Saturday Scenes

Here's this Saturdays happenings.............................................................

At the front of the house I found Ms. Mockingbird hoping around. At first I thought she wasn't able to fly. She beep-bopped around on my bench and then clung to the side of the wood support. Then off she fly but not before I snapped this picture.We put up this birdhouse a few weeks ago. So far, no new boarders but I was lucky to catch Mr. Bluebird checking out the scenery from the top.This is a new hibiscus I brought home. I really enjoy the beautiful colors of hibiscus. Unfortunately it is one that has to be brought in every winter but I'll deal with that when the time comes. And lastly, most of you don't know I have always been active. In high school I ran track, but I was a sprinter. If anyone had ever told me, one day you will run distance, I would have laughed. Well since then, in my early adult life, I became a long distance runner. I use to run 10K's(6.2 miles) and actually ran the Peachtree Road race in Atlanta twice along with other races.

As I have, let's say matured, I have slowed down to walking. I haven't ran a race since the early 90's, that is until yesterday. I have been throwing some running in with my walking and decided I wanted to give it a go again. This was a 5K(3.1 miles) which is more my speed. The picture above shows my results. I am proud to say I won 1st place in my age group and 1st place for Grand Masters overall female. Needless to say I am in search of my next race.

Well that was fun........not!!!

There's nothing like receiving a phone call at 12:15 a.m. telling you a tornado is headed your way. That's what happened to us Wednesday night. My in-laws have a weather radio that warns you when violent weather is in your area so she is the party that called.

At first it's like okay and then the senses kick in telling you to get your lazy self out of bed and into your "safe room". Our safe room happens to be our laundry room. Immediately I start grabbing pillows and blankets and anything else I can think of. My hubbie immediately turns on the t.v. to check the progress. The next thing you know, the power goes out. Since we live out here in the "country" we know it won't be back on for who knows how long. He grabs a flashlight and I go in search of the trusty candle.

I'd say we stayed up until about 1:00 watching the storm. After we thought it had passed back to bed we go of course with our hearts beating at an abnormally faster pace. So Mr. Sleep doesn't come as fast as we would like.

When it's time to get up that's when you realize how import electricity is. It's tough trying to get ready for work in the dark. After hubbie left I looked out the window and noticed how beautiful everything looked. I loved the way Mr. Sun was waking everything up.The privet looks limey green.The mighty oak looks a little softer with Mr. Sun waking up his sleepy leaves.The tall bloom of the foxglove is smiling in the warmth. This picture was taken thru the window. Same picture taken from outside.

We had storms again last night. Luckily the power stayed on.

I hope everyone has a great gardening weekend and please remember to pray for those folks in Fargo, ND. I have a blogger friend up there and it looks pretty bad.

Saturday Scenes

Did you know Jackson, MS boast the 4th largest St. Patrick's Day parade? This event started back in 1982 with some friends, pickup trucks and cruising in downtown Jackson.

This past Saturday I got to experience it for myself. We had a beautiful warm day and the crowds were out all decked in green.Now I don't know if you have ever heard of the Sweet Potato Queens but these folks know how to have fun! There were over 11 groups of them this year with some coming as far away as Indonesia. Here's a little sampling of the groups......................Do these girls look like they're having fun or what?!?! I told my hubbie I wanted to be a Sweet Potato Queen!Every St. Patty's Day parade has to have a bagpipe band. I can't imagine how hard it is to play one of these things but I love the sound.How about this old truck used as a float? Maybe not, but I think it's pretty neat looking.This was more of a typical float in the parade. Notice the port-a-potty? Only in MS will you ever see this!!! At first I couldn't figure out why all floats had these on board. When we were walking out I figured out why.......................The parade was about 3 hours long. Maybe that's a little too long for us less-partying types. This celebration does have a good cause though. It is a fundraiser for the childrens hospital. To date they have raised over $300,000. One last thing I need to mention. See this pile of beautifully colored beads, they must weigh about 5 pounds and I wore them home from the parade. These things are flung off those floats at people. The green sash was given to me by one of the King Queens from Memphis. These ladies were dressed just like Elvis. They were a hoot!

Hope you enjoyed the parade. I certainly did!

A Great Week!

After our last rain on Monday, the weather cleared. We had warm sunshiny days and blue skies with temps in high 70's.

I've been back at work for a couple of weeks and we have really been getting the plants in. It's like Christmas in March. Even though we still have the danger of a possible frost people have been buying left and right. It's been a fantastic week! And I don't mean money wise, I just mean I love talking to people about their gardens and what they are interested in.

With all these plants we're stocking I'm always on the look-out for what I don't need that I gotta have. So this week I bit the bullet and purchased this little number.Okay, so maybe it isn't a little number but it is a Limelight Hydrangea. Racquel at Perennial Garden Lover has one of these and it is a beauty. She has shown it's beautiful white blooms and what a great performer it is, so I decided it was time to find out. I think it will brighten up this little corner of my fence.

Speaking of brighten, the other morning I was able to capture a couple of pictures that I want to share. They were taken about 7:00 a.m. when the sun was just beginning to wake up the sky and the trees.I hope you all have a wonderful gardening weekend!

