It's a Sheep Critter

I feel much better after my rant yesterday! Thanks for listening. I'm not grumbling today. Well maybe just a little grumble since I'm not a big fan of housework. I will be dancing with Mrs. Mop most of the day today, in preparation for the arrival of Sonny Boy and Handsome Lad. They will be here tomorrow.  Yay!

Happy Saturday!!!

Linking to Saturday's Critters

Critter Time

Locust Borer

Linking to Saturday's Critters


Visit my other blog for a macro Today's Flowers 
 Stuff and Nonsense

Saturday Critters

I found these horses on my ramble down The River Road. 

When I first saw these critters, they were both facing the road. As is always my luck, one turned around and gave me the moon.

In this shot, some smallish critter is being swished away by a tail.

I really like milkweed blooms. Seems this bumble bee does too. Have you ever used the milk to rid yourself of warts? It works. I have a tiny little wart on the palm of my right hand just below the ring finger. I rubbed milk weed on it and it disappeared for several years, but it is back now. I will be using some of that milk again this year.

Mr. Bumblebee seems to like this sunflower, too.

Thursday night as we drove up to the garden, we saw these juvenile wood ducks swimming on the far side of the pond. When they saw us, they took off.

I'm off to work. It's a sad place to be right now. My boss was my friend. More than that really. She felt like family. Her family lived near mine when we were growing up. Everyone loved her. The service will be held Wednesday. I can only imagine the number of people who will stop by to say their goodbyes. She was a bright light in many lives. She will be missed. 

Hope your weekend is a good one.


Linking to Saturday's Critters

Hare, Foot, and a Fly

When we got to the garden last week, we saw this rabbit giving us the eye. 

He looks guilty, don't you think? When I took the picture I thought we only had one cute little rabbit looking for a garden snack. When I uploaded pictures to the computer I saw another pesky rabbit peeking out of the weeds. Little nibblers!

We also found evidence of another intruder. Mr. Raccoon was long gone, but he left easily identifiable footprints.

While Hubs runs the tiller, I get to scour the area for photo ops. I found this Damsel Fly resting on a leaf...

...and this Dragonfly hanging out on a weed next to the pond.

Linking to  Saturday's Critters

Chipmunk

I pulled into the parking lot at the covered bridge and this is what I saw peeking out from a hole in the stone wall.

Mr. Chipmunk!

Linking to Saturday's Critters

What's in the box?

Back to last Saturday and a visit with Tex and the Grands. (I should explain. Daughter's nickname is Tex but is not related to TexWisGirl. Daughter merely grew up in Texas, so up here in middle-of-nowhere Illinois, she is often referred to as Tex) Anyway, back to my story...

Fergus was in the back yard playing with his best friend and my youngest grandson, LL.

When suddenly Fergus saw a box, slowly moving across the grass toward him. Oh my! What could it be?

Oh, it was only LL trying to confuse the Ferg. LL and Fergus were running, chasing each other, playing catch with the basketball—basically having a ton of fun—when a fierce chattering began high up a tree in the neighbor's back yard.

Seems Mr. Squirrel wasn't happy with all the noisy laughter. He climbed down from the tree and jumped onto the roof over playground equipment in another neighbor's yard. He continued his rant...

...and continued his rant. So I told him a thing or two and got out my camera.

Mr. Squirrel didn't like having his picture taken, so he took his bad self up into the leaves in a poor attempt to escape the camera lens—all the while still giving us a lecture. Ha! I got him anyway.

Linking to Saturday's Critters

Critter Question

Does anyone know what kind of bird this is? I've been through my bird book, but can't decide.

Linking to Saturday's Critters

Small Town Critters and a Flower or Two

I've always heard of a town named Trowbridge and knew it was west of Neoga, so on our ramble last weekend, Fergus and I checked it out.

I thought we might be lost, but this sign pointed us in the right direction.

What we found wasn't necessarily what you would call a town, more like a few houses on both sides of the road...

 ...an old barn with a rusty roof...

...and this barn. Sadly a drive-by shooting only gained me an obscured view. There were people staring at me so didn't want to hang around too long. :)

On the edge of town Fergus alerted me to this donkey critter. He was happily munching on that fresh spring grass...

...until he tired of Fergus barking and showed his disdain by turning his back.

Mr. Donkey had a horse friend who didn't seem to mind Fergus hanging his head out the window.

Linking to Saturday's Critters

Hubs has planted and hung our window boxes, which actually are hanging just below our screened in porch and not a window at all.

