little forest house

white corn

2010-07-25T13:55:00.003-05:00

the white corn plants were not so impressive as the blue corn plants.. and in turn, the cobs are way smaller. i do have more white cobs than blue, though. i'm going to save a few cobs off of each plant to replant next year. i think i'm going to not waste my time on tomatoes next year.. i just didn't get a good crop and i'm a little disappointed. instead i'm going to either container the cucumbers or build them a shallow bed .. and in the large beds just corn it up. i need to invest in moving my herb garden, too.. but not yet. anyway, corn!

this is my test cob. i kept opening it to check on the growth.. apparently that was bad advice from the internets.

because this happened.

its okay though. because i chopped off the shriveled tip, and ate it anyway. just a little bit of salt was all it needed.. sooooooooooooo sweet!

also, my giant cucumber vines.

blue corn

2010-07-25T13:52:00.000-05:00

my blue corn plants are giiiinormous. and so are the cobs.

herbs, succulents and everything else.

2010-07-10T11:53:00.004-05:00

the oregano's blooming! seeds for next year!

i got sick of fighting the vineborers on my pumpkin.. so i ripped it out and planted my containered pineapple in its spot! what the hell, let's see what it will do.

fennel blooming as well.

the herbs.

this is one of the birdhouse gourds i had in container.. i sat it by the tree and it hooked on.. so we decided to take it out of the container and dump it on the ground.. mounded up a bunch of good recycled dirt around the root ball. let's see what happens!

basil bushes!

the peanuts are really spreading like crazy this year.. i'm pretty excited about this. i'll crap if we get enough to make one jar of peanut butter.

on to the succulents!
a dish of baby mexican hats.

the "baby" paddle plants.. i really need to spend some time separating these.. buuut, time time.

my gooorgeous morning glories!

beautiful corn and giant tomatoes.

2010-07-10T11:41:00.002-05:00

blue corn has bloomed.. but no silks shown yet.

blue corn through the tomato jungle..

front of the tomato jungle.. the larger leaved plant is the green bell pepper. she's a beauty. nice fresh bell pepper every week to a week and a half.. we've become proficient fajitiers.

back of jungle.

white sweet corn!
we have heads, we have silk! when the rain dries out a bit.. i'm going to put a little mineral oil on the pollinated silks to keep the borers out!

i'm pretty impressed with the plant structure. the roots of the corn are insane!

no more butterflies.. back to gardening. first, cucumbers!

2010-07-10T11:21:00.004-05:00

we've had some crazy sporadic rain for the past two weeks.. i assure you, the front lawn is mowed in between showers.. but the backyard is a completely different story. anywho!
the garden is LOVING the rain! the cucumbers are thriving.. my corn is blooming (later posts, promise..)
we had to add a few more poles to the cucumber/greenbean trellis. i'm sure once the sun comes out they're going to jump up retarded.

apparently, we've gotten hit with hive collapse this year? last year we had bees swarming EVERYWHERE! this year we see them come one, two or three at a time.. but this fella was pretty busy. he went in and out and everywhere. (i have to admit, i've been coming out and helping him pollinate in the mornings.)

now, i have no clue what this guy is. but i know he's eating a cucumber beetle.

therefore, we are friends.

and now a selection of babies!!

birth of the second black swallowtail butterfly!

2010-07-05T10:07:00.006-05:00

every morning when i wake up i run out to the green house to check on my cocoons! this morning the second butterfly was pumping his wings up getting ready to fly.. only one more chrysalis left!

rebirth!

2010-06-28T14:22:00.004-05:00

ladies and gentlemen! i'd like to introduce the first black swallowtail butterfly!

the chrysalis.

pixelated.

she's coming to get me!

i need to give you a garden update as well!

2010-06-25T15:12:00.006-05:00

a cute little cucumber.

tomato BUSHES!

beautiful green zebras!

cucumber, french beans (delicious), white corn.

herbs

blue corn.

emergency caterpillar relocation!