A Walk in the Mush, erh, garden

Today I decided I had to see what was going on in my muddy backyard. So I grabbed my camera and off I go. There still isn't a lot going on but I managed a couple of shots.The Homestead verbena is a great plant! Much of it stayed around all winter without the blooms of course.It started blooming about a week or two ago. It has such a spreading effect and has evolved to this......(yes I know there are lots of leaves in my flower bed, feel free to grab a rake and come on down)!My phlox is blooming now. I have a very small patch for now but I know it will increase in size gradually.My pincushion flower has bloomed off and on every since I planted it last year. Another thing I like about this plant is how it stays evergreen for me.I know this doesn't look like much now but this is one of my sugar snap peas I planted under my new arbor. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will climb right on up my arbor and show me some great produce!Speaking of produce, remember this pot I showed in another post. I planted June bearing strawberries in it and they look happy. I did plant the rest in the ground, some are looking okay, but others, not so much.Then lastly I did manage a picture of some little tweets. They've had a hard time feeding lately because of the red-wing blackbirds that hog the feeder.

Well thanks for plodding through the mud with me. Remember if you're feet got really nasty, wear galoshes next time.

I Got the Rainy Day Blues...................

I hate to admit it, but it's true. I got the rainy day blues. Don't get me wrong, rain is wonderful in moderation and is much needed. We'd all suffer tremendously, plants included, without it. But right now I find myself missing Mr. Sunshine something awful. This is the main reason I haven't blogged in a few days. I can't get outside to take any pics. This Saturday we did go to a garden/patio show. Truthfully, it left me feeling less than excited so therefore I didn't take any pictures that were blogworthy.

Sunday after church Mr. Sun did try to say hi but Mr./Mrs. Clouds wouldn't let him. We decided to go to the park to walk anyway. I knew I had seen a momma duck with 4 cute babies so I took the camera thinking that would be a cute picture. Well wouldn't you know they were no where to be seen. So that was another disappointment.

This morning before leaving for work it was raining again. I took a quick look outside and saw how sad even my angel on the birdbath looked.
So, if anyone has Mr. Sunshine at their home would you please tell him someone in MS needs to see him pretty bad!?!?!?

It was time.....

Well we did it! Saturday morning we got up to a beautiful day, jumped into the car and took a little excursion. Guess where we ended up?Nope, that's not snow. That is wonderful, warm, soft, almost white as snow sand!

We decided to head south to the coast of MS. No, it's not quite as beautiful as the Gulf but hey, it's only about 3 hours away. We started our visit in Gulfport and ended up in Ocean Springs. Sometimes you have to go with what works and besides these people need our dollars since so much of this area was blown away by hurricane Katrina.

Now most of you don't know my hubbie or the way he works. He likes to have a plan for everything. I think this is the first time we traveled to anywhere without a plan(except for a trip to Gatlinburg, TN once but that's a different story) and it was great!It was a great day for beachcombing. There wasn't too many people on the beach and this is the first little guy we came across. He looked like a statue standing there so perfectly.And then there were these guys making good use of what had been a pier. They all seemed to be having a great time out there soaking up all that warm sunshine. But my favorite vote getter of the day would be these guys.I love to watch pelicans. They have such a big wing span and they fly in a line above the water when they are scouting for dinner. They are especially fun to watch when fisherman are cleaning their catch and throwing remnants to them. That is what was happening here!In this next picture you can see they are starting to get a little agitated with each other.In this last picture the pelican on the right had actually caught the fish remnants and the bird on the left was trying to "fish" it out of his bill. I was so caught up in trying to capture the action that I don't know who ended up with the "goods". It was so funny to watch. As strong as their bills must be I don't know how he didn't puncture a hole in that other ones soft tissue.

We really enjoyed our visit on the beach. In my next post I will try to give a little more history about the area.

Winter Project II

A few days ago I showed you my new pathway in my backyard. Today I want to show the rest of it.This is the other end which is on the far right. In this picture you can see my saucer magnolia and opposite from it is a new crape myrtle transplant from my in-laws yard. The container of sticks/limbs is from neighbors trees that like to drop dead branches in my yard. Isn't that generous!?!?
This past fall we had very some strong winds. One morning going into work we discovered a big mess upon arrival. The wind had managed to blow over some containers that were holding shrubs/trees and thus breaking some really nice pottery. Well I put my "ole thinkin cap" on and decided I wanted some of it. As you can see I decided it would make a neat walkway into the back of the yard.I bought some edging and put it in place while the ground was saturated. Then I cleaned and scrapped out all grass and weeds.Then I started placing the pieces where I thought they would fit best. The next thing I knew I decided I needed to put sand down and then place the pieces in. This seemed to work better.The end result. At first I thought it was too stark with the light sand but I think when things green up and more plants are planted in this area it will look better.As you can see I added one more element to this area. I came across this arbor this winter and thought it would work perfectly. Plus I thought it was a great deal at $20.00. For now, I planted sugar snap peas at the base and am hopeful they will do good. Later, I will plant some type of flowering vine there.