14:40:00.009-04:00

Hello everybody. Well, we didn't make it to Civil War Days on Saturday, so I took Michael out there yesterday. It was a little too warm for my taste, and I know the actors must have been miserable in their costumes. It got up to about 85 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.
I ended up taking about 300 pictures while we were out there!
It kind of aggrivated me that this takes place right beside one of our main roads, so there were a lot of cars in my pictures! :( The ones that didn't have any "modern conveniences" in frame, I tried to do as antique.
This guy got so close during the re-enactment, that I had to almost lie flat on my back to get far enough away to get a good shot of him.
This gentleman was portraying Frederick Douglass. He had a picture of the real Frederick Douglass in the tent where he was speaking, and the resemblance is remarkable!

These guys were in the shade of a tent playing music. The gentleman to the right, holding his hat was playing a flute until I tried to get the shot!

This was the Confederate side. One of the actors actually got injured during the re-enactment. His gun misfired and sparks went into his eyes. They took him away in the ambulance.
I hope he's okay. I did my best to get a shot of the cannons while they were firing, but I could never tell which one would be next to go off, so I just kept my camera aimed at one and kept watching them, with my finger on the button, ready to go.
This is the Union side. It was a little harder to get good pics of them from where I was sitting. I couldn't get shots of their cannons at all.

This is when they were marching down to the battlefield. Michael and I were just looking around, on our way down to the "saloon" to get some sodas to drink.
This soldier was getting ready for the battle.
This was also when they were on their way to the battlefield. It's the same group as a couple pictures up.
This old camera still works. The gentleman was taking tintypes of the actors, but none of the spectators. He was getting ready to put everything away when we were down there.
This is one of the pics he took. He said the process he has to use, which is the same process as they used back in the day, is what makes the pictures look this way. They were really cool!

This gentleman was speaking to a group of spectators in a tent, but I didn't stop there to listen.
This gentleman was at a tent that primarily had movie props as well as some authentic items. There were some clothes that were used in the movie GoneWith The Wind. There were old guns, badges, buffalo coats and military helmets.
This is just a cannon being hauled down to the Confederate side of the battlefield.

These two cannons were on the Union side of the battlefield. I had a good time. I have never been to Civil War Days before, and next year is their 20 year anniversary.

This Weather Can't Make Up It's Mind!!!

2008-10-10T17:10:00.003-04:00

Happy Friday to everybody. We are having some unseasonably warm weather. I wish our summer would have been this comfortable! It is currently 74 degrees F. and the sun is shining. This wagon in the pic above is behind a house out east of town, near the fairgrounds. I had never seen it back there before, but then again, never really paid attention. It's right beside the field that I saw the three deer in last week. I love old wagons and farm implements like this.
This is the Mississinewa River. Normally you can't see all the river rocks there, but because of the lack of rain, the water level is low. This is in Delaware County, just north of Muncie. I couldn't stop and get out of the car to take decent pics, because there are No Parking signs all over, so I just stopped on the bridge and shot out the window. Mom and I were coming back from Muncie. She is feeling al lot better. They are currently on their way to West Virginia to see Lyle's son, Lyle Dean in Charleston, I believe it is.
This is one of the country roads between home and Mom's house. I'm glad I got the shot when I did, because when I drove past there this afternoon, all the hay (or straw) rolls are lined up in a straight row at the back of the field.
This is what they have done so far to the viadocks near our house. This is what my newspaper pics were of. They are so loud with the jackhammer, that I could hear it from my grandfather's yesterday while I was cleaning out the garden. That's 3 miles away!
This is Grandpa's new little friend. She is so cute! She stays outside and is still a little wild. I got more pics of her, but I thought this one is cute!

I told you a couple of posts back about my friend Glenna. She is the lady that lives in Anchorage, Alaska now since her son died. She called me Wednesday morning and told me that one of the firemen from Montpelier had called her that morning and told her that one of her barns had burned down. So she asked me to go out and take pictures of the damage.
There was nothing left except for the corrugated metal from the roof and the metal from where stalls had once been.
While I was there, there was an old rolled up carpet at the east end of what had been the barn, and it was still smoldering. With the wind blowing the way it was, the carpet caught fire again, so I had to call the fire department to come back out. I'm glad I was there when I was, because with so little rain, the grass was really dry and it would have caught fire and spread to one of the other barns. The firefighters told me that the barn was already gone when they got the 911 call at 3:00 a.m. The call had been made from 2 or 3 miles away according to one of the firemen.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but everybody, including the firemen and the police officer that lives across the road from there, has the same suspicion about how it started.
Frankly, we are all surprised that the house is still standing. The house is now up for sheriff auction. I have gone inside 2 times in the past 3 weeks. Glenna wanted me to get some of her belongings, whatever may have still been out there. Most of her antique furniture was removed from the house, then destroyed by her soon-to-be ex-husband. He didn't want anybody to have it! When I went into the house on Wednesday, a lot of things were not where they were the first time I went out, and curtains had all been removed from the bedroom windows.

We are going to try to go to Civil War Days tomorrow. I have never been there, but my son went there with his 8th grade class last year. They do the re-inactments and show what life was like back then. I hope we get to go so I can get some pictures for you.

Gonna get off here for now.

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

The Weekend Is Over :(

2008-10-05T23:44:00.006-04:00

Hello everybody. I didn't want to post until I had a few pictures. I'm not getting out and shooting as much as I would like to. This is my honey, Chuck. We went out to Aunt Pat's last night for a cookout. My great-aunt Treva (Cookie) and my second cousins Mary-Beth and Bill came down from Chicago. It's the first time I've seen any of them since my grandmother's funeral in May of 2005. My great-uncle Bill came over from Anderson as well. Aunt Cookie and Uncle Bill are my maternal grandmother's brother and sister. It was a very short stay. They got in around noon Saturday, and left around noon Sunday.
Click photo below to enlarge.

