Nebraska Dave don’t worry, I’m back.   Hopefully this post will get me back on GRIT in cyberspace.   

   

Between working several later shifts, flu, rain, garden tours, General Jackson War of 1812 return from New Orleans to Nashville via the Natchez Trace, Bar B Q cook offs, return to the land of the witch of Whistle Stop Junction, and working in the yard until dark, I’ve been seriously stressed for time.    

    

The week after the garden tours, we had a group of re-enactors to come into Tuscumbia following Gen Jackson’s march back to Nashville after Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812.  The spent two weeks retracing the event up the Natchez Trace and along the way had educational opportunities with schools and the public.  A Facebook page diary detailed each day of the real march in  1813.  Without the help of the Native Americans along the way General Jackson and his men would have starved.  They were rewarded by Indian Removal Act in 1830 which forced approximately 100,000 Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles to move from their homeland in the South to Oklahoma from 1830 to 1850.  Part of the event was a side trip to Tuscumbia Landing, a site from which Native Americans were removed by river.  It is usually a very emotional experience for descendents of those removed seeing the Landing with its face looking out to the river experience.   

    

      

     

Janice and I returned to the town where that woman called the law on us while we were driving around taking barn pictures to pick up my Hooligan tile and a Rosedale Garden stone for my front yard. Oh course I had to put an Auburn logo on it also along with a flower.  Mark and his wife Missy treated us to a fine lunch and took us to see some of the sites along the Jackson Military Road, burial mounds and the grave of an unknown soldier of 1812.    

   

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

I was checking some of my flower photos from last year around the middle of April; I think Mother Nature has overslept this year.  My peonies are just starting to bloom.  Last year they were finished by this time and the iris were at the end of their bloom season.  This year they started blooming about a week ago.   

     

    

My corn didn’t come up after 1.8 inches of rain, when the garden finally got dry enough to till again, I re-planted my corn as thick as fleas along the back of a hound dog.  I also planted pickling  and yard long cucumbers. The next morning on April 24,we had 1.98 inches of rain.  Fast forward to May 2, my brother Joe’s birthday, happy birthday bro, and so far no corn nor cucumbers.  The farmer I showed in my last post planting corn in the rain has a very nice stand.   I’m on vacation next week to work in the yard.  I haven’t mowed my three acres yet and it and my flower beds is a candidate for nature preserve.  A Yellow-breasted chat normally a shy bird living among dense brushy haunts built a nest under the eve of my greenhouse.  One of the fledglings instead of going out into the world somehow made it into the greenhouse. I propped the door and went back to the house and got a fine weave fishing net that I use for catching hummingbirds in Mom’s garage and caught the youngster.  I gave it a drink of water and as I walked out of the garage to turn it loose, it bit one of my fingers. When I finally got the little snapping turtle loose and let it go, it flew straight back into the greenhouse.  So after another chase, I catch it and it rewards me with another bite.  After turning it loose, it made a mad dash off toward the dry creek.   I’ve seen several birds in my yard that I haven’t seen before such as a Solitary Sandpiper.  

    

    

 Last weekend we had a BBQ cook in a rainy Tuscumbia.  I had fun just watching the kids playing in the water and around the train cars of the Tuscumbia depot. The adults didn’t enjoy the rain.

  

   

    

     

   

Construction is underway of turning my screen porch into a sunroom.  The deck has been built and the hot tub moved out of the room.  I put a doggie door in the deck wall, so hopefully the hooligans will go under the sunroom and deck during a storm instead of trying to break into the house.  Levi doesn’t like the fence around the deck at all.  He thinks he has to be near me and the fence is keeping him away when I’m on the deck.  

    

This weekend, I’m volunteering as a photographer for the 150^th anniversary of the burning of LaGrange College by those scallywag Yankee soldiers on Sherman’s march to the sea.  The homes and plantations of the area were burnt to the ground around the area.  Tuscumbia had several homes to survive the march.  After that I can concentrate on weeding my garden and getting some more seeds started until the Helen Keller Festival. 

