Just flowers

Thought I might do a flower post today.

Here's one of a Teasel. They're a pretty weed and after they stop flowering they turn brown, but they stay forever.


This one is a thistle. I think it's a Canadian Thistle.


This is Sweet Joe Pye Weed


These are Sweet Peas.


These make me think of one of our fellow bloggers, the Brown-eyed Susans. If you look at the large version of this picture you'll see the bee on one.


No deep thoughts, no brainy ideas today. Just flowers.

Tagged by August95

Here's my response to a tag from August95. If you click to her site you can see where she got this one.

Ten Turn Offs
Rude drivers
Smokers who flick lit cigarettes out the car window
People who are noisy after I'm trying to go to sleep
Work politics
Waking up to the alarm
People who think violence is the answer
People who relieve themselves on the wall in my parking lot
Daylight Saving Time
Athletes' salaries so much higher than teachers'
Too much road construction

Ten Turn Ons
Birds
Flowers
Good books
Good blogs
Summer
The lake
Movies
Music
My siblings
Thunderstorms

If anyone would like to tag him- or herself, just let me know. I'd like to read it.

Speaking of frogs...

Last Saturday I had gone over to a friend's house to visit. We'd decided to do some shopping. We had been out for quite a while and had one more stop we wanted to make.

As I pulled my car into the parking space I thought I saw something light-colored on my dark console. When I got a good look at it I gave out a small, involuntary shriek, which is not like me at all. There was a gravel-colored frog with suction cup fingers crawling up my console. I'm so glad I was parking.

We got out and shooed him out of the car with a DVD I'd just gotten. I'm still not sure how he got in or where he was hiding all that time. I give an extra look around my car, still, before I get in now.

Everything's just going to the frogs

Here is a place that I spend some time. There is some beautiful scenery and wildlife here. Kitty and I went around one day with our (then) new cameras. Here are some of the shots of the grounds.







In this last picture there were a lot of frogs. Here are a couple of those shots.



Maybe this one is the prince, eh?

My public service announcement

Every day I go to this site. I go to each of the tabs and click on the buttons. The yellow tab is for feeding hungry children. The pink one is to get mammograms for women who can't afford them. The blue one is for health care for children. The green one is for saving rainforests. The purple one is for donating food for animals in shelters.

The sponsors promise to contribute a certain amount of money for each click. Some people click all, some click a few, while some click just one button. The sponsors have some interesting wares for sale. Whenever anyone buys the stuff that's advertised they contribute even more. The only thing I've bought is my Christmas cards last year.

Anyway, no pressure here. I just wanted to share this with anyone who might want to check it out.

Ichabod's Excellent Adventure

Last week Ichabod took a couple of days off from work. On Friday he decided to go kayaking with his father down the Muskegon River. Luckily, he took his camera along. There were loads of great nature shots to be had.

The first was this picture of three water snakes.



Then there was the button bush.



Of course, you know I'm gonna love the swan.



This shot of the water lilly is worth clicking on to see the larger picture.



Then when he went under a bridge he saw these swallows' nests. Too bad he wasn't able to get a good shot with a little bird head peaking out.



He also caught a good picture of an old anchor covered in zebra mussels.



However, my favorite of the whole set was this series of shots he got of a Great Blue Heron. It shows how the heron saw him, reacted and then took off.

Here the heron had seen him and was getting a little nervous.



Getting more nervous, he turns around.



Nervously turning one more time.



Okay, he's had it. He's taking off.



And there he goes.

The bird is the word

Ern is one of the birders out here in blogland. She posted about what the turning point was for her when she decided she was hooked on birding. Then she asked if any of us would like to tell our stories. Well, here's mine.

About twenty years ago I was living in a house that was tiny. The yard, though, was fantastic. The guy who used to own it had a plant nursery. It was an area that used to be covered in water so the ground was beautiful black muck. Plants grew better there than any place I've ever seen.

There were holly bushes on either side of a side living room window. In the front yard, visible from the picture window, was a beautiful old birch tree. Even though there were many, many plants in this yard, these are most pertinent to this story.

At Christmas time, there was snow on the hollies. When I looked out there was a male Cardinal sitting in the snow. The red against the white of the snow and the green of the holly bushes was so striking that it was breathtaking.

Then, in the spring, I was looking at the birdfeeder in the birch tree. It was around sunset so the sun was coming in on a direct horizontal line. In the feeder were a male Cardinal and a male Indigo Bunting, against the white birch. The sun made them dazzle.

Those sightings were enough to hook me for life. I could mention the funny antics, the bizarre mating rituals, the graceful soaring of the beautiful birds I've been lucky enough to sight. I could tell about the time I saw an American Bald Eagle right on the other side of the street from me. But to say when I first became enamored would have to be from when I lived in that little house on the muck farm.

There is life after Harry Potter

I suppose I should get back to serious blogging now that Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince has been read. It’s really good. Now I can’t wait for book seven. “Excuse me, Ms. Rowling, but could you please put your family and your life on hold so you can write that next book FAST to accommodate your voracious fans?” Wait, did I write that out loud?

Anyway, now I can get back to the Adams Douglas book that I started before Harry Potter came out.

I’m actually pleasantly surprised by the amount of blogging that’s been going on. I really figured that summer would have everyone slowing down. There are so many outdoor activities and all. But, we’re all hooked and we can’t wait to get back to our Internet. :-)

This is, by no means, a complaint. Keep on bloggin’ baby.

For Ladybug

I saw these in the cafeteria at work and immediately thought of a great blogger-buddy, Ladybug. I bought one and while it tasted pretty good, it was kinda pricey. I paid $1.25 US for this cookie. It's hard to tell its dimensions from the picture so I'll tell you that it was 1 3/4" wide by 3/4" tall. But, regardless of price or taste, it's the name that got me.