2010-06-25T14:43:00.004-05:00

sooo.. i've had lots of little babies the past week or so. four or five at the most at one time.. but i had noticed i was missing a few. i had to do some emergency vine borer removal on my pumpkin who's planted next door to the fennel.. so i just assumed i had probably knocked off some and accidentally buried them.

nope.

i came home to do my daily after work inspection.. only to find this horrible little bitch. the caterpillar was half eaten when i first noticed the wasp.. by the time i ran inside and got my camera, she was only a head and guts. UGH.

look at her just gnawing away! UGH. i know where her home is. i've been kind up until now.. because wasps really are good beneficial predators. they eat larvae of all kinds, even the bad ones...

BUT NOW.. that nest is coming down. i'm not harboring murderers!@!

so i decided to do some emergency fennel relocation and take it and the babies to the green house. i have a few spiders living in there.. but no wasps! hopefully it will be a safer environment for them..

that is.
look at her coming back to look for the other juicy caterpillars i've moved.

if the fennel makes it.. if it shows any sign of poop outage, i will be at the store buying a new fennel plant before the night is over, just for my babies to live on.

HOWEVER, i'm an idiot, and cut the stalk with the chrysalis on it. hopefully it will be okay even if the fennel dries out. i have a few spiders in the greenhouse that i'm worried about. but if i see the chrysalis start to open i'll take it directly outside.

black swallowtail caterpillars continued..

2010-06-21T15:28:00.006-05:00

so once i realized what was going on.. i found out i had been mushing the caterpillars in their earlier stages of life! so i've been out hunting for the past three or four days.. and this is what i've collected! i'm pretty sure i've got every stage, minus the butterfly, captured!

they molt between stages.. and i noticed this guy right as he finished. before i could get the camera focused he had turned around and begun to eat the shedded skin! nature!

i love the two tethers that hold the chrysalis to the fennel stalk.

black swallowtail caterpillar

2010-06-16T19:08:00.005-05:00

when i first stumbled across him, i thought he was a monarch. but glory be google for righting my wrongs!

he was perched upon my fennel.. and upon pokage he began to vomit a really foul liquid. i'm sure that it's a naturally foul smelling deterrent.. but since all he's been eating is fennel? i bet it's TEN times worse.

upon further pokage.. he stuck these little sticky orange horns out.

a very handsome fella! ol' wikipedia told me this is the last growth cycle of the caterpillar and then it's ready to pupate! hopefully he'll hang out on or near the fennel and i can get some photos of the chrysalis/butterfly!

a little garden update.

2010-06-14T22:40:00.003-05:00

little green zebra.

blue corn.

white corn.

green beans.

cucumbers!

the tiger lily!

2010-06-14T22:29:00.001-05:00

the wildflowers are finally waking up!

2010-06-14T22:16:00.001-05:00

early june 10 veggies!

2010-06-06T17:39:00.005-05:00

blue corn!

baby bell pepper.

head of a cucumber plant.

i'm growing straight 8 cucumbers this year.. last year i grew a burpless.. it sucks if you only like cucumbers for pickles!

my first tomatoes! this one is a green zebra.. see the little stripes already?! yay!

all the tomatoes and the flopping potatoes.. that means its time to harvest the taters, right?

herbs, herbs and more herbs! basil, oregano, greek oregano and sage below.

beeeautiful greek oregano.

birdhouse gourd, headed up the tree!

oregano, fennel stalk!

under the pumpkin canopy. we planted the pumpkins where the carrots were over the winter.

wildflowers and tiger lilies!
from left to right.
french beans, cucumbers, josh, grapes.

early june 10 succulents!

2010-06-06T17:32:00.002-05:00

my mexican hat bowl.

mexican hat babies!

flowers and pumpkins and herbs, oh my!

2010-05-17T19:55:00.004-05:00

this is a nice side view of the fennel so you can seen how tall she is. the kale is at the bottom.

actually.. it could be romaine. i'm not sure. they were two freebie seeds that popped up in the carrot seeds!

and my marigolds.

