Sky Watch Friday...

....Nothing that is can pause or stay;

The moon will wax, the moon will wane, 

The mist and cloud will turn to rain, 

The rain to mist and cloud again, 

To-morrow be to-day.

~~

Excerpt from "Keramos" by  

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

~~~

xoabb

Hey You! Is it Safe Yet??

Fun on the golf course...well...not for everyone:

Last week Jules, Mental Mama, a good friend of ours and I played a round of golf. Quite poorly, all of us, but that's entirely another story. (And nothin' that a nice Margarita at the end of the round didn't take care of, thank you!) In the middle of the round, we watched the above fellow (a young groundhog) slowly waddle across the fairway in front of us, seemingly without a care in the world, until, all of a sudden, a young hawk (I think, but could have been a young osprey) swooped down heading straight at groundhog! Groundhog was quite close to the tree and had the good sense to run as quickly as he could to it. Then hawk, because he was only looking at groundhog and not where he was flying, promptly managed to somehow run into the tree trunk.  Thank God for that, or there would have been carnage, and I don't like my golf game disturbed by carnage, thank you very much! After he got himself together, hawk flew to a low branch on another tree close by, but all the while staring at groundhog, who was not moving a muscle. 

We were close enough to see hawk getting ready to once again try to make groundhog his lunch when, out of nowhere, mocking bird flew in and started attacking hawk! That mocking bird pestered hawk so thoroughly, he finally gave up and flew away.  Groundhog stayed frozen right where he was, looking all around for a good five minutes before he finally skedaddled fast across the next fairway and into the brush.  That little old mockingbird saved the day as far as I'm concerned! (Yeah, yeah I know, that old circle of life thing...PLEASE, just not in front of me!) NICE!

P. S. - I was sure I'd also taken a most ~fabulous~ picture of mocking bird attacking hawk on the tree branch, but when I got home, I discovered I had taken a picture of an empty tree branch. That's what happens when you're old and forget your reading glasses at home, the outcome of which is you don't have a snowball's chance in you-know-where of seeing your camera monitor clearly. Hey! I guess was lucky I got ground hog's picture!  

~~~

xoabb

P.P.S. - Regarding that first picture of the hand of cards for yesterday's Y post:  A yarborough in bridge (or whist) is a hand that has no card higher than a 9, i.e., no honors cards.  Nope, that is not a good thing.

YARBOROUGH!

Y is for...

YARBOROUGH*

~~~

OK, my dear Bridge buddies, do you remember what that term means? 

 ~~~

"Uh-0h" is the word spoken by the holder of the above hand when her partner's Yarborough dummy hand is laid down.

  

It is NOT good! 

~~~

xoabb

*Answer is sure to come in the comments from some quite knowledgeable bridgie kind of person....or I'll supply it tomorrow if there are no correct answers!  (Which I doubt!) 

My Favorite Flower EVER! Really!

The Hydrangeas are out in their full regalia and I've fallen in love!  

Have you ever seen any flower more beautiful???  

(Please do not go here or here....or here, or..darn...again!)  

(It wouldn't be good!)

We have hoya bushes - sculpted at that - lining our front walk-way.  

They're old, huge, out of control and ugly.  

I've decided it would be just the thing to do to rip

 them out and then plant hydrangeas like the ones pictured above.

Wouldn't that be lovely?  Think GB'll see things my way??

Two blossoms on the same plant - one blue....

...and one decidedly lavender

Did you know you can change the color of your hydrangeas?

Yes, it's a banner bloomin' year!  

~~~

The Squirrel Wars revisited:  

You may remember I've been at war with the above fellow for the last year now.  He's one smart squirrel and has "out-foxed" me no matter what I've tried to come up with to keep him out of the birdfeeders.  Well, I was at The Wild Bird center and overheard a gal talking about how she's gone strictly to safflower seeds as grackles and squirrels won't eat them.  Hmmm, I thought, give me some of that!! What you see is a safflower "cake" that fits handily in the feeder. See the expression on Smartie's face?  I don't think he looks very happy, do you?  He jumped off right after I took this and hasn't been back!  Yippee!  (The picture isn't the greatest as the feeder was swinging wildly and I took it through the kitchen window.)

Every Picture Tells a Story...

But sometimes it's impossible to figure out what that story is...

As I was driving down the Post Road, I first noticed this man pushing his cart down the sidewalk. He was far behind the two carts pictured above.  When I stopped at the red light, the man walked around the carts, not once glancing at them, and crossed the street. 