    

  

This time last year I had corn up.  This year farmers are over two weeks behind due to all the rain and a bad cold spell we had the end of March with snow flurries. April 10, the temperatures were in the eighties.  Tennessee River Valley weather forecasters have a fit trying to guess what the weather is going to do.  The redbuds and dogwoods, two wing silverbells and yoshino cherry trees are blooming.   The daffodils are finishing up and the iris is just starting.  This time last year my peonies were in bloom. This year they are up about six inches.

   

    

 

   

Last weekend I watched a fertilizer spreader tractor raising dust as it went across the field in front of my house.  A couple of hours later it was pouring down rain as a planter rushed across the field until the rain made it too gummy to continue.   

    

    

 Eastern Bluebirds are making their nests.  I replaced two boxes the wild woman on a John Deere knocked off with the finishing mower last summer.  Right after I installed them, I noticed a couple checking out the new digs.  

   

    

    

Wednesday of this week, the temperatures were in the eighties.  I plowed up my garden and planted a short row of corn.  My hairdresser asked me the next day what my definition of a short row.  Twenty four feet is a good short row for me and he agreed.  He said his Dad used to tell him to go hoe his short rows and they were a couple of hundred feet long.  A long row was all the way across the field and back. 

Thursday storms rolled through and I had another 1.77 inches of rain.  We lucked out and the severe weather hit east of us. I don’t know if my corn will come up through standing water now.  I’ll probably be replanting later. Friday’s temperatures were over twenty degrees lower.  Here it is the middle of April and I’m cranking up the heat.  

   

The Hooligans fear of thunder since they were shot hasn’t gotten any better. While I was at work during the storm, they went through the screen on my screen porch, tore out a window screen on the house and on the fench doors trying to get in the house.  I’m surprised that they didn’t set off the bugler alarm. The cruel things that humane do to a dog have lasting effects on them. I’m still accessing the damage. I give them a melatonin pill when I’m at home to calm them down.   

  

  

Locally Saturday we had our Earth Day Festivities and Master Gardener’s garden tour of nine gardens, a wildflower walk and historical walking tours in Florence, Sheffield and Tuscumbia. The walking tours are running each Saturday in April and are good for educating about our historical structures in the area, which we are blessed with. I decided to do the garden tours and go to the Earth Day festivities when finished even though I needed to do some serious weeding in my flower beds. I finally mowed the yard Friday afternoon after work, picked up the hay and hauled to the compost pile to make me feel better about going on the tour. Then I worked on weeding my flower bed along the driveway between the front walk and house. By dark I had a pile lying on the driveway large enough to make a bale of hay.  Patches used it as a bed for a couple of days until I hauled it off to the compost pile. 

 

 

 

I set up on the back steps and got a few bird pictures and heard my first hummer until the Hooligans came thundering up and scared everyone away. I left the house at 9:30 and left the last house at 6 PM. Needless to say since the Earth Day celebration ended at 5 PM, I didn’t make it. I needed to pick up some old windows to redo my greenhouse.

 

 

 

 

Levi was glad to see me get home; somehow he had gotten his front leg under his collar and was hopping around on three legs. I talked to Mom after I got home and she said that Patches was lying on the driveway close to the house most of the day and thought it strange and wondered if she was sick. I told her she was taking advantage of the pile of weeds and was taking a nice snooze on it.  I guess it’s like sleeping newly mowed hay patch. 

    

    

   

   

    

    

   

    

   

    

    

    

   

    

  

    

    

This past weekend was beautiful but windy, however Influenza B decided to pay a visit and I was sick and didn't get to enjoy working out in the yard. 

    

The heralds of spring, the ruby-throated hummingbirds are on the way back to our gardens.   According to the  latest migrationmaps,  on March 19, ruby-throated hummers are at the top of my state.  