Now I'm going to make you all tired of field and autumn leaves pictures! LOL I took these two pictures this evening on my way home from the store. Not exactly on my way, but I went this particular way because 2 evenings ago when I went this way, I saw three deer at the edge of this tree line.

Click photo below to enlarge.
Naturally, I didn't have my camera with me. It would have been a little too dark for a good shot anyway. So, I took my camera this time, and of course, no deer!
Click photo below to enlarge.
While I was outside with the camera this evening, I happened to notice this on the maple tree. Only the white part. The other part is just a little knot on the branch. I believe it must be some sort of coccoon, but I've never seen anything like this before. It is a hard substance. Does anybody know what this is?

These two books used to be in my grandparents' old house. Of course, there were several books there, but I only took these two. It stood empty for several years before they finally tore it down a few years ago. This top book is 104 years old!
This book, same book open and closed, is 106 years old. I had almost fogotten that I had them until I saw something online about antiques.
Click photo below to enlarge.
I don't know if you'll be able to click to enlarge any of the pictures or not. It usually doesn't work for my blog for some reason. Lori told me how to set the size of the pictures, but it never works. Okay, I tested it and the ones that will enlarge are marked above the picture. The difference is that I didn't change the resolution on those, only the photo size.
This combine and another one were harvesting soy beans next door to Aunt Pat's last night while we were over there.
This poor little guy has some really ragged wings. I had the camera out because I saw a Nuthatch, but naturally, it was gone by time I grabbed the camera. I had only gone out to fill the bird and squirrel feeders. I haven't been feeling all that well the past couple of days, so I haven't messed much with the camera unless I saw something, or thought I might see something. I haven't seen Taffy for 10 days, and I haven't seen the babies for a couple of days. Only the mamma opossum has been around, that I have seen.
I'm going to close off for now, and visit a few of your blogs before I go to bed. I'll finish visiting the rest tomorrow.
Everybody have a great week and take care.
Love Ya
Lisa

Autumn Is Definately Here!

2008-10-03T00:35:00.004-04:00

Good morning everybody. I got a little carried away with the pics today! I went out to a pumpkin patch today, which is about 4 miles or so from my mother's house. I stopped by and picked her up before I went out there, because I know she likes to get out of the house every once in a while. I bought my pumpkins there last year as well.
As you can see in the upper right-hand corner, all the big ones grew laying on their sides, so they wouldn't have really been good for jack-o-lanterns. Last year he had enormous pumpkins, but he said this year they just didn't grow properly. The big one he had in his front yard last year weighed 180 pounds! He said the biggest one he had this year was about 120 pounds, but again, it was on it's side like the others. I have gotten into playing around with photoshop. Can you tell? LOL
They have started harvesting already. I was leaving Mom's house, driving down her extremely long driveway when I took this pic. There is actually another combine directly behind this one, just well hidden. They were harvesting soybeans.
These wildflowers/weeds were in the corner of a field after crossing the railroad tracks on my way home from Mom's. These little purple flowers are along several ditches. Up close, they kind of look like mini daisies.
This is the same barn that is in the last post. The same one that I forgot where it was! I caught this shot from a different road.

This was the sky yesterday. It was overcast and dreary all day, but never rained until we had gone to bed, but even then, it was a very light rain. There was very little water in the raccoon dish this morning.
More harvesting. This was all out near my mother's house.
I was playing around with photoshop on this one again. Only the center of the picture has any color, just like the one of the pumpkins.
A better shot of the turning of the leaves. I just love autumn leaves. When I lived in Florida, I never really saw leaves turn. Just die and fall off the trees.
This is the same picture, just more photoshop playing. This is "lighting effects".

My pigs, I mean squirrels, seem to eat just about anything I put out there. I just happened to catch this guy with the apple in his mouth.
Then he carried the entire thing up the tree. He must have some strong little jaws to be able to carry something that big without dropping it.
Here's my hairball, Salem, in his basket as usual. He was looking up at me like he was telling me to leave him alone. This was the third picture I took of him with the flash on, so I woke him from his beauty sleep!
Just another autumn leaves pic.
Believe it or not, these petunias just started blooming last week! I planted seed indoors in the middle of spring, and when it got warm enough outside, I dumped everything in the planter box beside my front door. Nothing had even thought of sprouting until August! Only 2 plants came up after all that, and only one of them has blooms.

Gonna scoot for now and get to bed. I already fell asleep watching TV earlier. I never have enough sense to go to bed at a decent time.

Everybody have a great day and I will see you soon.

Love Ya

Lisa

2008-10-02T11:37:00.002-04:00

This is a screw-up. I have been trying to get my playlist back on my blog, but it keeps putting somebody else's playlist there instead, even if I haven't put my playlist # in. And the bad thing is, it's all hip-hop! No, thank you! So, I went to my playlist and right-clicked on my playlist number and clicked "send to" then clicked on the blogger logo, and the stupid thing put it in as a post, instead of on my sideboard! So I had to erase it, but couldn't figure out how to erase the empty post completely. Anybody got any ideas on how to fix this stupid thing?
Lisa

Cool, Breezy Autumn Day

2008-09-30T16:24:00.007-04:00

I would like to give a big THANK YOU to my dear blogger friend, Merle, at

Merle's Third Try for this award. I am supposed to pass it along to 8 other deserving bloggers. Here they are in no particular order.