PUMPKINS! there are three vines.. they've really started going. i'm in search of a clear plastic box to make some square pumpkins.. ANYONE HAVE ONE? =D

look at all of those little baby flowers!

a few of the already pollinated pumpkin flowers. (fingers crossed.)

wildflowers

moss roses

DAMN THAT ONION FLOWER JUST WANTS TO POP!

that is a bad bug. if you see it, kill it. i believe it's a cucumber beetle larvae.

my tiger lily wants to wake up. it's coming!

bees and lady bugs.

2010-05-17T19:39:00.002-05:00

random garden stuffs

2010-05-11T19:38:00.002-05:00

birdhouse garden

my gorgeous sago palm with babies. during the snow someone in my neighborhood threw her out because all of the leaves turned brown.. i cut them all off and let it stew and LOOKIE LOOKIE.

tomato and potato city!

first wildflowers popping.

i have no clue what that is.. but it was tiny and alive.

green beans and other veggie flowers!

2010-05-11T19:32:00.002-05:00

i've only gotten one green bean so far. but i have tons of flowers so i'm not worried. =D

little baby bean shedding the flower!

bean flowers

potato flower! loooook at all that pollen it wants to give away.

the first tomato flowers! yay!

cucumbers galore. i'm going to pick all the fruit small this year and make baby dills.

so freakin' cute.

first carrot harvest!

2010-05-11T18:30:00.002-05:00

we decided to thin out the carrots to give our pumpkin plants a little more room.. and to give the smaller guys an opportunity to get bigger. also pulled some onions. a little too early.. oh well, they'll be the seeds for next year

now for some flowers and such.

2010-04-26T14:39:00.005-05:00

elliott helps.

i put together a few succulent urns for my front yard flower bed.. they'll be baking in the sun in the back until they get a little more rooted.

the baby jalepenos! well on their way!

begonia.
the morning glory has finally caught on.

greenhouse flower garden.

my sarah turned 21 agave.

no clue what this is.. i dug it up out of my neighbors yard when they moved away!

the remainder of the paddle plant mama.. but loooooook at all those babies. the paddle plant in the succulent urn was the original baby i took from this.. i cant wait for the other to get big enough to take!

the end of april

2010-04-26T14:18:00.005-05:00

i'm lazy, i know! so here's a few updates for ya!

french beans
pretty purple basil
the onion garden.. i need to cut the blooms out of the onions apparently! i learned that from a coworker today.. if you let the bloom continue and go to seed.. it's going to shoot a bloom stalk down into the bulb.. the onion.. and then use the onion as energy.. ie bad tasting small onions!

baby sago coming back to life.
and baby cacti. =D

the smaller of the two tiger lilies planted in the wildflower garden.
the larger.
the wildflower garden taking off!

the carrots.

cilantro flowers. =) the seeds are coriander!
serious oregano.
a variegated almost succulent oregano. it's great.

more cilantro flowers.. they're so dainty and sweet.

baby fennel leaf.
onion bloom up close!

and some moss roses!

paddle plant babies

2010-03-23T20:46:00.003-05:00

last year my largest paddle plant bloomed and started sticking out little babies.

we had to bring her in during the winter - between greenhouses - and she did not appreciate it.

she went into the new greenhouse in february.. and she exploded with new growth. i finally got the nerve to chop her up today.. sooo the babies came off. the top with blooms was chopped and planted and the stalk was left to reproduce! mmm babies!

broccoli flowers

2010-03-23T20:41:00.002-05:00

i can't wait for the seeds!
the plastic wiring is to keep the squirrels out. someone thoroughly enjoyed eating all of the greens off of the carrots on this side of the garden. so now it's closed off! it's worked out pretty great.

baby wildflowers

2010-03-23T20:37:00.002-05:00

i was concerned with the snow. the wildflowers were not.

a pretty little nut.

2010-03-22T11:48:00.003-05:00

i have a power line that runs diagonally across my yard from the house to the pole. naturally, josh and i built our raised gardens directly under it. genius! well this season, since we have the super green house (i guess i need to post that up, too!) we decided to fill up our little plant platform with all of our left over half empty pots of dirt and plant wildflowers in it. we moved it between the raised gardens so the veggies can benefit from the butterflies and bees.

sooo i was nosing through the dirt the other day.. loving on my little seedlings when i noticed this. i have visions of a squirrel carrying it from yards away only to drop it on my super fertile soil.. the poor acorn grew and grew until i come along and pluck it out! the poor little thing had a great start to being a big beautiful tree. at least i got to document the beginning of it's short little life.

tulips soon!

