a thump at the door

So, it was after nine last night and we were sitting on the couch and we heard a series of thumps outside the front door. Marc gets up and opens the door, turns on the light, and says...it's the turtle!

Big Mama?!, I ask, getting up and looking, wondering if I had left the gate open, which has been known to happen. Not Big Mama. Bigger than Big Mama. And I wouldn't call Big Mama small or even medium. She's pretty big at 10 1/2".

I know we've been getting a lot of rain but how, and the bigger question why, did a huge red ear slider find it's way to thumping around the front door of our house on the concrete under the overhang. It's not like we live on the banks of a bayou or even a creek and the river is about 3 miles away though there are several drainage ditches nearby.

You just gonna leave it there, he asks me?

Well. Yeah. I wasn't thinking of trying to keep it. Big Mama is one thing, she's been a captive since she was hatched just about (and just what would she think to have a bigger wild turtle plonked down in her pond). This girl had survived quite well on her own. Still he was concerned that she needed water so I carried her through the house (paused for a photo shoot) and out the back door and out the gate and set her down on the ground next to the water lily pond. She could indulge or continue on her journey.

No sign of her this morning.

what passes for excitement around here

Last week, the tank that holds the water that the pump pumps from the well over at the shop failed. Meaning that some seal at the bottom of the upright tank gave way and was spewing water out into the yard.

The shop is on city water, having converted over at the same time as our house did (before we bought it) when the city was putting in water pipes for hydrants of which there is one across the street from our driveway. There might be one more house on city water on the street but everyone else relies on their well. The well and the pump and the water tank were still there and, as far as we knew, functional, so we turned the pump back on thinking we would use the water for the garden and it has held for a year.

We have no idea how long it was spewing water, couldn't have been more than a day or two, but now the pump is off again. It's an old well and all kinds of things go wrong or deteriorate or erode so I'm not sure we will do anything about it. We'll see.

Anyway, I was working in the shop and Marc walked back there to check it out now that the standing water had soaked in. Next thing he was back bent over, pale, hand on heart; just call the ambulance now, he says. He had a close encounter with a 'brightly' colored snake about 20” long, slithered over his sandal clad foot. First snake sighting of the year! When I quizzed him about it he said he and it were going in opposite directions as fast as they could so he didn't get a good look. It was probably a coral snake, very venomous (but little bitty mouths) and very shy, they would rather run away. They feed during the day as opposed to other snakes that mostly hunt at night. He liked to have had a heart attack.

Needless to say he never made it back to the tank for a look.

incremental progress

the peach log Wesley didn't take

I got my first look at the milled and sanded peach wood for the top of the peach box last Saturday. Wesley was waiting for me in the front of the store when I came around from the other side after opening up. He had two slices that he got from one of the two logs I gave him. He cut thick slices out of both logs and because they were still 'wet' with sap, he put them in front of the heater blower all winter. The ones from one log warped but the two from the other log didn't.

So now they are sanded down flat and smooth on both sides, about 3/8" thick and they are so pretty! I had no idea what the wood would look like, the color or the pattern of the grain, but I am very happy with it and while I had my camera with me, it didn't occur to me to take pictures.

They would be finished but Wesley lost the pattern I gave him for the size so I need to get him another one. I've done the cold work on the box and I'm diddling about whether or not I want to grind the peach inlay down some more since it fits fine now. I have to decide if grinding more off the bottom will actually make it better or just satisfy my tendency to focus on small details, in other words, things only I would notice.

And I still need to decide if I want to make a new sculpture of the peach blossoms for the top. I still haven't done the cold work on the one I have already done because, essentially, I'm not really satisfied with it. The leaves didn't cast completely and the color is too consistent and too dark for my liking. That's also one of those decisions about quality vs being anal.

At this rate it's going to be three years before I get this one finished.

tiny things

More gardening planned for today. Banana trees and bougainvillea first on the list.

I started noticing these tiny flowers and bugs this spring. Mostly these are from the grounds of the shop. All these little flowers and bugs are 1/4” or less in size with one or two exceptions.

 ants inside the squash flower

 scarlet pimpernel

 baby praying mantis

 pink flower

this little spider was closer to 1/2”

 this deer pea vetch flower was 1/8”

 the bug on the pea flower...so tiny!

 the little dayflower was about 5/8”

little lawnflower also about 1/8”

 yellow wood sorrel (?)

 tiny venus' comb flowers in a cluster

1/8” black medic bloom

coral colored flower

flowers and films

I've been taking a lot of pictures of a lot of the same things like the easter lilies 

and the wildflowers with the queen anne's lace and the clasping coneflowers ascendant, 

the larkspur, 

the coming on day lilies. 

The poppies are gone and I'm collecting seeds. I've been working on the grounds over at the shop too. I have two, three really, areas that I am starting to landscape: around the concrete bunker, on the far left side (the west side), and in front under the awning. I'm also eyeing the light and sign poles as starting points...banana trees next to one of the light poles, put up some poultry fencing between the old sign poles and plant the desert willow trumpet vine waiting patiently in a pot, the bougainvillea against the west side of the old dog pen. Once established, these will take no care. I need to do another section around the bunker which already has the pony tail palm, spider lilies, yellow angel trumpet flower, and love in a mist in between. Oh, and a great start on baby blue eyes too.

