Is it Spring yet

Tonight I planted three new Peony roots, under the window of my master bedroom.  All 3 are from Fina Gardens (www.finagardenspeonies.com) located about 30 miles from my house,  and the owners are in my Bridge group.

This little trio will be beautiful and fill a corner that is hard to mow.

I'll be eager to see these 3 poke their shoots up next Spring.

Volleyball

Alyxis is a senior this year, so I am going to try to get to as many of her sporting events as I can.  This was my first Volleyball game of the season, watching Elmwood at Spring Valley.  It was not a good outcome for the Cardinals of Spring Valley.  I'm hoping the team will come together as the season progresses, there were some great shots and serves by our girls.

Here are a few Alyxis photos from the night.

I'll be in Durand on Tuesday night for more Cardinal Volleyball action.

To Alma and back

Saturday night I had a sleep-over in Alma at Lora & Anders' house after a fun day of youth football.  Sunday morning I headed home and found a large flock of American White Pelicans on a pond near Alma.  It was fun to watch them move across the pond in a huge flotilla.  

I think there were at least 1,000 birds there.

They are not noisy, they float wing-to-wing, and when they take off out of the water, they almost run on the water to get started.  It was quite a sight, here are a 'few' photos.

The flotilla

 Prehistoric, cartoon-ish, take your pick at how to describe these birds.

I'm sure glad I got a chance to see them.

 Right before seeing the Pelicans, I saw an American Eagle flying with purpose, following the riverway.  I thought that was a great way to start my drive home. 

 Little did I know, that was just the opening act, the headliner was just down the road.

Swans

The weather has been unseasonably warm and very balmy and humid.

I guess the swans are in no rush to head off to their winter dwelling.

I was on my way to Luck tonight for football and saw this pair enjoying a small wetland, sharing with a few ducks, but mostly having it all to themselves.

 The Fall colors are coming in strong, making this a sight I could not pass up.

The rest of the evening continued to feel like a wet sauna with a light breeze.

The Luck Cardinals won another game more on that tomorrow.

Kind cute, dontcha think?

I finally finished a little project today,  a crocheted pumpkin.  This looked easy when I watched the YouTube 😁,  so I bought supplies to make quite few. I got started with enthusiasm,  but then... I must have torn it out & started over, at least 4 times.  It sat here, needing to be stuffed, for over a week. I had gathered up all the pumpkin craft supplies, intending to return them to the store. But,  today,  I finally finished off the little gourd. Finally, now I have a cute little pumpkin. 🎃 I'm not sure how many more I'll make, but at least I can see the finished product & I might get inspired. 

Owls and Cats

On Thursday, high school friend Mary drove down from Mason to spend the night.  We were headed to Bird & Beer presented by Hunt Hill Audubon, the topic of the presentation was to be Owls.

We had a quick lunch at the Cameron Cafe and then stopped at friend Carolyn's to give her a little help with making a bed, running the vacuum and feeding the dog.  Carolyn is wearing a back brace due to an injury and a little help was needed.  Mary and I made short work of her list and then headed to Amery Ale Works for the evening.

The Amery Ale Works is an old farm turned brewery / pizza joint.  It's a beautiful spot West of Amery, near Lake Wapogasset.  It was a rainy day, otherwise there is outside seating/firepit overlooking a meadow.  The interior decor is rustic and classy.  The pizzas I saw looked delicious.

We were early so enjoyed a beer in the bar before heading upstairs for the presentation.

The speaker was Chris Cold of the WDNR, he was a gem.  A good speaker, well prepared with a passion for animals and earth.  It was a pleasure to listen to him.

He even brought 2 owls for us to see.  A Barred Owl and a Great Horned Owl.

Our seats were a little obstructed, but you get the idea.

After the presentation, we headed back to Amery to a restaurant called Farm to Table.

The concept is sustainability and local, will all ingredients obtained within about 50 miles.

The decor was smashing, I really liked it.

The food was good too, they were out of Chardonnay, but the Cabernet I had was good.

 Mary and I had a good visit.

I had a fried green tomato sandwich, it was delicious and the fries were very tasty too.

Friday morning, Mary headed back to Mason after a quick breakfast at The Rice Lake Family Restaurant.  We will gather again at Quilt Camp in October.

***

Friday afternoon, sitting in the living room, I watched Hops climb up on the entertainment center.  She has never had good balance, and before I could get there, she took a tumble off and hit the floor hard.  Hops has never had that ability to land on her feet like most cats.  I noticed when she landed she did something odd with her mouth.  I scooped her up and started checking for injury.

She seemed okay until I opened her mouth, then I saw the snaggle tooth.  She chipped a piece off her canine tooth.  And sure enough, there it was laying on the floor.

I immediately picked up the phone to call the Vet thinking that this was going to be very painful for Hops.  They could not get me in until Wednesday without going the Emergency route.  I opted to wait in hopes that the kitty would not be too miserable.

Over the weekend I've watched her and so far, she doesn't seem to even notice that the tooth is damaged.  Since Hops has never been to the Vet since she had her Spay about 11 years ago, I'm not anxious to put her through the trauma of a Vet visit.  We'll see what today brings, I'll probably be cancelling that appointment.

Hops thinks she has to get up on the entertainment center to toss the pine cones out of a ceramic canoe that I have for decoration.

By Sunday, she was back on the job messing with the pine cones, snaggle tooth and all.

Flying Saucer

"If you don't carry your camera with you, a flying saucer will go over and you will not be able to capture it."  Rowland Scherman, former LIFE magazine photographer

Drove to Walgreens today,  no camera.  

Had to use the 'cell phone held up to binocular' technique.  

Would have been a nice close up with my real camera.

But most motorists drove right by and didn't give this guy a glance, so there's that, they would probably miss the flying saucer too. 

The fight goes on

The mice have been persistent in trying to live inside the house this fall.  Barley is a good mouser, but often does catch and release once the mice are injured but not dead.  This has lead to missing corpses inside the house.  Not a good thing.  I got especially perturbed on Wednesday so I called Orkin.  I decided to bring the professionals into the fight.  It is a pricey deal but hopefully they will cure my problem.  I'm not fond of poisoning the food chain, but when it comes to mice, I have to compromise my values a bit.  I would not budge on glue boards though. So, with the help of Orkin's poison, and traps under the sink, hopefully we can slow down the fall migration.  The cats are always staring under the stove/dishwasher, so today I put a barrier there.  I know it would not stop a mouse, but it might slow them down, until the poison catches up with them at least.  

Pool noodles can be very useful.

I took a little stroll around the yard this morning.

Moon Flower - Datura
These flowers are quite amazing.

Random sunflowers are everywhere, thanks to the squirrels who live in my yard.

I planted a hydrangea behind the garage last year, it loves it there and it is at least 5 feet tall with flowers the side of a football.  It is a sight to see, but because it is behind the garage, it is mostly unseen by me.

Still waiting for a chainsaw to arrive to chop these logs into manageable chunks.
I have been waiting since March, I might have to whine a little to get it done before the snow flies.

I had good success with planting Morning Glory seeds in handing pots, except in this pot.
I have a water tray that holds too much water on the roots of this vine I think,
but the will to live is strong, today it gives me a pretty flower.
The fight goes on.