Blah, Blah, Blah, blog nikkicrumpet

Riau Daily Photo
Don't Feed The Pixies
The Fishing Guy
Nature Trail
Libs Private Paradise
OLD LADY LINCOLN
theVintageNest

The house in the previous post belongs to my friend, Nila. These Watusi cattle belong to her next-door neighbor. The calf is so cute!
The Watusi are originally from Africa. They all have very long horns. I'd sure hate to get on the wrong end of those! LOL
Strangely enough, I'm not exactly sure where I was when I shot this pic, and it was only a couple of days ago! It's on the way between here & my mother's house, but can't remember exactly where. I'm so bad, now I remember where it is. It's out near the 4-H fairgrounds, heading east on 100 North, just after passing Mill Street. The only way I would be able to get a better shot is if I go onto their property.
This is just a shot while I was driving my mother around the other day. Looking at a woods over a soybean field that's almost ready to harvest.

No, this isn't Taffy. This is a juvenile, about 4 months old or so. There are two of them, but I didn't know that until they woke me up at 4:00 in the morning Sunday morning. They knocked the food dish off the step and the noise woke me up. I wasn't about to get the camera at that time of morning. With my luck, I was so tired, I would have had the camera turned on myself! Thursday night was the last time I have seen Taffy, or any other of the adults. The babies started coming around Friday night. I love them at this size, or at any size, for that matter.
A different field, but the colors of the turning leaves turned out better in this shot.
This was also from when I was driving my mother around the other day. It's about a mile north of her house. There is a newer house to the back and right of this old building. It's so far gone, that I'm not sure if it used to be a cabin or some kind of storage building. I think it's neat, though.
The rare occassion that two squirrels will sit together anywhere. They are usually very territorial. In a different shot I took of them, it almost looks like a two-headed squirrel!

I got 2 of my pics published in the local paper, Hartford City News-Times, on Friday. There are viadocks from the old railroad. They are over 100 years old and very delapidated, so they are removing them before they fall down. I took some pictures of the top-side of the viadocks, a couple of the workers and some of the machinery, and turned them all in to the newspaper. They chose the best 2 and put them in the paper. I am now what they call a "stringer". I don't work for the newspaper, but I submit photos.

I guess that's all for now. I'm sorry I have been so bad about posting!

I made a batch of grape jelly a little while ago. It turned out pretty good. I'm as bad as a kid. After I got all the jars filled up, I lick the pan with a spatula just like a kid with cake batter! YUM!

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

Just Another Day

2008-09-25T01:18:00.003-04:00

I am so bad about keeping up with this! I have been working at the school cafeterias on call when somebody is going to be off. I worked at the middle school all last week and will work there again this Friday. Yesterday and today I worked at Northside Elementary, which houses only 3rd, 4th, & 5th grade. Southside Elementary houses headstart, kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd grade. There used to be 6 elementary schools in Hartford City.
The picture above and the picture below are obviously the same picture.
My friend, Nila, just moved into this house out in the country with her husband, Neil. They used to live just 3 blocks from me. They now have 2 acres of land, but no farm land. Nila said she got woken up at 4 in the morning Saturday by a coyote howling. I went out and took pictures of her house before they had their closing, and she never knew it. I made these 2 pictures along with a colored pencil filtered picture, and gave them to her as a house-warming gift.

I had never seen this church before. I only recently saw signs pointing the way to it. It's simply called the Old Country Church. I have no idea what denomination it is.
This ugly guy was in our sitting room tonight when I went out to close and lock the front door for the night. He was hiding against the baseboard near a glass-top table . Salem found him after I got the camera. I think it was a wolf spider, but I'm not sure. He was brown, hairy and with his legs extended he was probably between 2 & 3 inches long. Salem started biting at it, and somehow it ended up on Salem's shoulder! Salem got him off and the spider ran under the recliner. It eventually came out and I killed it. We have had a real problem with spiders this summer. This is the first time I've had one of these in this house. I used to get them all the time when I lived in Florida. I even had one in the shower with me one night! Talk about getting freaked out! LOL
I still have some hummers. It seems like more have been around lately than all summer.
This is one of my mother's neighbor's cows. They have an electric fence around their meadow, but they always manage to get out once in a while. The last time was on Father's Day. They got out and destroyed about an acre or more of field corn. They have destroyed the front yard, and gotten out on the road. Luckily, it is not a heavy traffic road.
I thought this shot of Taffy was hilarious! She was chewing her food, but it looked like she was snarling. Last night and tonight she has surprised me. She may start heading for the yard, away from the food, and I'll just say, "come here, Taffy", and she turns around and comes back up on the step. She has done that almost every time I have called her. Not even Salem comes when I call!

My friend Glenna currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska. Her son was killed last summer, and she couldn't stand being around the house any more, so she left. He was found in the bean field out near the woods behind her house. Nobody is living in the house, and hasn't been for several months. She and her husband split up way before the incident. She asked me to go out there and see what was left of her belongings, and bring them home with me. Mostly pictures and such. The place was a wreck. I also took pictures of every room, except the kitchen and dining room, and e-mailed them to her. Her estranged husband is the one who destroyed the place. I could say more about the situation, but without proof, what can you do. The boy's death was automatically ruled a suicide, but there are strong speculations going the other way.

Okay, it's 2 O'clock in the morning, so I'm taking my tired carcass to bed! I am still up because I was cooking down some concord grapes for juice to make jelly. I ended up with enough to make eight batches of jelly. I had a bushel of the grapes. My mother came over this morning while I was at work and picked the grapes off the stems so they could be washed and cooked. I have purple stains everywhere! Thank goodness for bleach!

Everybody have a good day. I will visit your posts in the morning!