This is a pink clematis, which is really lavender and pink, but it's hard to tell in these shots. Our house is on a major street, so Hubs added a trellis for them to climb on, which will keep passerbys from staring at us when we are sitting on the porch.

He added some pink petunias...

...and Snapdragons. 

Linking to Today's Flowers

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend. We are supposed to have a nice day today, but rain the next 3 or 4 days. I hope the farmers are all finished planting.

Young 'uns

As I often do on my way in to work, I drove by The Rez to check on the Geese living there and this is what I found...

 Goslings! The babies have arrived. I didn't think it would be long since I have only been seeing one hanging out on the water. Still I was a little surprised.

 They were all intersted in finding snacks in the grass...

...not paying any attention to me...

...but someone was.

 When I got to work, I found this little guy singing me a song. Or not. More than likely he was singing to one of those cute little ladies he was trying to woo.

Mr. Sparrow was sitting on a ledge to the right of the rounded part of the window on the far right. My desk is inside the 2nd window from the right, on the ground floor, just behind the air conditioning unit. The old unit was a lot shorter. When we got this new one, I discovered I was sitting in the obstructed view section!

Do you know what the obstructed view section is? A several years ago, my fella at the time and I went on a baseball vacation, seeing games in St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. We didn't have advance tickets, we merely hoped there would be seats available and there were. This was before the demise of all the old stadiums in these cities. In Detroit the scalpers were out in force offering obstructed views. We decided not to try them even though they were really cheap. What we discovered was, basically you watch the game on a TV bolted to the huge support beams that blocked your view of the field. We made a wise choice in avoiding them even though that scalper was pushing them hard.

Linking to Saturday's Critters

A Bird, Trees, Fudge, and an Old Photo

Mr. and Mrs. House Finch were out and about this morning.

Mrs. hid before I could get the camera out, but Mr. posed nicely.
Linking to Saturday Critters & I'd Rather be Birding

Last weekend, I drove down to Newton, Illinois. Newton is a little larger than most of the villages/towns I have visited recently. It has a population of approximately 3,100. Notable native, Ross Wolf pitched for the Texas Rangers and the Marlins before going to a team in Korea and Author Irene Hunt used the Newton area as the setting in her civil war book titled Across Five Aprils.

There is a very nice park with playground equipment and a swimming pool. Lots of trees. And a quaint downtown area.

 Newton has a town square with hardly any empty buildings. Impressive for this area. I wanted to check out this store called The Country Touch, but it wasn't open.

This sign caught my eye. A Cappuccino in middle-of-nowhere Illinois? I had to have one. I do miss having a Starbucks down the street.

I went inside to browse. It was an Arndt's store. We used to have one of those in Greenup where Mom went to pick up embroidery yarn for her crafty projects. This store had a little bit of everything. Lots of fun things to look at and a Hallmark card section. They also had bulk candy—and fudge!

This is a half pound of praline fudge I brought home to share with Hubs. The texture is creamy smooth, easily the best fudge I've ever tasted. They sell it to other companies and online at Arndt's Fudgery.

And last, but not least, here is an old picture Bro O printed from an ancient negative. Taken at Grandma's house. It is me and daughter about a gazillion years ago. It isn't in very good shape, lots of white specks, but a great find anyway!

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend! I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off, so I'm looking forward to a 4 day weekend. Woo Hoo!

Snugglers

On my way out to work yesterday, I saw these two sparrows all puffed up and snuggling next to each other.  It was a cold, windy morning.. They moved into the birdhouse on the utility shed and claimed it for their own. I can get a sparrow picture anytime I want. We have tons! They can empty the bird feeders in a day. But they are birds too, and I do enjoy hearing them in the morning.

Linking to Saturday Photo Hunt and Saturday Critters and
Camera Critters

Northern Shoveler

After dinner last evening, Fergus and I went for a walk around The Rez. I was surprised to see what I thought were Mallards on the water. After a closer look, I realized they were not Mallards, but some other duck I wasn't familiar with. Sadly I didn't have a zoom with me, so these are the best shots I could get.

I hurried back home to get a better lens and quickly looked through our National Geographic Field Guide to Birds in North America. The ducks are Northern Shovelers.  I loaded Fergus in the car and drove back to The Rez, but by the time I got there, the ducks were gone. That's the way my luck runs!

This is Fergus waiting patiently for me to come back to the car.

This is Fergus with his patience wearing thin. He was about to jump out of the window. No leash. I would have had a heart attack!

For being such a good boy, we walked around The Rez a couple more times.

Linking with Saturday Critters and Camera Critters 

and Bird D'pot