2010-03-22T11:33:00.001-05:00

tiny little heads!

peony in progress

2010-03-22T11:30:00.002-05:00

i plant her about two years ago.. when we first moved in. nothing ever started to grow, so i just assumed i got a bad root and planted potato vine over it for the past two years.. and then all of a sudden spring starts up (forget those two snows.. ) and here she is!

my sweet little broccoli

2010-03-22T11:25:00.003-05:00

she made quite a delicious soup. =)

i'm letting the remaining heads on one plant bloom so that i can have seeds for next year.

hi everybody! some carrots for you!

2010-03-22T10:55:00.005-05:00

well now. it's been a while since a good update (much to my mother-in-law's chagrin..) you can blame facebook for that. the ease of the mobile upload really takes my attention away from the ol' bloggins.

i have a ridiculous amount of things growing.. so i'm just going to throw up some pictures and hope that i can get myself into the habit of updated regularly.

i've got some time lapsed photos.. so lets start with the carrots!!

baby spiny orb weavers!

2010-01-22T17:32:00.003-06:00

well, hello there.

2009-11-13T11:51:00.001-06:00

it's been a few months since the last update, i know.. but it's been a rough few months for us at the little forest house.. i assure you plants are still growing. we have carrots, herbs, and broccoli planted for the winter. i've started taking pictures of the growth process.. so one of these days when i get the patience i shall start uploaded! promise!

we're great with cucumbers.

2009-07-27T13:37:00.004-05:00

not too much to report. the pepper garden is not so much.. and i think we finally figured out why. well, us geniuses thought it would be a great idea to plant a thing of catnip in the middle of the pepper garden.. not so much? i caught my cat tinkling on it the other day - i'm sure every other puss in the neighborhood has been getting some action, too.

so apparently, we're good at growing cucumbers! the roma tomato plant produced about 15 tomatoes.. now, as well as the celebrity and better bush plants, bloom over and over and over and i guess they just don't pollinate. i've started rubbing the little flowers together so we'll see if that helps..

this a nice close up of my sage, it has great texture.

tons of cucumbers! i'm going to get two or three different kinds of cucumbers next year.

i wuv their fingers.

this is my first okra! yay!

aaand josh loving his kids.

a nice sunrise for you night folk.

what's that on the fence?

2009-06-16T12:27:00.007-05:00

so we're walking through the yard.. checking out the veggies and i go .. "ew? is that a condom on the fence?" josh gave it a little kick and it bounce back..

and it was this moth!@#

i looked it up, it's a luna moth. they only live 7 days in their adult form.. in those seven days they lay 500-700 eggs!

sooo i'm super lucky i got to see it. i took a ton of pictures.. these don't even scratch the surface. i'm going to try to load them in chronological order so you can see it's wings unfurl. =D

is that a pickle in your pocket?

2009-06-15T17:58:00.006-05:00

so we ate her!

RECIPE!
brine:
1 3/4 cups water
3/4 vinegar
3 tablespoon kosher salt

1 awesome cucumber .. from my garden.
a ton a dill .. from my garden.
a little bit of basil .. from my garden.
and some garlic i bought. =)

first off I mixed the brine ingredients and set them to boil.

after that we chopped of the dill, basil, and two cloves of garlic for the seasoning.

we put a layer of the herb mixture in the bottom.

next.. we took turn chopping up the cucumber!@

stuffed a few in, added a layer of spices.

stuffed some more cucumbers in. more spices.

by then the brine mixture was boiling. we slowly poured then brine into the jar covering the cucumbers and the pickle seasonings! from my garden!

we heated up the jar lid in some warm water then placed it on the jar. screwed on the ring and ..

tada! now time to seal the jar!

we dropped the jar into a hot boiling tub of water and let it cook for about 15 minutes (next batch will probably cook less time, so they'll be crunchier).

cook cook cook!

after 15 mins we pulled it out and stuck it in the cabinet for about three days.. then into the refrigerator! i had my first yummy home made home grown pickle a day later and it was great!

yaaay babies babies!