Love Ya

Lisa

Mom's Class Reunion

2008-09-22T10:32:00.002-04:00

This is my mother, Myrna. She had her 50 year high school reunion Saturday night. She has been feeling a little better. The swelling in her feet has finally gone down, except for in the evening, but it doesn't get as bad as it did. She had planned on wearing a pant suit or skirt, but since she has gained a little weight, the elastic was too tight. So I gave her one of my old dresses to wear. See, it does pay to hold on to clothes you know you'll never wear again! LOL
No, this is not the entire class. This is about a fourth of who showed up. I didn't take a group photo because another photographer came out specifically for that purpose. He didn't come in until 8:30, but didn't get the piccture taken til almost 10:00. My mother was exhausted yesterday. She usually goes to bed around 7:00!

A couple of people brought in their senior chords for decoration. A couple of the men actually wore their in.
A school penant and a couple of sport team photos.
The old Hartford City High School yearbook. Hartford City High Shool saw it's last graduating class in the spring of 1969. Blackford High School opened that fall. BHS houses the entire county's high school kids. It's a very small county. Maybe around 15,000 for the whole county, I'm guessing. The yearbook for BHS is Reflections.
No, this guy wasn't part of the class reunion! He was sitting on a utility pole on my way out to my mother's Saturday morning when I went out to take her shopping.
I wish I would have brought the camera when we came back into town. The same hawk was sitting on the same post, this time with his snake lunch clutched in his talons. I always miss the good shots!

Gonna go for now. I have to go get groceries and cook down some grapes to make jelly. My uncle gave me a bushel of concord grapes. It is very time-consuming to pick the grapes of the stems. I spent 3 hours on it yesterday, and only got half way through the basket!

I attempted this post last night, but as soon as I hit publish, I lost my internet connection. Isn't that always the way!

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

You Knew It Was Inevitable!

2008-09-19T00:40:00.006-04:00

Okay! I know I get carried away, but, what can I say. I LOVE raccoons! I know the first couple of pictures aren't raccoons, but I had to put a little something extra in there! LOL

This little opossum has been coming around almost every night for the past week or so. He's camera shy, so I can only get one picture at a time, then he takes off for the rest of the night. Most people think they are terribly ugly, but being a nature lover, I think he's cute!

These crazy raccoons are constantly acting like little kids! They always try to nudge each other away from the food dish. If that doesn't work, which it never does, they start fighting, but that soon ends and they go back to eating again. I love just sitting inside my door watching them. They are so funny to watch. Taffy is the one with more gold to her color. She just came and visited me a little while ago, or I would have already had this posted and I would now be in bed! That's okay. She's worth it, although Chuck sometimes gets a little agitated with me for it. So, it's off to bed for me. Everybody have a good one. I'll hopefully see you tomorrow.

Love Ya

Lisa

OMG! I Have Internet Again!

2008-09-17T21:44:00.005-04:00

Yay! I'm back! It really drove me crazy not being able to get on the internet to do my blog, or just surf the web. almost a month! And believe it or not, as many people that tried to figure out what was wrong and how to fix it, including an Air Force computer person, it was my teen-aged son's best friend that fixed it! Fifteen years old! Can you believe it?
The picture above is our courthouse clock tower. I did take a lot of pictures while I was without the web.
This is Grandpa's old corn crib. He only uses it for junk storage now. His fields are farmed by somebody else.
A Downey Woodpecker, male, I believe. They have started coming around a lot more lately.
This Blue Jay really looked depressed sitting in the bird bath. He sat there for quite a while. I got the shot by standing on the side of my bath tub and shooting out the top section of the window, to avoid the screen getting in my way.
This Sharp-shinned Hawk loves to try for a squirrel breakfast. So far, I haven't seen him catch any.

The funny thing is, if he knows I'm watching him, he'll just sit still. He won't chase the squirrels, even if they are on the same tree branch as he is.

This is an Argiope, or a garden spider. I accidentally stuck my hand in her web one day while I was picking tomatoes! Thank goodness, the spider wasn't near where I stuck my hand!
This was the first and only time I have ever seen birds eating out of the cat(or raccoon) dish. There was almost a dozen of them out there all at once, of course, I didn't get a shot of all of them.
This Red-tail Hawk is sick to death of me. I end up chasing him from one utility pole to the next trying to get a good shot of him. I'm sure he recognizes my car by now, and just stays hidden! LOL!
This is the courthouse again. Taken the same day as the antiqued shot above. I have been experimenting (playing) around with the different filters on Photoshop. These 2 are both under Render, then Lighting Effects, Then Blue Omni, then everything else is just adjusting the scales and color variations. I love the way both of them turned out.
This clock from the courthouse is now my computer wall paper.

Mom is feeling better. She was in the hospital for a couple of days a week or 2 ago. They gave her 2 pints of blood, and it has seemed to give her a little more strenth. She had her 4th chemo treatment yesterday. She is starting to lose a little of her hair, but not a lot. Lyle brought her over to my house this morning, even though she knew I would be working at the middle school cafeteria for lunch. So, she sat here and cleaned a bag full of concord grapes that I got from my friend, Nila. She just moved out to the country this past weekend. She has several apple trees, a pear tree, a peach tree, and a couple of grape vines. When Lyle came back to pick Mom up, he brought me a gallon of fresh pressed apple cider and a bushel of more concord grapes from my Uncle Dee's. I have been canning tomatoes, and last night, did my first batch of tomato juice. You talk about trashing a kitchen! I got tomato juice and seeds EVERYWHERE, including all over the little throw rugs that I just washed a couple of days before! Never fails!

Oh, I almost forgot. This Saturday is my mother's 50 year high school reunion. She wants me to come out and take pictures. Her friend, Patty, told her that there was already going to be somebody there to take certain pictures, but that I could come out to do some candid shots.

