These photos were all taken on September 23rd and 25th 2015 while we were on a trip to London. They are just too cute not to share with the world. So very artistic and creative, I took photos of my favorites. I wish I had taken the time to take photos of all of them. May these bring you peace and joy. Please let me know which is your favorite in the comments below.
As I sit here writing this on my front porch, I practice feeding the little squirrel we have dubbed “Buddy”. He nervously comes to grab peanuts in the shell from my outstretched hand. Yes, this takes practice. I have to steady my nerves so my hand won’t shake while I wait for him to grab the peanut between his teeth. It takes practice trusting me to feed him and not harm him. It is a relationship that has built up slowly over time. It began with a sweet little squirrel we dubbed Suzy, but we haven’t seen her around for a few weeks. Buddy is definitely NOT Suzy. He doesn’t quite trust us as fully as Suzy did yet. Suzy would come running when Hubby or I walked out of the house and called, while the other squirrels would run away in fear. For a while we had both Buddy and Suzy visiting us on the porch at the same time.
The storm really whipped up quickly to the point that the rain was blowing in on my turquoise table as I sat writing. Because I didn’t want my computer getting wet, I had to take cover in the house instead, but not to worry I left a big hand full of peanuts on the porch for Buddy. We can practice again another day.
In case you are curious here are some videos of either my Hubby or I feeding our squirrels.
This is the first time I caught a video of me feeding Suzy. I’ve been touched by a squirrel!
Here is My Son feeding Buddy. My Son is the one that named him Buddy and Suzy was on the porch that day too. As you can see, it takes practice, patience and most of all trust on both the feeder and the squirrel’s part to make this work.
This is me feeding some of the backyard squirrels we call them the fake Suzys. They are way too skittish to be the real Suzy.
Here is Hubby feeding Buddy. He is getting a little more comfortable around us every day.
Many things in life take practice, and of those almost all take patience as well. What have you decided to practice lately? Care to share? If you want to share, please do so in the comments below.
This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Practice
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.
I have been pressured for a long time (several years) to agree to bring another pet into our home. More specifically, a cat. Hubby and adult daughter have been unrelenting lately. I keep saying, “No!”, and they beg and plead like a couple of kids wanting their first puppy.
I feel like I am being ganged up on. I tell adult daughter I already gave in on the hamster when she was in high school and even the pet rabbit, Bruce, also when she was in high school. I finally on the bunny when they called me from the state fair and asked again because I was told the life expectancy of the rabbit was just three to five years. We have had Bruce the Bunny for about six and a half years now and he doesn’t seem to be aging. I knew I was hoodwinked when just a week or two after they brought Bruce home from the Indiana State Fair because adult daughter’s friend’s bunny died. When I asked daughter how old the bunny was, she said fourteen years old. What? “I thought you said bunnies only lived three to five years!” Apparently, the lady who sold hubby and adult daughter the bunny for only $10 at the fair told them three to five years and they took her at her word. I, in turn, believed hubby and adult daughter when they told me they would both take care of the bunny, it would only live three to five years and it would be no trouble at all. He was to live in a cage and only be out of the said cage to exercise two hours a day. Umm…yeah. Bruce the Bunny has taken down any number of electrical appliances (aquarium filter system, lamps, televisions, the entire house network, the cable and internet service for the house) and currently has free reign over hubby’s entire office. Oh, did I mention he also bites unsuspecting sleeping people in their beds on occasion? I must say as long as he isn’t getting into trouble he is a very quiet pet. He never barks or meows.
I have come to appreciate the peace and quiet in our home with pets that are contained and don’t talk all the time like cats always do. I also appreciate not having cat hair everywhere, having the house smell like cat pee all the time, waking up to surprise hairballs on my bed, or stepping in cat puke in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom. I like the freedom of not having to get anyone to come in and pet-sit for us when we want to go away for the weekend. I like NOT having cats on the table and counters, knocking over cups and vases, chewing on houseplants, and having to do cat checks to make sure they aren’t locked up where they shouldn’t be while we are away from home all day. (The other two don’t appreciate this because I am usually the last one out of the house and thus the one the cat check falls on.) I am also the one around the house more often and thus would be the one pestered for attention. We had cats for many, many years. It has been several years since we have had any as permanent residents of our home. We have had temporary cat guests (Moxie and Pope) for a week or two at a time and I have given in on that because I knew they would go back to their owners in a short while and I hoped it might lessen the nagging for us to get a cat. I would also like to say that adult daughter is rarely ever at home unless she is sleeping and hubby works long hours and has more volunteer commitments and meetings than anyone should so he is rarely home either.