2009-06-11T16:04:00.007-05:00

first buds from our guatemalan peppers!

the first tomatillo. =D

that's a tomatillo flower.. it's super pretty!

since the first roma tomato ripened.. the plant has exploded! it's grown four huge tomatoes in no time! it took the first one a month or two.. not these babies.. it took weeks!

my cucumber vine is out of control! we harvested our first cucumber (yay!) that i will be pickling. so i'm going to save the final pictures of that for the pickling adventure that i will embark on tonight!

close up of the head of the cucumber vine. so furry.

this is my cilantro.. it seems to be creating seed pods.. so no one has to buy cilantro next year! i'll have a shit ton of seeds!

blooming catnip.

another guatemalan pepper plant going to town.

jalapeno!

dill overload!

my fiiiiirst eggplant flower! IT'S PURPLE! EHEHE.

she's a cute little plant but she's going nuts!

josh's succulents..

2009-06-11T15:54:00.004-05:00

we had a little bit of a succulent fetish, too .. so here's a little diddy about them.

this is a blue agave from our neighbor.

my cute little cactus.. if you go back in the blog you'll see when i first plucked her. she's got babies now!

a close of up the new growth on two of the paddle plants. (trysiflora kalanchoe)

i don't know what this one is.. generically i call it a desert rose.. but look at that bloom! there will be updates of it!

this is a succulent that josh nipped from a house he worked at.. no clue what it is.. but look at that giiinormous bloom!!

little critter!

2009-06-11T15:32:00.000-05:00

i dunno what he is!

cucumber update!

2009-06-07T19:32:00.001-05:00

an update!

2009-05-31T19:03:00.003-05:00

i know it's been awhile. we've had some family health issues that have taken up a lot of time. also, fallout 3 didn't help much.

over the rainy season we had quite a fungus problem. we've gotten that taken care of. now we're starting to get veggies! we've harvested our first two tomatoes.. it's funny, these are the fruit that were on the plants when we purchased them.. now that we've removed them the plants have gone into overtime on production. in the next few days i'll take a good set of pictures and video.

we've added a few things to the garden. we got another tomato plant, celebrity tomatoes. a little tomatillo plant. we've moved the strawberries out of the raised bed into their own pots.. i'm afraid i have a sneaky little squirrel stealing them, so we're going to put them nearer to the house. i also added peanuts and a new habanero plant.. our peppers didn't enjoy the partial shade.

oh! and we whacked down a ton of trees laaast weekend. so now we have a lot more light. i think we're going to go another round closer it gets to bulk trash week.

so until a better photo update i would like to tickle your eyebuds with the progression of my first cucumber! as of now it's still on the vine and hasn't reached maturity.

new residents in the garden..

2009-04-26T18:51:00.002-05:00

we found four today.. big ones and little ones! hopefully they're eating the bad bugs, and not my lady bugs!

baby elepant ears!

2009-04-26T14:17:00.003-05:00

these are our babies from last year.. they just poked their heads out this week.. i can't wait for the rain!

also my fuschia is about to explode!

mobile test!

2009-04-22T20:57:00.004-05:00

this is a house in plano that i care for the plants..

this is my favoritest atrium.

and my front porch. =)

more little babies!

2009-04-21T16:18:00.003-05:00

first baby jalapeno.

baby bell peppers.

ehehe itty bitty cucumber!

lookit how small it is! lookit!

the strawberries are coming out a bit deformed.. i think they're planted too deep, but i'm just going to leave them be.

aand the tomatoes are coming right along!

scarborough!

2009-04-18T20:00:00.003-05:00

man. so yeah, jasmine and i spent like two hours in the petting zoo. last year the little piggies wouldnt let me pick them up.. this year they slept on me for almost 45.

i also got to stare down the snotty barrel of this elephants nose. =) it got a little fresh and grabbed jasmine's boober!

one more for the day!