Gonna go for now and visit your posts.

Everybody take care and have a good evening/morning.

Love Ya

Lisa

Still Out Of Commission!

2008-08-29T15:43:00.003-04:00

This is getting really annoying! I am still having to use the computer at the library. I have to completely wipe out my computer and call Dell and have them put in a new window.
My mother is gaining weight. She started out at 94 pounds when she was in the hospital. She is now at 114 pounds. Some of it is water retention. Her feet are terribly swolen. This morning she had a port put in. This will be where she gets all her needles from now on, whether is be an injection, chemo, or getting her blood drawn. Her veins don't want to cooperate and she's tired of being a pin cusion! Her arms are all black and blue from missed attempts to find a vein!
Taffy is finally getting used to me. Last night, when she was outside eating, I was sitting on the floor at my back door, taking pictures as usual! She came right up to the door, but I had to shut it slowly so that she would know she couldn't come into the house. Next time, I will have marshmallows there to hand to her. I have a bunch of pictures, so I will have to get over to Lori's to post from there so I can put some pictures up.
We are having a family cookout at Aunt Pat's tomorrow, and my grandson Cody's birthday party is Sunday. His birthday was Wednesday, but everybody had to work. He is 3 years old now!
Gonna go for now. Hope to talk to you later. Sorry I haven't visited anybody's posts, but I am only allowed 1/2 hour on the computer, which doesn't leave me near enough time to visit all of you. Hopefully, I will get my computer fixed soon!
Thank you to everybody who has been patient with me while my computer is on strike! LOL
Love Ya
Lisa

Internet troubles!

2008-08-25T12:24:00.002-04:00

Hi everybody. Sorry I haven't posted or read any blogs all weekend. My computer went on strike! I have been having a lot of trouble with it lately, and now it simply won't connect to the internet. AT&T says something is missing from my computer, so Dell told me I have to save EVERYTHING to discs and wipe out the system and they will replace what is wrong. Currently I am using the computer at the public library, so unfortunately, no pictures! SORRY!!! I will be spending most of the day every day now with my mother. We went out there Saturday for dinner. We made lasagna and took it out there. When Chuck saw my mother, he said it reminded him of his mother all over again. He and Lyle don't think she'll make it to Christmas. She goes back tomorrow for her 2nd dose of chemo. I will be going with her.
Talk to you as soon as I can. Lori told me I could use her computer if I want to put pics up on my posts.
TTYL
Love Ya
Lisa

It's Finally Friday!

2008-08-22T13:17:00.003-04:00

You couldn't tell by the weather, but autumn is on it's way. These pine cones are starting to turn now. They have a lot of sap all over them. Not really sure what that is for. Just a couple of weeks ago, these pine cones were still green, as you saw with my pic of the baby praying mantis. This pic is actually the exact same pine cones that the mantis was on.
I was out Tuesday evening trying to get more pics of the Sharp-shinned Hawk, but when I did get a glimpse of him, he was too far away. So I wandered over to a walnut tree that is on the Maddox's fence line. I saw two of these nests side by side. Thought it might be something other than a spider making the webs.
Until I saw this little guy adding to the webs. Apparently this is his winter house.
I can't let a post go by without putting one of my raccoons int here, if I have a picture. They are starting to get used to me standing in the doorway taking their pictures. This one, shortly after I took the picture, decided (s)he would use the food dish as leverage. Wrong thing to do! The dish flipped over off the step, onto the raccoon. It wasn't really sure what to do for a moment, then started eating what had landed on the patio below. This one is not Taffy. Taffy's tail is very thin, not fluffy. This one and the one that was with it both had bushy tails. Maybe Taffy's babies, but I'm not sure. I know I have at least three raccoons that visit me. Taffy and two that have the bushy tails. Don't know yet if they are male or female.
I got this shot of the woodpecker yesterday afternoon while I was fixing dinner. I'm not sure if it's a Downey or not. I know that there is another that looks similar, but I don't know the difference. I had the camera on the counter set for a hummer, which I never saw. There was a Black-capped Chickadee out there at the same time, but too briefly and hidden at the wrong end of the feeder. I would like to get a shot of a Chickadee, as I haven't gotten one yet. Soon enough, I suppose.
I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to let my recipients of the award know it was here for them yesterday. As soon as I posted, my mother called needing me to pick her up from her luncheon up town. Her classmates get together on the third Thursday of the month and have lunch at Karen's Kafe. Only the ones living locally, of course. Next month is their 50 year high school reunion.
Gonna get off here for now and clean up Michael's disaster area, better known as his bedroom!
Love Ya
Lisa

Thank You Tom

2008-08-21T10:50:00.003-04:00

This is just a micro post to say thank you to Tom a.k.a. The Fishing Guy. I don't know if there is a limit to how many people you give this particular award out to. Here's my list.

ProPhoto By Lori

Fugazi Foto

Libs Private Paradise

Nancy's Nonsense

theVintageNest

evening bell/Steven May

OLD LADY LINCOLN

That's it for now.
Hopefully I'll be able to post a little later today. Picking Mom up in town around noon and taking her home. I'm gonna help her around the house a little. Changing sheets and a little bit of dusting. Nothing major.
Love Ya
Lisa

Sharp-shinned Hawk

2008-08-20T16:28:00.005-04:00

I wish I could have captured what this guy was doing out in my yard yesterday morning, but he was too quick for me. Fortunately, he wasn't quick enough to catch breakfast. My squirrrels!
It was really funny to watch this guy flying circles around the tree trunks, through the tree branches and along the ground trying to catch just one squirrel!
He was unsuccessful, at least while I was around.
The funny thing is, while this Sharp-shinned Hawk knew I was in the near vicinity, he would stop chasing the squirrels, even if there was one on the same branch that he was sitting on.
At one point, he was on my patio under my computer-room window. A squirrel was hiding under the tarp that we had covering up the old stereo we keep for outside. As soon as I looked out the window, the hawk took off.

