Earlier today, I was outside taking a few photos between the rain showers.

When I saw a hawk fly into the neighbor’s tree across the street. I was using my zoom lens trying to see what kind of hawk I noticed as it looked small.

And suddenly, this happened:

Down he swooped, aiming for a rabbit. Who thankfully, avoided it. This is right after the hawk attempted to have him for dinner.

I know hawks need to eat. However, I really didn’t want to watch him have rabbit stew today.

By the way, I’m fairly certain despite the grainy photos that is was a young Cooper’s Hawk.

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day 105/365

Today was a work day. Sometimes we teach the kids things. And sometimes the kids (and/or their parents) teach us things.

It was share day today for the letter sound of “v.” Saw lots of vegetables (real and fake) and oh so many velociraptor toy dinosaurs. However, the coolest item of the day was by far the “venomous” scorpion.

They found it in their basement. And not the first one, they said! Yikes. This one was rather small, thank goodness. Here’s a photo of what I’m guessing is an adult one from the Missouri Department of Conservation.

So today I learned we have scorpions in Missouri. I had no idea. Only one kind, a striped bark scorpion. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen one. You can read more about these “lovely” creatures here if you’re interested.

Hopefully, I don’t find any at my house.  Do you have scorpions in your area?

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Day 104/365

Orange you glad I remembered to post something today?

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Day 103/365

So just a short post tonight after all. Probably going to be short posts all  this week. Busy days.

Thought this was going to be the 100th post of the year. However, it turns out my count is off. This is the 102nd day of the year so I messed up my count somewhere along the line.

Hooray for posting 102 days (almost) I suppose!

Too tired to write a proper blog post. Worked, came home, went back to a (rather short) CPR class, came home again. Watched an episode of Spring Baking Championship. Surprised by who went home this week, I’d have gone the other way if I were the judges. And now, time for a blog post.

Just a random list of a few things I’m thinking about tonight:

• Why I’ve woke up at 4:44 a few times in the last couple of weeks, enough for me to notice. Weird, right?
• Some family situations I found out about on Sunday (a niece going through a divorce)
• My work. Do I throw my hat in for a full-time job? Or not. I’m perfectly happy to keep subbing but a steady schedule might be nice. Of course, I also like the idea of a year to get things in order around here and then, re-evaluating the work situation. Then, I have to think how long would I have to wait for a classroom I want again?
• Why I’ve used the word situation twice now in one post
• When I’m going to get to the grocery store this week
• All the flowers I want to buy and plant in the next few days….going to need self-control!
• If everything is set for J to graduate, whether he’ll do the pomp and circumstance stuff for me
• The fact that I need new work clothes, did I mention this list was random?
• Does this post need a picture? Only one to share is a not so great shot of the end of the driveway flower garden:

  

• I’d like to do a special post for the 100th day of blogging but it’s tomorrow and I have nothing planned. Maybe something will come to me by then.

Well, at least this list isn’t rattling through my brain at midnight, right?  Do you ever get the million (I didn’t give you the full list) thoughts rattling around in your brain?

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Day 99/365

Happy Easter!

Our holiday is winding down and it’s been a nice one. Nice weather, nice company, and nice food.

I’d say our day started with church but really my day started earlier than that. Showered. Filled the boys (they’ll always be boys to me) Easter baskets.

Baked a lemon meringue pie. Dropped J off at church, returned to pick up my husband and G. G had slept in a bit so we did it that way instead of all going together as J had to be there an hour before the service.

Enjoyed a wonderful Easter service especially the music 🙂

Yesterday, my other older brother who is here locally called. He’d missed my text but said he’d come over for dinner in the afternoon. So when we get back from church, he was already here waiting for us. (Think we had a miscommunication somewhere as I’d said after 1 and it was 12:30. Never complain about extra family time though.)

Easter lunch was good. We had bbq brisket on buns, corn on the cob, and baked beans. Lemon meringue pie for dessert. Pretty simple. A very strange and different realm from the big all out Easter morning brunches I used to host.  I missed the large gathering of family and G missed the food. Still, it was nice to not spend all day yesterday and the wee morning hours today cooking up a storm. A lot less stress.