2009-04-14T20:42:00.003-05:00

i was pretty upset that my lady bugs had crapped out.. but apparently they were all horny and chock full of eggs! i have tons and tons of baby lady bugs crawling around the yard.

hooray for lady bug orgies!

also, clapton loves catnip.

keeping occupied.

2009-04-14T20:32:00.002-05:00

when i got home today i cleaned out the ol' greenhouse. i drug all of my plants out into the lawn (which peeved josh, and forced him to build.) and i found this crazy ass bug. i have no clue if that thing is his peter or what .. cuz if it's a stinger, i think it could impregnate me.

then there was mister squirrel stealing from the bird feeder next door.. he's the one that tinkles on me when i stand under him.

and then my little hustle i'm trying to start.. thrift store vases plus cheap succulents equals money hopefully!

here's mister josh's finished product.. a raised planter bed for my container plants. we'll be keeping them off the ground this year!

i haven't seen mama cardinal around a lot yet, but spring's just started!

slowly, slowly ..

2009-04-14T20:25:00.004-05:00

i made a little friend..
we found him when we were building. he was living under a fence panel!

yay! we have our first babies!

2009-04-11T09:31:00.003-05:00

the tomatoes have started popping! the first two are better bush tomatoes. =D

and this is a liiiittle baby roma tomato.

aaand the first bloom on the cucumbers!

hooray for horticulture!

let these ladies loose!

2009-04-01T17:19:00.005-05:00

we've noticed a couple of creepy crawlies in the garden lately.. and we're trying to do this thing organic like.. so i decided to purchase some predator bugs to let loose.. lady bugs.
awesome.
9.99 for 1750 little ladies.
this instructions said to wait until dusk, spray the plants down then let the lady bugs loose.. soo we did!

they were packaged in a mesh bag.. i had to dig in.

if you click on this picture and zoom in.. you can see hundreds of little red speckles. =)

a few close ups..

so this morning at daybreak i went out to check things out.. they were all curled up under the leafs and such. super cute.

and when we got home from work.. we found about four left in the garden! so ten bucks flew away in a day! hopefully they'll return at night.. if so, you will be updated.. if not.. don't buy lady bugs. =)

blossoms a'poppin'..

2009-03-31T14:19:00.006-05:00

the little babies are growing up. about a third of the plants have started to get some new growth and/or blossoms.. so here we go!

we've got tons of new growth on the roma tomatoes... also some blooms beginning to pop!

these are the blooms from the better bush tomatoes.
hehe.

the habaneros have new growth up top.. it kinda looks like little blooms starting.

strawberry tooowwn! i'm super stoked about the strawberries. all of these little babies are hiding underneath the leaves. =)

ehehe.

oooh the little cucumber tendrils reeeeaching out, looking for something to hold! so freakin' cute. now the actual leaves (i forgot to take a picture of that) got a little damaged while they were under the plastic for the freeze. i think there was humidity on the leaf/plastic which magnified the sun and left burn marks. boo, but they'll survive. =)

these are the hot banana peppers starting to bloom.

and the next two are the jalepenos! they're really going to town.

a little baby eggplant leaf sprouting.

aaaand sean connery keeping guard.

.. and here come the babies.

2009-03-22T18:45:00.007-05:00

we went a little wild with our plant selection. this is our first go at veggie gardening so we wanted to have a wide variety.. our main goal is a salsa garden, but we took a few requests from family members as well.. so here's the great big list!

for our herbs we chose:
1. dill
2. cilantro
3. spearmint
4. sweet basil
5. thyme
6. oregano

we have chosen the following peppers:
1. big bertha bell peppers
2. habanero
3. bonnie green bell
4. jalapeno
5. hot banana peppers

the rest are veggies!:
1. eggplant - black beauty
2. texas sweet white onions
3. watermelon - black diamond
4. strawberry - ft laramie
5. better bush tomato
6. roma tomato
7. green okra - clemson spineless
8. cucumber - burpless supreme

i'm excited to see which plants will do the best.. we have trellis' to build and probably some nets to keep the birds and the squirrels out.. but yay! free food here we come!