Here's Taffy again. Michael had startled her while she was up on the step eating, and she fell off. Here, she's seeing if the coast is clear to go back to eating! Poor baby!
This is a resurection lilly, or some people call it surprise lilly. Under brightened and over contrasted.
These two rose pictures are the exact same picture.
Done with the same process. Overcontrasted and under brightness.
This is a tree fungus of some kind. It is growing all around a tree stump in an empty lot at the corner of our block. Same process again with the contrast & brightness. Can you tell that I get bored easily?

Mom went to the doctor yesterday and had her entire entourage with her. Lyle, me, Aunt Pat and Aunt Linda. The answer wasn't too good. He told her that if she did not do chemo, her best bet would be 6 months max, possibly less. With chemo it could add about 6 months, only if she responds well to it. She did her first treatment yesterday after her regular appointment. She has gained weight from 94 pounds to 109 pounds since being in the hospital 3 or 4 weeks ago. Her treatments will run 1 a week for 3 weeks, off one week then 3 more. Then they will do another cat-scan to see if she is responding well to it. Today, she said she was a little dizzy and did not get out of her night clothes. She is sitting reading a book.

I'm going to go for now. Everybody take care and please keep mom in your prayers.

Love Ya

Lisa

Time For School!

2008-08-18T16:42:00.004-04:00

It's time for school to start again. Michael starts back tomorrow. Yay, I get my computer back during the day! This is Blackford High School. Michael will be a freshman this year. He is not looking forward to it at all, except for the fact that he found out they have a game club. But, they have to keep their grades up in order to stay in the club. I'll take any incentive I can get for him to get good grades!

These two pics are my honey's pride and joy. He brings this truck home every weekend to clean and polish it. He is the only driver in the fleet allowed to bring his truck home. He is now on his way back to Indiana from Tennessee. He has to be in Plainfield tomorrow morning, but doesn't know his next destination yet, if he will get to come home for the night.
This particular truck, along with it's twin, were originally Nascar haulers. They are all decked out with chrome everywhere. Really a nice ride, compared to the day cab he used to drive.
This is just a large spider web on a tree branch that I found while I was walking the old railroad tracks a couple of weeks ago. I just thought it was kinda neat.

This is just a small portion of the empty lot next to our house. It is owned by Maddox's who live on the other side of the lot. We are allowed to use it, as long as we don't tear it up. The squirrels love to play in this hollow stump. that's where I put ears of field corn for them. You can sort of see the squirrel feeder mounted on the tree at the right of the picture. This whole lot is the squirrels' playground. Lori loves coming over and sitting against this old stump and watching and photographing the squirrels.

Gonna go for now. I really need to get out and take some more pictures.

TTYL

Love Ya

Lisa

Did I Mention That I Like Raccoons?

2008-08-17T01:28:00.005-04:00

Good morning! I took these shots of the two adorable babies Friday night. Michael and I went through the same process as what we did to get Taffy's picture. Michael creaked open the door while I focused on the babies. Amazingly enough, they saw us and just kept on eating. The door was almost all the way open with me standing in it. They looked and kept to what they were doing. For that, they got a treat of marshmallows. Michael accidentally bonked one of them on the head with a marshmallow, then it bounced into the food dish. She grabbed it, the other baby grabbed another one that I threw out, then they were on their way.
I love watching these cuties!
You can see how dirty the water is from them washing their hands all the time. You can see in all three pics that the one has a hand in the water.
Another shot of our neighborhood vulture. They fly low because they roost in our neighbor's trees.
This is one of my mom's peacocks. Not sure which one, as Peapot has shed all his tail feathers till next year. The other two haven't had the long tail feathers yet. They are not old enough yet.

This butterfly was on the garage wall Friday morning while I was sitting in the computer room. Don't know what kind it is though.
On my way out to my mother's Friday, I got this shot shortly after I had crossed the RR tracks. I saw that there was a train coming, so I pulled into AgBest to take the pictures. Not really what I had hoped for. This is in coloring book format without removing the final bit of color.
These were at mom's Saturday. I saw the butterfly as soon as I pulled up to the house. Surprisingly, it held still for about half dozen shots. These are the best of the group.

I would like to thank everybody for your well wishes and prayers for my mother. She has been feeling better. She goes in Tuesday to find out if they think treatment will do any good. She has gained weight. I think a lot of it is fluid from IV's, but she went from 95 to 110 since her hospital stay 3 weeks ago. I'm dealing with it okay, so far. I think I quit my job at the right time. I can spend more time with her. Please continue to pray for her. Gonna get off here now. Chuck has to head out in the morning. They are giving him a new run. They are consolidating the Detroit and Cleveland runs into one. Chuck is now going to be going to Johnson City, TN. I will do my best to post again tomorrow. I apologize that I have been so slack in posting as well as commenting on your blogs. Please don't hate me! :) Have a great rest of the weekend.

Love Ya

Lisa

Day With Mom

2008-08-14T14:54:00.002-04:00

Hello. This raccoon is Taffy. Michael slowly opened the back door a little at at time, so we wouldn't startle her. I was focusing on her while he was opening the door, so as soon as it was open far enough to get the lens through, I snapped the picture. Can you tell she wasn't amused?!
I know, I missed yesterday. I was with my mother most of the day. She had me come out there to her house. I took her to the convenience store where she works. She wanted to see her co-workers and get a sandwich. Then we went to Grandpa's and sat there for a little while. Then I took her to the bank so she could give them her power of attorney, then to the grocery store, then back to her house.