You can't see from the picture that this is a chocolate-covered, fudgy cake cookie with a dryish peanut butter filling.

Don't let the sun go down on me

I got a chance to catch a beautiful sunset with my new camera the other day. Wanted to share with you all. The small versions here really don't do it justice. If you have time, click on them for a bit larger view.











These were taken over a very short time period. I didn't even realize how fast it got dark. I really like how the city lights show up.

Foamhenge in Nunica

I was actually quite curious the first time I saw this. (No, Pokey, I'm not talking to you.) Here's the news article about it. I don't live very far from here so I thought I'd get a picture and share it with you.



Pretty cool stuff for Michigan. :-)

I'm down with Open Box Buy

I've been wanting to get a digital camera for quite some time. Thursday I needed to go out at lunchtime and pick up a wedding present for my nephew. Kitty said she'd go along with me as she had some things to pick up, too.

After we were done doing our shopping at Target I really wanted to head over to Best Buy. Kitty did not dissuade me. As we headed into the store she started excitedly chanting "Open Box Buy, Open Box Buy!" In fact, she kept repeating her refrain throughout the whole store. In case any of you don't know (like I didn't), an Open Box Buy is product that someone has purchased and returned.

When we got over to the digital camera area the innocent Best Buy chick very earnestly asked us what we wanted to take pictures of. Kitty, without missing a beat, said, "I wanna take nude pictures of my boyfriend!"

The nice little girl just looked like she didn't know what to say so she kept heading over to the display. Kitty looked at her and laughed, "I don't even have a boyfriend right now." I'm not sure if the girl was the same for the rest of the day.

We both looked around and I saw a Nikon Coolpix 5600 that I liked. As we continued around Kitty suddenly said, "Isn't that the camera you wanted? It's an Open Box Buy!"

Sure enough, it was the one I wanted and everything was in the box. I wouldn't know that anyone had ever opened it before. I ended up saving enough money on the camera to cover a new case and a 512MB memory card (after rebates).

Thanks to Kitty I got my Open Box Buy. The picture of Kitty here was taken with my very new camera.


Open Box Buy

And now for something completely different.

Thought I'd do a change of pace here. No ranting in this blog. What I want to say is that I'm really enjoying blogging. Bucky is the main reason I got into it. She's also the reason that I was so lucky to get so many good people coming here and commenting right away. I look at other blogs, good ones, including Bucky's, that have very few comments in the early days. She told the world I was out here and everybody came.

I want to say that I feel honored to have people enjoy my blog enough to read and comment. I'd still be out checking other blogs even if I weren't doing it myself anymore. But it is fun to put some blather (sorry Jamie Dawn) out here and see what people have to say.

I love all you guys. Thanks!!

Motif Monday: Getting Pissy

I know it's Tuesday but I'm going to get in on mrtl's Motif Monday. I saw it first on Susie's site. It's called getting pissy. The subject is one I've been on before here. Loud neighbors/neighborhood.

I knew that it probably wouldn't be a great night for sleeping last night. It was Independence Day and Grand Rapids does its fireworks on the 4th, end of story. That would have been fine except that it was impossible for me to get the 5th off. Had I been able to sleep in I wouldn't have been quite so pissy about it all.

The beginning of the day was very still. It was kind of rainy off and on. No extra cars around, I was hoping that everyone had gone to the lakeshore for the day and their fireworks. I should've known better. It was raining harder at the lakeshore than it was here.

As I said, the earlier part of the day was uneventful. I was disappointed as we tried to go out to breakfast, but every place we tried was either packed (we won't wait for a table) or closed. I was so bummed 'cause I didn't want to just go home and eat cereal. Ichabod, sweetheart that he is, made pancakes for us. Later that day we walked to get ice cream cones, another good thing.

As the day went on, though, Ichabod could see that I was working up a head of steam. Even if it hadn't been horribly loud I would have had trouble sleeping as I was working myself up in anticipation. This isn't my first summer living downtown. I know how it can get. Not only that, but there's a ladder to the roof and last year there were people partying and watching the fireworks.

Sure enough, three carloads of young twenty-somethings started heading up to the roof. The neighbors questioned them and they claimed to know the landlord. We're still not sure. I started to get excited as it began to rain harder and they began to leave. But, crap, some of the guys came back a little later. They could have been worse, I guess, I did tell them to be quiet as i needed to get up at 5:30 in the morning.

I was fully awake (had myself worked up) when the fireworks went off so I peeked out the bedroom window and watched some of them. Then when the fireworks were done I was thinking maybe it was time to go to sleep. 10:45 didn't seem too bad at that point, though I like to be asleep between 9:30 and 10:00.

Just about that time the folks from the apartment building next door did their usual warm night thing. Hooting, hollering, and this time, shooting off fireworks till I don't know when. I think I finally fell asleep around 1:00. That 5:30 alarm came waaaay too soon. Oh well, I bet I sleep like a rock tonight.

Just a weekend post

I know it's Saturday and practically no one reads the blogs on the weekend. But I haven't put out a new post since Wednesday and that's probably bad blog protocol.

We're back in Grand Rapids. Of course somebody was playing loud music around 5:00 this morning. I got couldn't go back to sleep so I got up to check Jess's and Bucky's sites to see if anyone'd posted anything. Got to see them in their picture together. After a while I went back to bed and actually slept a couple more hours. That's amazing for me. Usually once I'm up, well, I'm up. It was soooo nice.

Now Ichabod's out riding his bike, I'm watching Jumanji on TBS and just plain relaxing. Last night he took me out to nice steak place in GR called Louis Benton's. I had steak and shrimp while he had the salmon special. I guess the reason I bring this up is because I just finished my leftovers.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a lovely weekend, Canada day and Fourth of July.