Special Announcement!!!

We interrupt the preceding broadcast to bring you a special announcement ~

I'm also going to put in my disclaimer right now before this post.  In case of negative feedback or FBI agents at my door or special liasons from P*TA, let me guarantee you that the photos that you are about to view were taken 48 hours after the demise of the subject herein represented. May contain disturbing (and funny) images so if you are squeamish, please feel free to avoid this post. Subject has been accused and convicted  of confiscation of grubs and/or other sub-terrain flora and fauna and is also liable for destruction & sinking of structures of pier & beam sort into the ground, and the occasional broken and twisted ankles of person(s) treading upon above-ground terrain. The convicted felon was found dead Tuesday, March 16, 2010, at 3:30 p.m. in an underground maze shared by his co-horts.  Cause of death was a steel trap. The names have been omitted pending capture of family members who are also involved in this case...

Do I dare?

Can you handle it?

Just having a little fun here.

Mr. Gopher and his kith & kin are chewing and digging and ruining my yard, so I am exposing him posthumuosly (?) to some public ridicule.  He never knew a thing...

Well, here goes the first one...

Ok here is the culprit.  Would you take a look at those claws and teeth??? Man, they can really do some major damage here.  I laid him up on the hood of my car so it would make a good contrast. Looks good, don't you think?  See - no blood.  He's very cute actually - just looks asleep.  If that makes you feel better, well that's okay by me.

Do you see those little pockets on the sides of his face?  They're outside pockets.  He stuffs grubs or whatever tasty delight he's found in his digging into those pockets and pulls it out to munch on it later on. Can you see what he's got?

It's part of some kind of bug - maybe a piece of grasshopper - nope, can't be - it's not grasshopper season yet.  That won't come til about July or so... Guess it's some kinda grub or something - but it doesn't have a head. I guess Mr. Gopher ate its head off already.

Let's see what else he's been upto.  I think I missed him a couple of times because he's been travelling incognito -  (see next photo)

He's been posing as a hood ornament on some smaller foreign cars.  Hangs on tight with them claws...

Then he tried psyching everybody out pretending to be a squirrel or perhaps even a plum blossom. He better re-think that last alias - not workin', buddy.

Next, Mr. Gopher was apprehended trying to hide out in Mr. & Mrs. Bluebird's new condo under the mattress, but that didn't work either. He discovered that he was bigger around than the doorway. 

After being on the run and on the dig for several weeks, he finally succombed to exhaustion and was discovered asleep on a glider and was apprehended by police where he was later executed for his crimes.  Our condolences to his family, but let this be a warning to them that their unlawful behaviour and destructiveness will not be tolerated, and the same demise will come to those who break the law of lawn and garden. They have permission to dig all they want to out in the 70 acres of pastureland - NOT in the yard.  Mr. Gopher will NOT be missed.  May he rest in peace (well, I guess he was resting in peace until some crazy photographer decided to have some fun with him before burial).

Ok, whadaya'll think?  Have I completely gone off the deep end?

I really do love animals. I have never done anything cruel or inhumane in my life.  It's all ya'll's fault for making me come up with something silly to post.  And to Kathy B at Cedar Pond for issuing this challenge!  And it's certainly the gophers' fault for tearing up my yard!

If I get ONE negative comment, this post is TOAST!!!  It was all done in fun!  So for Pete's sake, don't take this seriously!!!

NOTE TO ADD:  CHECK OUT A NEW BUDDY'S BLOG - MARY AT JMPPASTTIMES! She's a vintage girl with a beautiful blog and you guys will be sorry if you don't give her a visit! She's a fairly new blogger so hurry on over there and tell her I sent you!!! Thanks!!!

My Weekend

'Mornin' to ya'll.  I woke up too early with a sinus headache & couldn't go back to sleep so's I thought I'd just tell ya a little about my weekend. Went to see darling daughter off on her spring break mission trip. We had a fun afternoon in Fort Worth, went to a Super Target (wish we had one) and scooped up all her little last minute items for her trip to Canada, went to dinner downtown and then crashed at her apartment.  We had a wonderful visit and it's always fun to get all snuggly in bed and talk and catch up and visit until we fall asleep. I LOVE those times!

(This'll have to be the first of a two-part post...)

I left early as she had to get to her van ride to DFW and decided to spend some time in Granbury. I LOVE Granbury - it's full of antique shops, foo-foo shops, bed/breakfasts, a beautiful lake with gorgeous homes and good places to eat.  I was going to stay only a couple of hours, but after talking to hubby I decided to linger and just ENJOY! The weather was absolutely perfect and there were alot of people there. Downtown is wonderful. If you've never been there, it's a great little weekend getaway with plenty to do!  Following are photos I took of several local funspots and a few of the neighborhoods. There are TONS of little old cottage type homes there!

And some fine old German architecture right here in town! Lotsa Germans down in the central parts of Texas. Texas is such a BIG STATE, as you know... (puffing up chest...)

Next I have a shot of the Hood County courthouse on the square... Granbury is the county seat...

The streets around the courthouse itself were being re-done, so the fence draws away from its beauty - there again - a little German architecture.  And last but certainly not least, a shot of a beautiful quince bush that was busting at the seams showing off its color ~

Tomorrow I'll have a few pics of the downtown Granbury area. I gotta git ready for work. Ugh...at least my head feels better - I think it feels better just looking at these pictures again and remembering what a nice I had all to myself ~ no husband telling me to hurry up and sighing deep sighs of boredom while waiting on me to amuse myself in the shops!!! 

GOOD MORNING USA!!!