I got this hawk on the way to mom's house. He was sitting on the side of the road at first, so after I got past him, I stopped and backed into a driveway leading into a field. I was going to drive back past him, but while I was in the drive way, another truck drove past and scared the hawk. He flew up onto the utility post right by the driveway. I got out to take a picture, but he flew off and landed on the next post. So, I drove past that post and got this shot. Best one I've gotten of a hawk so far.
This is my step-dad, Lyle. He is standing out beside the corn in his garden. I don't remember what type of corn it is, but he brought the seeds back from Tennessee this past spring.
This is one of their peacocks trying to hide behind the Bachelor Buttons.
This is another shot of a hummer, obviously! They get all kinds of hummers out at their house. At least this one had some color to it, unlike the one I shot at our house. My mother is feeling better, but Lyle said the doctors don't think there is much hope. She has had to go to the doctor every couple of days for an infusion. The cancer is telling the body that it needs more calcium, so they have to do the infusion to flush out the excess calcium. She goes back on Tuesday morning to find out if treatment is going to be possible. Gonna go for now. Have a great rest of the week. Love Ya

Lisa

Horse Show Pics

2008-08-12T17:01:00.003-04:00

These are just a very few of the pics I took at the horse show.
There were several entries.
The ponies were my favorite.
They were just soooo cute.
I had to crop a lot of these pics because the handlers' faces were visible. I don't have permission to post their pics.
I know this was short, but there is still a lot of editing to do before I can post more. Next post, I promise! I've been on the computer all day. Half the time it has been uncooperative! The weather here has been great. Yet another day without air conditioning, and that's the way I prefer it. It is currently 81 degrees, but the humidity is very low, so it doesn't seem that warm. Gonna get off here for now. My juvenile delinquent(Michael) is driving me batty wanting to get on the computer so he can play his Runescape! Whatever!
See you all later.
Love Ya
Lisa

Gorgeous Weather For A Horse Show

2008-08-11T14:48:00.005-04:00

Hello everybody. Sorry I was away so long. I would have posted last night, but i was simply too exhausted! I don't do mornings, and I had to get up at 6:00 Saturday and Sunday to be ready for Lori to pick me up at 7:00 to go to the horse show. The weather couldn't have been better. Saturday was a bit warmer, maybe up to 80. But Sunday was perfect! It only got up to about 70 degrees. To me, that is a perfect summer day. There was a nice breeze and some people were wearing jackets. It was a bit chilly when we first got there on Sunday. Lori said she wished she had remembered her jacket. There was a lake across the road from the horse park, so when things started winding down on Sunday, I took a walk over there to get shots of the water fowl. The shot above is a Canadian goose. I know, I'm supposed to have pictures of the horses. Lori has most of my horse pics on her computer. She is putting them on a disc and bringing them to me. I simply don't have enough memory on my computer to hold all those pics, and for some reason, I can't burn my existing pics onto a disc. My computer just won't let me.
These two pics are Lori's horse, Dream. He was in the show, but Lori did not show him. The trainer named Drew is the one who was showing him. These two pics were taken after everybody had started packing up at the end of the show. Lori went back to the stall to take him out for a ride. I can't post any pics of her riding him without her permission. So when she comes over later to give me the photo disc, I will see if she will let me post it on another day.

Now, you remember while reading my profile, I said I did not age well since the Glamour Shots picture was taken? Here's the proof! LOL This is me with Dream when we were getting ready to leave. See, I wasn't lying! :)
Back to the lake pics. A couple of Canadian geese coming in for a landing. The lake was full of birds. Geese, white ducks, mallard ducks. Grey geese. Not sure what they are called. I have only seen them previously on farms.

This sunrise was on the way to the show on Saturday. There was a blanket of fog over the fields that morning. Sorry it's not a really clear shot.
Another Canadian goose.
A female Mallard duck.
A male Mallard. I had just woken him up, poor thing!
I was able to get this guy flapping in the water. I kept seeing them all doing this, but I kept missing the shots, until this guy.

That's it for now. I promise next post will have horses on it.

Fugazi is going to see if she can "fix" the picture of me so I don't look like the old hag that I am! LOL.

Love Ya

Lisa

Cody Was Here!

2008-08-07T22:39:00.002-04:00

Sorry, I didn't take any pictures today. My grandson, Cody, was here all day. Needless to say, I didn't have much time to pick up the camera, as I was too busy running after him all day! LOL Just letting you know that Lori and I will be away for the weekend shooting another horse show, this time in New Castle, IN. It's not as far away from home as the last one, but we are still staying the weekend there. The pic above is from the last horse show. I had to check with Lori to make sure I could post it since the handler's not facing the camera. I thought this was a cute picture, the horse nuzzling the little girl.
These flowers are at Grandpa's. He has them every year in the sidewalk flower beds. I don't know what kind they are, though.
This was a goldfinch on his bird feeder. I thinks it's strange that gold finches like to eat upside down!
I talked to my mother today. It was definately the Morphine that was making her incoherent. She was taken off it yesterday and given a different script. I could actually understand her today, although the meds make her very sleepy and she was speaking very softly.
Gonna go for now. I won't see you again until Sunday evening. Everybody have a great weekend!
Love Ya
Lisa

Bad News

2008-08-07T00:27:00.003-04:00

Good morning. The crickets are chirping like crazy again. I went out to my mother's for a short bit this afternoon. Didn't stay long because she had a doctor appointment in Muncie at 3:30 to go over the results of Sunday's pet scan. They found the origin of the cancer. It started in the esophogus(spelling?) and stomach. This time they didn't even discuss treatment plans. Not really sure why. My Aunt Pat called me this evening and told me. She went to the appointment as well. My mother has been on Morphine and several other meds which is making her very loopy. When she talks, you can't understand a word she says. She can't move around without assistance. Today, while I was there, she was sitting at the kitchen table. Her bra was laying there. She kept trying to wrap it around a small stack of mail, and she had earlier tried to wrap it around her water glass. With these meds, she has no idea what she is doing. The doctor took her off the Morphine, so hopefully, she'll snap out of it.

