My yard .. birds & flowers and trees and ...

Here's a virtual walk for you.

Pictures I took both from inside the house and walking outside in the yard.

Cedar Waxwing

Mourning Dove

E. Starlings

House Sparrow

 This young robin was calling for it's parent to feed it... every few minutes there's a squak .. and it would look around .. I think it's still calling .. lol .. Not ready to search for worms on it's own .. guess it will just have to be hungry until mom or dad come with a worm!

 This is what I see when I look out the bedroom window .. beautiful view to wake up to in the morning!

 Garden from the North side.. the previous owners had lettuce, onions, and potatoes already planted!  It was a bit weedy though.  They hadn't had time to weed it .. and I don't blame them .. it's mine now! :)

 Garden from the South side ... the boys and I weeded ( mostly me, but the boys did help some yesterday) and while we were weeding we found volunteer tomato plants, so we've left those.  Hopefully they will grow well.  I'll probably plant some summer squash and cucumber after I get my seeds from Iowa .. and maybe purchase a green pepper plant or two this week ...   :)

 Found this on our southern border today ..new discovery!  I cut the open flower and brought it into the house.

 Potentilla ... love the contrast in this picture from the leaves to the flowers to the red lava rock ...

 This momma robin was yelling at me as I walked in the front yard ... wouldn't go far either... so I checked.. and she has eggs in her nest ... you can see one newly hatched robin as well ... precious new life! :)  (Click on the picture to see it larger ... )

 And below .. lots of different pine trees in the yard ... This one has very weird .. something ... growing out of it... I'm assuming that is it's cone or seeds .. anyone know the type of pine this is?

Hope you enjoyed that little walk ... come visit us in person! :)

Confession . . .

My confession - I didn't actually get any knitting or crochet or sewing done last night. I did do some reading :) We watched Dancing with the Stars finale and a Stargate SG! and a bit of Wheel of Fortune .. reverse order that :) .. anyway .. It was an ok night... Had Farmer's Delight Pasta .. better on mashed potatoes, but I don't have any potatoes, so pasta it was .. that's pasta, ground turkey (or beef or whatever), cream of chicken soup, a little water, can of corn, and cheese. Everything's better with cheese.! I usually add onion or garlic in some form as well.

Today is home inspection day. Our appointment is at 3 pm ..so I'm anxiously watching the clock, and I think it's stopped! While dh and the inspector are doing their inspection thing, I'll be videotaping through the house so that I can show my parents and sister etc the house layout, and I'll be putting down room measurements so that I can plan out where I want to put the furniture, etc.

I've been working on home videos and work videos today as well .. more home then work, but it all needs to get done.

Such a gloomy day today .. rainy and windy and not May temperatures! .. going to be cold going outside.

Morning Update

Well, it's been a weekend! lol .. I wanted to say eventful, but there was only a couple of events..

On Saturday morning we made an offer on a house, and fully expected it to be countered, but by Saturday evening, we got a call saying the sellers had accepted the offer.  So, we will move into our new WI house by the end of June.  We got a heck of a deal :) so we are happy with that, although now we are praying that the IA house will sell quickly. 

The new house has lots of plantings, and a small but nice back patio where we will be able to watch birds and other wildlife that happen by.

Also - we went on a bike ride on Sunday.  They have here a InterUrban Trail that goes from the northern suburbs of milwaukee all the way up to Belgium and further north as well .. and so we did a small portion of that.  We parked at the Aquatic Center here in Grafton, and biked up about 2.75 miles and then back. We have to estimate because we forgot to bring our bike odometers.  It was a nice ride, and since I was sleeveless, I got a little bit of red on my shoulders, but not bad.  It was very windy and so not too hot even though it was in the upper 70's supposedly.  After the bike ride, dh treated us to McDonald's,and I was able to get another Frozen Strawberry Lemonade ..boy are those good!  I prefer that to ice cream now.  The boys and dh had ice cream.. but I loved my lemonade.  http://www.mcdonalds.com/

For today I have a bunch of video work to do first thing, and then try to clean up the apartment and finish capturing my sister's vhs tapes.  Then before Thursday I will need to grab the parts of her videos that I want to keep for myself before I return her hard drive to her this weekend.