Here's what we dealt with this afternoon about 5:30 or so. Hail - marble size hail. Didn't last too very long, but I'm glad I had my car parked in the garage and was already home from work. Last time I got caught in a hailstorm, I had dings all in my car!  We had a series of strong storms pass through east Texas and up through Arkansas & Oklahoma. It's tornado season 'round these parts, ma'am.  Well, they did have a couple of twisters touch down somewhere, but we lucked out this time around.

In other news, Princess H is leaving for Canada on Saturday from her college youth group on a mission trip. They will be working with inner city youths in the Toronto area, I think. She's looking forward to going, but I'm praying for her problem with motion sickness. She has it real bad, and I hope it doesn't flare up.

Now, it's 7 a.m. here.  I just got a comment from Kathy B. over at Spot on Cedar Pond directed at ME. Silly girl - she posted a video about moles and gophers. What a hoot she is - you must go over and say hi! We have this ongoing battle with yard varmints and I'm afraid she's ahead at the moment. Actually, I'm in a race against her husband, and now I think she's helping him out!  Hmmmmm.... was this in the rules of the game???  Hahahaha!  Looks to me like Texas does NOT have the biggest moles! At least the ones in my yard are much smaller & harder to catch - wait!  Does that mean I can have a mole handicap???  Anyway go visit her and see her funny videos!  Kathy - thanks for the belly-laugh this morning!!! (I AM glad you got another mole!)

I took a couple of photos of my MIL's camellia bush yesterday afternoon when I went by the house. It's always been beautiful and it's been blooming for awhile now. It's starting to drop its petals but it looks sorta pretty on the ground, too.

My MIL used to take a single bloom and float it in a pretty little teacup. She loved camellias. I'll never see a camellia that I don't think of that....

Ya'll have a great and wonderful and spectacular day! I gotta get ready for work, and I'm hoping to stop at one of the handful of garage sales that I've picked out of today's newspaper before I get to work!  Yes, GARAGE SALE SEASON HAS BEGUN AND IS NOW COMING INTO FULL SWING!!!  Three cheers!

Work Weekend & GIVEAWAY!

Ok, friends... I promised a post, but I don't have any new pictures to show you. Is that ok? Think you can do with just type?  I hope so. Maybe I can pull up a couple of older photos that hopefully I haven't used before...

We had a busy, busy weekend. We got up early Saturday and did about 10 hours working on the garden, the flower beds, the yard at the farm.  We have about 6-7 giant catalpa trees and they have just about finished dropping their footlong beanpods all over the yard. I HATE catalpa trees, but if we didn't have those we'd just have the big oak and the sycamore and some china berry trees (which I also hate).  SO, we raked as much as we could, burned most of it, and mulched a bunch more.  And all those huge beanpods open up and these little fuzzy white seedlings float all around everywhere and sprout in our sugar sand.  Such a mess.  We're constantly going around pulling up little sprouts.  The china berries are doing the same thing.  YUCK.

Anyway, we worked hard raking and doing all our stuff.  I planted my rows of carrot seeds. I had to wait until the moon was waning. I've had 'em for a couple of weeks but that was the first chance I got to plant them.  We had a really good rain Sunday night through early this morning so everything I have planted to now got a good soaking. I hope those little carrot seeds didn't wash away... My  tulips and lilies are coming up and my wagon of pansies has never looked better.  The snow and cold kept them kinda sickly looking but they kept popping back out and now since it's a bit warmer they're beautiful. Here's a pic that I took a couple of weeks ago, but they're all twice as big now and overflowing out of the wagon - I'll try to get a current photo!

We grilled hamburgers Saturday night for us and Josh and his girlfriend. They were so good. Flash forwards me to summertime!  Yea, it's almost here - at least spring is! We're having 75 degree temps today!!!  Another shower for tomorrow and then several days of nice gardening weather.

Sunday, we went to church, and then the rest of the day we spent at my  MIL's house cleaning up and getting the furniture moved out, the rest of the wallpaper off, etc.  The mud-guys and painters and the roofer are coming later this week to start their stuff and Sunday afternoon was the only day to do it. We were going to do the bulk of it ourselves, but when the roofer told us that he had a mud crew and a painting crew as well as excellent references, we decided to JUST GIT ER DUN.  We hope to put it up for rent in the next month or two.  Rental income will help us pay for MIL's care at the memory care facility. It's very expensive...

So, needless to say, I needed another weekend after this past weekend.  I kept nodding off in front of my computer yesterday.  Tonight we are taking MIL out for her birthday. I will go over after work and get her dressed and hair done - we're going to eat catfish - her favorite!  I know she won't remember it tomorrow, but for tonight - she'll have a wonderful time and we can imagine that all is well with her and just enjoy being together.  She's a jewel. I had the best in-laws in the whole world!  And my husband says the same thing about my folks! 

NEWS FLASH!!!  I'm coming up on my 200th post! I can't believe it!  I'm planning a giveaway and plan to make it very special because I let my 100th post get away from me.  So stay tuned.  I think this is post #193. May be a little premature to announce it, but I want to give you guys plenty of time warning!  Let me get my thoughts together about what I'm gonna do, and I'll be back in touch to announce the winning prize!!!  I want it to be special because you all have enriched my life so much & given in so many ways to me, and I want you all to know how very precious you are to me.  This is an outstanding group of women, friends and family that I have here in bloglandia & so I simply must do something befitting this great group of gals! 

Hi & Bye!

Hey dear friends -

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Just swamped at work, home, taking care of sick mother in law - but thank you all very much for your prayers - she's doing much better and is back at her memory care facility. She doesn't remember being in the hospital at all, and I guess that could be a good thing.  We're off to the farm this weekend - suppose to have 70 degree temps - just perfect for working in the garden, and so I'll catch you all up on the latest when we get back. I don't have internet out there right now. Miss you all!  Have a wonderful weekend!  & keep your gown down!