My newest effort was clearing about 10 feet of stuff along the west side of the building and planting some morning glory bush cuttings on the corner and an angel trumpet farther down and scattered some fall blooming cosmos seeds between them. I've been working mornings while it is in the shade over there. Even so, I sweated buckets today. By the end of the month it will be too hot to work outside no matter what part of the day you try to do it. So, since this is bearing down on me and I still have lots of things I want to get in the ground, that's what I am doing, working on business matters in the afternoon.

Unless I'm going to the movie.

We went to see two movies this week. After our very happy clients left with their piece Tuesday morning, we hopped in the car and went to see The Avenger's Age Of Ultron since we had postponed the birthday movie to this week.

We would have changed our mind and gone to see Ex Machina except it wasn't playing at the theater. We totally enjoyed The Avenger's as we are fans of the genre but decided that when we went in to the city on errands, we would go see the other. So on Thursday, we did.

We were glad we had seen The Avenger's first because this film, Ex Machina, is a good film but it is not exciting in the general Hollywood fashion. It is more cerebral and there are really only three characters, or four, one who doesn't speak and all the scenes are one on one. The trailer makes it seem more flashy and exciting than it is and that's probably to attract people. It's about artificial intelligence, a kind of creepy billionaire genius, and the person he selects to conduct the 'test' to see if his creation passes for real. It's a film that makes you think and it's a bit edgy with full frontal female nudity and there is some build-up to the film's finish. I enjoyed it but don't go see it thinking it's a flashy with lots of action sci-fi film.

eye tests and real glasses

So I went and got my eyes examined Monday and, sigh, I do need glasses to drive. Well, I need glasses so they will let me drive. Exam results were 20/20 in my left eye, 20/50 in my right eye. No sign of glaucoma and the general health of my eyes is good. Basically, my left eye is doing all the seeing while my right eye is giving me clues from my peripheral vision like color and stuff. I considered getting glasses just for distance but as the doc pointed out, it would mean I wouldn't be able to see anything close up while I was driving, like a map (no I don't have Siri telling me where to turn). Since my eyes were dilated, I went back yesterday to pick out frames. I picked 10 pairs to winnow out, choosing heavily from the wire rim selection. I took pictures of each pair as I tried them on but after looking at the pictures after I downloaded them, they all looked pretty much the same.

I finally narrowed it down to two pairs and then to the final one and ordered my glasses. I'm getting the progressive lenses but decided against the transition lenses. I'll just get me a pair of prescription sunglasses later. They have a lot of frames for $20 so it will just basically be the cost of the lenses. In the meantime, I hope my big sunglasses will fit over my new prescription glasses though I don't really wear sunglass very often, mostly just when I am driving or am at the beach.

These are the frames I chose.

They should be ready next week.

birthday week

Last Thursday was my birthday, my 65^th. I usually take the day off as a personal day but since I took the day off the previous Monday to hang with my brother and sister and I was planning to take last Friday off to go to Brookwood with my sister and some other ladies, I had to be available for questioning while Marc did the sandblasting on the cabin in the mountains panel. Which we finished.

Brookwood is a residential facility for the mentally challenged. It's a beautiful place and the residents live in group homes with a house mother. They refer to their residents as citizens and strive to give them dignity and worth. Brookwood is supported by donations and by the work of the residents. Their main business is a wholesale nursery. They have large greenhouses where they propagate and raise the plants for sale, a ceramics shop and a concrete shop where they make things to sell in the gift shop and in the retail greenhouse and grounds. 

They also have a very nice restaurant and being appointed to work in the restaurant is a high honor to them. 

They also have, since I was there several years ago on a garden club field trip, a new very nice art gallery. 

It's a very classy place overall and I bought a red hibiscus, a gardenia, a bougainvillea, and my sister bought me a beautiful pot of maidenhair for my birthday which would have cost twice as much at any of the nursery's in the city.

I spent most of Saturday and Sunday working out in the yard though I didn't get anything major accomplished. I mixed up a wheelbarrow full of compost and potting soil and repotted my desert rose which was busting out of it's second pot and got the maidenhair in a bigger pot, collected the gone by poppy seed heads and pulled out the dead plants, dug out the grass and weeds out of another section of the old vegetable garden and planted some tall orange cosmos that bloom in the fall, and got an armload of ferns planted along the shady side of the house. Doesn't seem like much for two days worth of work.

Late afternoon yesterday, my daughter and son-in-law and the three grandgirls (the grandboy was at work) came out to visit. Jade had made me a birthday cake and they had candles and a princess kit with a tiara and a wand and earrings and a banner which was meant for someone much smaller and younger than me but I donned it all anyway.

 

The other thing I did connected with my birthday this year was apply for Medicare so for the first time in my life, I have health insurance and an affordable supplement.

Well, my eye appointment is in a couple of hours so I guess I'll find out if I need glasses other than the drugstore magnifiers I use to read.