I love my wife
But gawd we are tired. I think I went to bed sick about 5 or 6 last night. I was puttering in the garage and my body said to me. "Scott" That's what my body calls me, Scott.
It said, "Scott If you do another thing I will fall apart" So I went in and went to bed.
Apparently My body confired with Kathy's body and this morning she has that same. "Unplugged" feeling.
The trees however look great. I even can look out of my office window and see birds sitting in my bush. Well no not My bush there are no birds in there. In the bush Kathy planted outside my office window. I have adopted it. It's my bush.
Ok to work now.
new baby pines
I have 2 words for you: Birds...... Squirrels.
Here on my patio I find baby trees growing in everything that is potted. I left a towel on the shelves and when I picked it up out poured hundreds of seeds. Birds plant them in the pots most of the time and the squirrels hide them anywhere they can find that will be easy access later in the winter.
Supposedly, a lot of the seeds have a waxy coating on them (Ironwood tree seeds are the ones that come immediately to mind) and have to go through the digestive system of a squirrel, rabbit or bird before they can germinate. Not so with the Palo Verde seeds or the Mesquite seeds. Put them in dirt, add water and you get a tree. Perhaps it is the same with the pine nuts.
If you cannot find out what type of tree it is in your front yard I will take a picture the next time I am there and ask the fellow that we get our trees and plants from at Black Mountain Nursery. He is amazing. I am actually thinking of paying for him to come out to the house in December for some advice on what to plant next and where to plant it. He may also be able to give me some advice about the big Palo Verde in our front. It seems to be having some problems. The last person that I asked suggested that I just cut it down and plant new trees.
The baby pine
Your baby pine will live on the patio for a while. He is being moved to a much larger pot for a while and set where he will get lots of sun.
Can you tell me exactly what kind of pine he is? There are lots of pines here in the Phoenix are but if I knew his 'name' it would help me to research exactly what I need to do to help him survive and thrive in the desert.
poor Scott.......He married a 'do-it-yourself' kind of girl
They just delivered our plants.
Most of the big holes are already dug except for the 24 inch boxed yellow mexican bird of paradise. We do have several 1 and 5 gallon plants to dig holes for.......OH, and the fig tree! It will go into the back yard where I can make sure that when it sets fruit I get the bird netting on so that we will get at least one or two off of it.
The trees that they delivered for along the west side of the house and garage are almost as tall as the house already!
Plants are just sitting around in their pots waiting for tomorrow when they will permanently become part of our landscape.
It is so very kool! The house already looks great and they are not even in the ground yet!
Here is what we had delivered:
5 tall acacia trees that resemble eucalyptus trees
4 thornless chilean mesquite
1 HUGE boxed yellow mexican bird of paradise
2 hopseed bushes
2 medium yellow birds
1 fig tree
Here are the other things that will go into the ground this weekend. These have been sitting around in pots for as long as 2 years.
2 red mexican bird of paradise
4 purple sage
several assorted cacti
The 4 bouganvillia that are on the patio will soon adorn the south side of the garage as soon as we build some kind of trellis for them to climb. I won't push for that for a couple of weeks.
Have a great weekend all! I will have Scott post pictures on our website of the new plants and the new dining room set.
the whole snake story
This morning, after feeding the dogs and doing a few chores, the dogs and I retired to the patio so they could prowl and play and I could have a cup of coffee. After a few minutes they all collapsed for a morning nap…..except for Voo. He stood watch at the entrance to the mouse/ground squirrel hole waiting for anything to appear……..as usual.
After a few minutes I realized that he was watching something intently and slowly and quietly beginning his stalking routine. He continued with eyes riveted to stalk in slow motion running parallel to the patio from the entrance to the dog yard. Then he changed direction and was headed toward the patio. As he reached the patio the other dogs suddenly began to show some interest in whatever he was following.
THEN I HEARD THE RATTLE!!!!!!!!!
For the very first time when I yelled the command ‘HOUSE’ every one of them ran for the door. I ran in behind them, grabbed the .22 that was loaded with snake shot and ran back out.
I slowly approached the flower pots where I had seen a tail disappear earlier and suddenly realized that I was seeing two rattles.
HOLY SHIT!!!!!! THERE WERE TWO OF THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There was no way that I was going to reach down and move any of the 6 or 7 pots surrounding the pillar so I took aim between the pots and fired several shots. I knew that I had not obtained a head shot but knew that I had done enough body damage that they would die.
At this point I ran back into the house and began going over the dogs inch by inch to see if any of them had gotten bitten. I found no bites, swelling or anything else to indicate a snake bite so I called Scott to tell him that we had to figure out a way to close off the entrance to the mouse nest (those tunnels can go on for yards) and to ask if we had any more snake shot. During our discussion I told Scott that I was going to go out and cut off their head with the hula hoes (I really needed to make them suffer for endangering my babies). He suggested that I call our neighbor Buck for back-up. I was sure that I could handle the clean up myself so did not make that call but did go in search of the hula hoes which seemed to have grown legs and left the patio.
As I was looking for the hoes, Buck drove up and got out of his truck with gun in hand. I guess Scott had called him to make sure that if something went wrong I would have back up. I am not quite sure what a 76 year old man with heart trouble and almost blind and deaf was going to do.
I showed him where the snakes were and then, using the hoe drug them into the sun so he could see to shoot them again. He had, after all, brought a gun with the anticipation of getting to shoot something!
Buck went home, I put the snakes in a bucket so that Scott can see them when he gets home, and went back into the house to recheck the dogs………again and again and again and again.
This all transpired between 9:15 and 9:45. I finally quit shaking around noon. Adrenaline, it is amazing stuff.
In retrospect, it is a good thing that there were two of them. They were fighting or mating. They are very territorial and will try to kill any other snake that enters what they perceive as their home. They were so busy with each other that they did not have time to pay any attention to the hairless poodle that had become their shadow or the crazy barefoot lady trying to shoot them.
Snakes on the Patio, NOT the plane
Later today I will post pictures.
But I got a call from Kathy, she was calm and collected on the phone. But I have a feeling that she was rather stressed once I heard her question.
"Scott do we have any more snake shot, I have emptied the entire gun into them and they are still wiggling. "
(THEY- DID YOU FREAKING CATCH THAT ONE THEY!!!!)
I said (calmly) no but there are bullets just remember when you load them up they will bounce.
Later she reported they were both dead. I'll let her tell the full story as I post the pictures later.
Kathy Safe:
Dogs Safe:
Snakes not safe:
From Mom
Subject: think about this for a second
Some things to ponder OK, I know you'll like these:
Think about this:
1. Cows
2.. The Constitution
3... The Ten Commandments
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COWS
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington. And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow..
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THE CONSTITUTION
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq .... Why don't we just give them ours? It was
written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore.
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THE 10 COMMANDMENTS
The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse or Congress is this --
you cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal' 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians ...... it creates a hostile work environment.
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Testing One, Two, Three
We also need to add a picture of Samba for her.
Dam Squirrels