On my way home, just after I turned the first corner, there was a big white animal dead in the road. When I got close enough, I saw that it was a rabbit. I stopped the truck, got out and picked the bunny up and moved it to the grassy area on the side of the road. As I was getting back in the truck, a car pulled up beside me. The old guy driving said, "that was a very, very sweet thing you just did." I told him that I knew the rabbit was already dead, but I couldn't stand the thought of somebody else running over it. It turns out, it was the old guy's rabbit. He has had several killed on the road this summer. Not sure why he doesn't keep them in a pen. After a couple of miles, I started taking pictures of an old house and old barn. The same barn that I posted toward the beginning of my blogging, with the different manipulations. When I got out of the truck to take the picture, I heard a screech and looked up and saw a hawk taking off from the tree it had been perched in. I hurried up and changed lenses on the camera, and the pic above is what I got. Not sure, but I think it's a Red-tail hawk. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I later went uptown and took a few shots of some of the old buildings. The building above was built in 1896. It is not occupied now, except for a small store-front on the left corner, just a realty company. Supposedly, the rest of the building is no longer safe. I was told that is used to be Montgomery Ward, and it had 3 floors to it. I remember it as Val discount store. Which later moved out next to Marsh, became TGY and is now Alco and Save A Lot.
This is the old Hartford Hotel. You probably saw a picture of it on Lori's blog a couple months or so ago. Only the first floor is used now. The front is used by the county, and the back is a florist.
This picture is a close up of the second story window toward the front of the building. If you go back up to the other picture, it is the window on the far right, with white across the bottom. If you look at this pic closely on the right side, you can see one of the old chandeliers still hanging.
This is the smallest Praying Mantis I have seen yet. He is only about an inch long. He was just chillin' out on a pine cone in the tree in our next-door neighbor's yard.And last, but certainly not least, I finally accomplished getting a shot of a hummingbird. I took it out my kitchen window. The feeder is hanging from the soffets of my roof about a foot away from the window. I removed the screen so I could have a good shot, when I actually got a shot.

Gonna head to bed now. Please keep praying for my mother. She needs it now, more than ever!

See ya tomorrow.

Love Ya

Lisa

Stormy Day

2008-08-06T00:01:00.005-04:00

Good morning. As usual, I am up way later than I should be. I have been playing around with different pictures. These were all taken on July 25, 2008. Lori and I were on our way to the horse show. Of course, the Downey Woodpecker wasn't along side of the road. I took that pic in my yard that morning. This wall mural is in Markle, Indiana, on State Road 3.
I was playing around as we were driving. Most of the pictures that I took were the sunbeams! Different angles and directions. This one was actually just a pale blue, but I enhanced it on Photoshop. Gotta love that program!
These were just a couple of barns along the way.
I went out and picked Pinto beans from my garden and cooked them for dinner tonight. So much better that store bought, weather canned or dried. I finally figured out when to tell the black-eyed peas are ready for picking. There were only a couple of pods actually ready. They have to turn kinda brown, but not dried out. I picked a browned one and a green one and opened both. The green pods definately aren't ready yet. Now I know! Once my tomatoes ripen, I'm gonna have plenty to can, both whole and juice. I just hope the bugs don't get to them too bad.
I got a different lens for my camera today. I bought it at a pawn shop, but I haven't tried it out yet. It's a wide angle lens and I guess it's capable of doing panoramic, but not sure. I will have to go out and play with it tomorrow.
Grandpa said that he was out at my mom's house today. He said that she could barely walk and her speech was really slurred. I don't know if that is because of medication or what. I am going to go out there tomorrow to see her.
The crickets are chirping like crazy outside right now. I love having the windows open at night and listening to them. It is so relaxing to me. Unfortunately, the air conditioner is on, so the windows are closed. But as long as the AC isn't running, I can still hear them fairly well. Puts me right to sleep! Speaking of which, I am going to end this for tonight and go to bed. Everybody have a wonderful day!
Love Ya
Lisa

Quickie

2008-08-05T01:17:00.002-04:00

Good morning. It's storming here. A lot of lightening and thunder, but only raining off and on. Michael is terrified of storms. Stemming from living through 3 hurricanes in a row while living in Orlando. I'm not too crazy about them myself, but he absolutely spazzes out during every storm. The pic above is a hibiscus bush down by our old abandoned hospital. Very full of blossoms.
This little guy, and a couple of his friends were out at Grandpa's. I went out and picked some green beans, pinto beans, cucumbers and corn.
I took this shot as I was leaving. I was sitting in the middle of the road. Good thing there isn't a lot of traffic! LOL
And these two shots are my black-eyed peas. I have never grown them before and I am clueless as to when to pick them. Could any of you southern gardeners help me out as to knowing when to pick them? I actually had to have my mother buy my seeds while she was in Monterey, Tennessee this past spring. We can't get the seed here, but I suppose I could have just as easily used bagged dry peas from the store!
Please let me know about picking! Gonna go for now, before I fall asleep again! Hopefully I will see you all tomorrow.
Love Ya
Lisa