When feeding hummingbirds don’t use the red dye stuff you find in the store. It’s very simple to make your own.  Use one part sugar and four parts of very hot to boiling water.  Mix well, cool and fill feeders.  It’s important to change out feeders frequently, especially during hot weather. If the water becomes cloudy it’s past time to change it.  At the first of the spring until I start seeing hummingbirds at my feeder, I’ll use 1/8 C sugar and ½ water.  As I have more birds, I’ll start putting more feeders out. 

        

One interesting fact about migration, hummers will travel 25 mph hour while migrating from Mexico across the gulf and up the panhandle.  It’s an amazing feat for something that only weighs a few ounces. They don’t ride on the backs of migrating geese as some wise tails have it.  The wings will flap 55 times a second.  The average lifespan of a hummingbird is around four years.        

 

    

      

My daffodils, star magnolias, saucer magnolias, lenten rose, anemone and plum trees are in bloom.  The star magnolias were hit by a freeze and aren’t as nice as last year.  The one at the corner of the house was only blooming up the side nearest the house and I thought the other side wasn't going to bloom because of the freeze damage, but it came out nicely during the warm temperatures this past weekend.  The magnolia blooms will bite the dust in the next few days when temperatures get back down into the twenties. No wonder the flu has hit our area hard .     

     

    

          

      

I’d wanted to see a local Nature Conservancy nature preserve for years called The Cane Creek Canyon Nature Preserve.  A local couple Jim and Faye Lacefield started buying property in the hills and hollers south of Tuscumbia and it now a Nature Conservancy project .  They built trails, bridges, outhouses and have graciously opened it up to the public during daylight hours. Knee surgeries, replacements, ankle injuries or something else had prevented me from making the trip.  Two weekends ago, the trout lilies were at their peak and a wildflower walk had a large number of folks showing up.  I almost didn’t make it up the last large hill as I got overheated even though temperatures were only in the 70’s.  Little did I know, the flu was making its introduction.  So much for taking the flu shot .

    

The farmers are getting ready to start planting corn, but first need to get through one rainy and cold spell.   Weather folks are predicting freezing rain Friday morning.

    

    

I’ve been visiting the local areas where bald eagles are nesting and overwintering and have made several dry runs getting pictures of everything but eagles.  A hacking program several years ago by the State Conservation Department introduced the eagle back to the area.  I finally hit pay dirt Tuesday when I visited a nesting area just minutes from downtown Florence and was able to photograph the nesting pair in a tree near the nest with one of last years hatchlings circling overhead.  At least two young could be heard in the nest.  Watching the female above the nest with the other two circling was a magnificent sight.  I kept wondering why in the world would Ben Franklin want the turkey as our national bird instead of the Bald eagle?

    

I kept trying to figure out what that little stick thing was below the top eagle, then I remember one had gotten the call of nature while taking the picture.  I remember at the time that I hope I didn't get that.

One of my biggest pet peeves in driving around the Shoals  of NW Alabama is improper pruning of crepe myrtle trees.  Crepe Myrtles are trees that many owners treat as shrubs.  It is the most planted tree in the US and is available in white, purple or lilac, red and pink colors.   

 

With the large number planted, many home owners as well as lawn services improperly prune them so that they form a Medusa head when new growth starts. Some are so drastically cut back, using a technique called Crepe murder or castration; it’s amazing that they grace the owner with growth.   It’s like the pruner has turned into Barney Fife around a moonshine still with a great big axe. The growth that does result is a scantily clad shrub.  It takes the crepe myrtle half of the summer to recoup, while the properly pruned one is in full bloom. The Medusa form of pruning results in a short pom pom growth.  A properly pruned tree will flower sooner that one that has been castrated. One of the worse cases of castration I’ve notices has been at Tuscumbia Utilities in my home town.  Are you a Crepe myrtle murderer?  Don’t go Lizzie Borden on your crepe myrtles.   

    

If you have one that has the Medusa heads, cut off the medusa heads and  allow one or two branches to come back out in the spring.  It may mean pinching off several times during the year to prevent the Medusa heads from reforming.  Extremely large trunks with Medusa heads may mean just starting over and trimming the tree down to the ground and allow two or three nice branches to come back out.  