There were no humans visible that might have claim to these other ones. How bizarre to have that particular man pass two other carts that looked exactly like his.  There's a story behind this that I'll never know. And I'd really like to.  

~~~

 xoabb

Sunday Serenity

King of the Side Table's Serenity...

Realized...

& Ultimately Denied...

~~~

xoabb

A Wren's Nest Realized

I finally had a bird's nest that came to ultimate fledgling fruition!  After a failed robin's nest and mallard's nest, (it's been a bad bird's nest year), my mama wren brought it HOME! Her smartest move was nesting in the Christmas Cactus I hang under the eves of our front porch each spring. It's protected from the elements, and safe as there's no way for any varmint (or cat, ahem, Trey-you, darn you!) to be able to climb up and invade the nest...a perfect place...well, except, of course, for me and my camera. But try as I could, I only got a few good pictures. Hope you enjoy the few I could manage:

Mama Wren:  "I DO NOT LIKE you taking our picture!!!

But my babies are safe and sound

 in this perfect nesting place I picked

...and I like that, so take your dang picture

 already and be done with it!!"

Above, the perfect wren nesting place, 

(I do agree with Mama Wren's choice).

All gone - a successful launching - at last!  

Yipee! 

~~~

xoabb

America, America!!

Independence Day 

The 4th of July

Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light, 

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming!

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, 

O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallently streaming!

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, 

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there! 

O SAY DOES THAT STAR-SPANGLED BANNER YET WAVE

O'ER THE LAND OF THE FREE, 

AND THE HOME OF THE BRAVE!

~~~

xoabb

(above photo courtesy of  one of my son's best friend's - he's good!)

An Update, A Lily, & Cuteness Overload

An Update:

I'm baaaack!! Got my computer. It's working brilliantly. It has nothing on it. (It would have cost between 2 and 3 thousand to retrieve the data, and frankly, though I'll miss a lot of what I had, not $3000 worth!) My hard drive just up and died deader than dead. It was defective from the factory get-go so it was just a matter of time before it ceased to work. That'll teach me to be lazy about backing up!  Getting my external hard drive set up with Time Machine asap and am making it a point to backup at least every few weeks!  Thank GOD my hubby had the good sense to buy the extended 3 year warranty!  Smartest thing ever!  Soooo...2000+ pictures -gone...genealogy program with all the relatives listed on it - gone (I do have an older version on my other computer. The pictures?  Nope, those I took off.)...music - gone.  You get the picture, I'm sure.  

A Lily:

My eldest daughter, Rem and I stopped by to see our Little Miss Magic and her mommy.  There are the most beautiful lilies blooming in their yard! This one was so intensely pink it almost looked like it was fake.  I've never seen that color before. 

A cuteness-overload moment:  

Little Missy loves her Auntie's (that would be me) glasses!  She immediately starts looking for them when she sees me.  Once she has them, on they go and on they stay!  Isn't that little girl just the cutest thing you've ever seen, stained shirt and all??

~~~

xoabb 

ABC Wednesday - X

Xanthippe

Main Entry:

Xan·thip·pe 

Pronunciation:

\zan-ˈthi-pē, -ˈti-\

Function:

noun

Etymology:

Greek Xanthippē, shrewish wife of Socrates

Date:

1691

an ill-tempered woman

(see picture below for the walking definition)

Miss LaLa (aka Mental P Mama), who is pictured above and at the time of that picture, obviously in a much better mood, jules, another buddy and I went to lunch today.  I happened to get a phone call while we were there.   

Me:  Hello?  Blah, blah blah. OK, good bye!

I noticed Mental P. was looking perturbed.  I soon enough found out why...

Mental:  That whole conversation you just had just pissed me all the way off.  Does that woman know nothing?  What kind of stupid were those questions she was asking??? 

Me:  Whatever! 

A few minutes later a very tall man has the audacity to walk in the restaurant as he is talking on his cell phone.  

Mental:  "Who the hell does he think he is??? Just walking in here like he owns the place talking on his cell phone."

Me:  "What's the big deal????  You were just on your cell phone."

Mental:  "That's different.  My call was important."

Me:  "Oh."

Mental:  "Well, I guess for your X word you should just use me instead of that Maxine cartoon! Xanthippe, my arse!  Obviously my hormones are running rampant and I am not pleased by anything!!!"

Ya think???

~~~

xoabb

P. S. Still no word on my computer woes....(sigh)