My brother stayed and visited pretty much all afternoon. Now, it’s 5:30 and dinner time I suppose. We’ll see if anyone is hungry. Plenty of sugar choice throughout the afternoon in addition to the pie.

How was your Easter?

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Day 97/365

Just a quick check in post so I don’t forget again!

Awoke to the cat bugging me to go outside. Then, I heard the owl in the maple tree. Quite loud. Quick denial of the cat’s request.

Today’s been mostly a yard work day. Took a load of brush/extra trash to a city wide drop off event. Happens every spring/summer. Helps a lot of with yard clean up.

Then, off to Home Depot to rent a heavy duty garden tiller. Got the garden ready. Husband did most of the tilling as the tiller was a bit heavy for me. And tilled up a new little area in the yard to try an extra garden.

Read my book a bit/took a nap with the cat. I mean what else are you going to do when a purring cat jumps on your lap in the middle of the afternoon?

Back outside for raking some leaves and clearing a flower area under the bedroom windows. Had slowly started this project last year. Bleeding hearts are coming back in that area. Planted my wild blue phlox there. And put down a bit of impatiens seed from the Dollar Tree. If it comes up and flowers, great. If not, not a huge loss and I’ll figure something else out.

Now, it’s time for laundry and figuring out tonight’s dinner. And tomorrow’s Easter plans outside of church.

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Day 96/365

Decided to just keep it simple again for today. Just some spring sightings from this week.

ONE: Volunteer Grape Hyacinths

These tiny grape hyacinths sprang up in an essentially a very random part of the backyard. A few do every year it seems. I don’t think I planted them. Maybe some in the past but definitely not in the middle of the yard. Still just another happy spring sighting.

TWO: Stinky Trees

I’m not denying they are pretty but oh, how they stink! Bradford pears also known as Callery Pear trees. It’s the time of year they bloom with pretty white flowers. The catch? The wind blows right and they smell like sewage to me. One of my preschool friends who was at the time showing me a little bud she’d swiped off a similar tree (it didn’t stink so it was either a dogwood or cottonwood or ?) said: They smell like fish!

They’re non-native and invasive around here. And yet, I still saw them for sale at a local nursery last year. Why? And I also wonder, did not anyone notice as they planted these trees everywhere years ago, how stinky they were when blooming? The photo above is of the tree in the yard across the street. As I said, pretty but also stinky.

Three: Nesting Time

This is a crow’s nest, best I could get for now with the zoom and the lighting the day I was taking photos. You can sort of see the crow in the nest.

I spent quite a bit of time one late afternoon simply watching the nest. This is actually the exact same spot the crows built their nest last year so it must be a good one. They’ve been busy lately, at night, fussing at the owls and in the day, chasing away the local Cooper’s hawk who sometimes hangs around the bird feeders.

Also, nest building somewhere in the yard are starlings.

They are never going to be my favorite birds but after our yellow jacket invasion last year I’ve softened toward these nuisance birds a bit. It turns out they eat the pesky wasps (I don’t mind the paper wasps and a few others as I know they do good things).  That said, I still don’t like that they are quite messy in large numbers so hopefully, we won’t see droves of them around here.

FOUR: A Spring Thunderstorm

One day during the course of the week, Tuesday or Wednesday perhaps, we had slight severe weather predictions. I think we got a small bit of rain, other areas in town more. One thing I’d forgotten was the wonderful smell of the coming rain. The earth just smells different in the spring does it not? And we have more much needed rain predicted for Monday. I do hope we see it, not necessarily severe weather or a thunderstorm but the simply the rain.

Five: Tulips!

Finally, these lovely flowers completely surprised me this morning.

I thought my tulips were a few weeks away from blooming. Apparently, not. Such a lovely surprise to see out the front door this morning. More photos later, the neighbor was outside and I was not quite invested in enough cups of coffee for conversation. Also, apparently, yellow was my color of choice for fall bulbs! Love seeing the blooms after forgetting what colors/flowers I’d even planted there.

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Day 95/365

Oops, I totally forgot to post on Thursday! So here’s a little place holder for it. I mentioned I picked up a pot of my favorite spring flowers in an earlier post. Here they are:

Wild blue phlox, my dad called these flowers sweet William. And they are my favorite spring flowers.

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day 94/365 (posted a day late on day 95)