When our family commits to a pet, we commit “until death do us part”, like it or not. We have never returned a pet, given one away, or even turned one loose on society. Darling daughter is constantly trying to get us to do just that with Gilligan the snapping turtle. I reminded her that is not how we do things in our family and that we made a commitment to take care of him for life, just like all the fish in our tanks, Sophie the hamster, Bruce the bunny and all the cats (Sammy, Morgan, Pumpkin, Smokey, and Goldie).
The latest tactic to try to force cats on me again is the recent death of my mother-in-law. Apparently, since we haven’t had cats for a few years, the whole darned family assumes we will take at least one maybe even two of the cats my mother-in-law had. I’m sorry if my mother-in-law was under the mistaken assumption that hubby would take a certain cat if anything ever happened to her, she didn’t ask my opinion, but she DID know how I felt about it. My stance is that ours is currently the only cat-free house and thus all the other families and houses are already used to having cats and another one or two wouldn’t make that much difference. There are only four or five cats to find homes for so it shouldn’t be a problem as there are at least five other houses here in the city where her cats could find good homes with various other family members.
I feel I have agreed to my share of pets and wish the rest of the family, immediate and otherwise, would respect my feelings and drop the subject for good. I feel like we are at the stage in our lives where we have the chance to travel more often and I don’t want the commitment and responsibility of more pets to tie us down. As long as we are mobile enough to travel, and have Bruce and Gilligan and the fish to deal with, I don’t want to get any more pets. I will not agree to allow any more pets into my home for the foreseeable future. Stop looking for loopholes, please. Subject closed.
This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Agree
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.
Last weekend, while driving around southern Indiana back roads, my hubby spotted a peacock crossing the road. I didn’t believe him. I mean really, a peacock? He assured me he was serious, so he turned around to prove it to me and I took the photos you see here because nobody would have believed me either.
So, my immediate reaction to seeing a peacock crossing the road was to ask hubby, “Why did the peacock cross the road?”. He laughs and I tell him, “To get to the other side of course!” That is so cliche, but apparently, even peacocks need to cross the road sometimes.
The peacock looked much less majestic than I had expected. He was dragging his tail behind him. Maybe he was having a bad day. I’m just glad we didn’t scare him or run over him.
The lesson in all of this is to pay attention and be aware of your surroundings at all times. You never know what The Lord will put in your path. Also be sure to keep your phone charged and always at hand so you never miss a chance to take a photo of one of God’s beautiful creations when it crosses the road in front of you.
During this same day of roaming around the back country roads in areas south of Indianapolis, we also experienced the sounds of someone burning brush bonfire style. I heard it and smelled it while we were stopped for a time. During that stop, I took the time to look up and out the car window and saw how pretty the sun was shining through the trees.
At yet another stop, we clearly heard what was obviously someone doing target practice on the other side of a stand of trees. We wisely decided not to wander around while we were stopped there.
We saw cool bridges, small country churches, and so many trees. The weather was not too hot and not too cold. Perfect for using the air conditioning during the highway driving and yet nice enough to be pleasant sitting on the side of the road with the windows down.
In case you are asking yourself why we were driving around and sitting along the side of the road for extended periods of time, we were working checkpoints for a national SCCA Road Rally, but that is a post for another time assuming I can get hubby to explain the attraction of this sport he enjoys so much. Maybe sometime I will understand it well enough to explain it to others so you can understand. Until that time, just know that it is a thing and it might be of interest to you if you enjoy exploring the world off the beaten path.
If you find yourself with a free day and want to wander around Indiana, I can highly recommend the roads between Greenwood and Brown County State Park. Drive at a leisurely pace so you don’t miss seeing any of the surprises God puts in your path.
On our recent trip to the Pigeon Forge area in Tennessee, we were driving around trying to find something in particular, when we passed something more interesting and got side tracked. We needed a place to turn around and the place we pulled into was called, oddly enough, Goats on the Roof.
We couldn’t help ourselves, we laughed when we saw the name of the place. Then, of course, we looked up on the roofs to see if they really had goats on the roof. Yep, them are goats. Sure enough. We didn’t stop for long that day because we really did have other plans. Continue reading