(okay.. so the cactus isn't really food, but i think she's pretty. =)

yes it's been a while since you've heard from us.

2009-03-22T18:09:00.005-05:00

apparently we hibernated during winter.
but now it's spring! and we've got the fever!

our newest project is a nice raised vegetable garden.
we've salvaged some old fence panels from a neighbor to create the walls.
the drainage rock was also salvaged from an out of service railroad track. (props to joshua and brandon for being the great shoveling men they are.)

our dirt is a nice super organic dirt/mulch blend from the living earth in rockwall. it was a whole trailer load (roughly 4,000 pounds.)

i organized photos again last night..

2008-11-16T09:00:00.002-06:00

so this is the gnarliest most awesome bug i've found in the back yard.
he's actually the inspiration for the bloggins.

he's called a spiny orb weaver.
a little super extra tiny spider.
they come in white yellow orange and red. i don't know if they change throughout their life cycle or if it's a different genus to a different color.

also today.

2008-11-15T21:08:00.004-06:00

misses smith got some new rocks for her turtle enjoyment.

i took a nice video of her getting acquainted.

if you turn the volume up a little you can hear her giving us the hisses.

the same little squirrel..

2008-11-15T21:03:00.001-06:00

elliott almost had him today..

and boy did he give elliott the business.

i make new friends every day..

2008-11-12T13:19:00.003-06:00

a few more animal folks that i found in the back yard.. including an extra creepy neighbor cat.. we're not friends yet, but we will be.

i also i found these photos.

2008-10-30T18:38:00.001-05:00

this is another giant bug creature that was in my yard.

LOOK AT HIM.

HE'S EFFING CRAZY!

they're already moving in.

2008-10-30T18:26:00.007-05:00

there are tons of bugs in the green house.

it took three days? four?

first this little fellow.

he moves quickly.

today is also sean's first adventure into the green house.. i don't know how many he'll get.

he's also quick like a bunny.

green house time.

2008-10-30T18:21:00.003-05:00

josh very adamantly requested that i post these photos.

so here.

hello. is that a turtle in your pocket?

2008-10-30T17:36:00.002-05:00

so i reorganized all of my photos this past week.

and i have a ton of ol mama smith.

enjoy!

you shouldn't mess with ostriches.

2008-10-09T16:21:00.011-05:00

because this is what happens.

it's okay though. i forgive him because he is soft.

also.. the bite is documented!

any who's it.

we went to the fairs.
it's my favorite place ever.
i enjoy petting zoos IMMENSELY.
these guys lurve me, too.

especially the zebu.

dragonfly's only live for 24 hours.

2008-10-07T15:03:00.003-05:00

and this fella is dead.

i also found this little crazy caterpillar.

i love my backyard so much.

this little guy..

2008-10-07T14:56:00.004-05:00

he's definitely out to get me.

mysterious flower.

2008-09-30T19:04:00.003-05:00

i had been noticing this little red flower popping up all over town.

i got excited telling josh about it one day.. and he says.. 'you mean, like the flower in the back of the yard?'

TICKLED. if you know what kind of flower this is please let me know! it has to be something native and i lurve it.

spillway adventures.

2008-09-28T13:07:00.003-05:00

we decided to drop the canoe in from the liquor store right by the spillway today.

adventures ensue! we talked to whiteys at the golf course about calling our city councilman to clear the logs in the waterway. we also dug golf balls out of the embankment.. no photos of that, however.

also

2008-09-27T14:09:00.002-05:00

this little praying mantis i found...

2008-09-27T13:16:00.001-05:00

calling the cats in and who did i see?

he was meant to be outdoors.

2008-09-20T09:53:00.003-05:00

duke appreciates the outdoors.
he has three spots in which he partakes of the nappings.
this is the most likely place to find him.. quite a handsome man cat.

a little bit of a back log.

2008-09-14T11:33:00.005-05:00

we're constantly taking pictures.. so over the next few days or weeks they will get added.

here's a starter.. my first little bitty creature friend.