 

    

    

    

Another issue is planting a large crepe myrtle tree close to the building. A crepe myrtle is a tree.  The result when the tree gets too large is crepe murder to control its size.  There are various sizes of crepe myrtles available. Dwarf (3-5 feet) varieties include Centennial, purple in color, Victor a dark red, and Ozark Spring a lavender.    Some semi dwarf  (5-10 ft) varieties are  Acoma a white variety, pinks Caddo, Hopi, Pecos and Prairie Lace; Zuni  a lavender, Tonto a red.  My favorite color are the reds.  

    

The prettiest presentation of crepe myrtle in trimming it in a tree form choosing 2 or 3 main trunks and cutting off all growth up the trunk for several feet and exposing the beautiful bark of the crepe myrtle.   If you must prune, only trim any branches or limbs a pencil width or less in size and the seed heads.  Stand and look at the tree, then walk around it looking at it like it is a painting. Before just lopping, take a good look at your tree and decide which of the limbs need to remain in your painting, and trim the rest.  

    

     

   

 

    

Diseases such as powdery mildew, black spot, sooty mold, tip blight, leaf spot, and root rot can be prevented by planting crepe myrtles in full sun with good air circulation.    

Now repeat after me, I will not castrate my crepe myrtles.  I will treat it like I’m painting a Picasso. I will not do a Lizzie Borden and take an axe and go chop, chop, chop.

  

My freezer is next to my washing machine. One day recently, well maybe a few weeks or months ago, I took my clothes out of the dryer and hung them over the washing machine until they could be ironed.  I tend to iron as I need things or if I’m having a gathering at my house and I need to have the counter across from the dryer available for food, desserts and things like that.   I haven’t had one lately, so the pile has gotten rather large and overflowed to the washing machine.  One day I went to get something out of the freezer and one of the pants legs of one of the slacks got caught in the door.  The result when I found it a few days later was a huge icing inside of the freezer.  I’ve been putting off defrosting until a cold wintery day.  

    

I usually plan an open garden brunch in the spring to make myself clean house, another chore I dislike.  If it’s pretty, I’m outside working in the yard or driving around taking nature photos.  I’ve been doing a lot of that lately and the dust bunnies are getting to the point that I’m embarrassed to let anyone in the house.  

Since we were having freezing rain I needed to go and get milk and bread this morning, but thought it might be better to stay home.  I wanted an omelet and toast for breakfast, but only had the end crusts. As I looked at the two pieces in the bag, I could hear Mom telling me that “I would have loved to have that while I was in concentration camp”.   We always got that story instead of the poor starving children in India story when we didn’t want to eat something.  Don’t tell Mom I said that.  

     

I went to the freezer to get some orange juice and with all the ice, I had trouble finding it.  Oh, one quick kitchen hint for those with arthritis, I keep a nice pair of needle nose pliers in my kitchen for pulling off the tabs on the OJ cans.  Since it’s a yucky day, time to do a yucky job, defrosting.  I went to the hamper and pulled out all my dirty towels, man, I must have two washing machine loads, and dropped them in front of the freezer.  I also put down two pairs of slacks that have gotten two embarrassing to wear to work.  I went out to the garage and brought in a couple of coolers and started pulling stuff out the freezer.  Four loaves of bread, three homemade and one that I had gotten buy one get one free.  2006 must have been a good year for tomatoes, as I still had a few bags of them.   Strawberries, blueberries and green beans from 2008, did I use the fresher ones first?  Why spend all that time putting things up if you don’t use them?    All of these go in the sink so I can take it to the compost pile.  Bags and bags of figs that I’ve frozen with the intent of making fig wine.  I needed five pounds of frozen figs for a recipe I found.  All of them go into the coolers and put wine yeast on my grocery list.  Several bags of corn from last fall also into the cooler.  

Next I pull out a container of Brunswick stew Mom had made and had given me one for now and one for later.  Supper for tonight!  Two bags of brown sugar, well that’s special as I just bought a bag. Next three bags of chicken parts for making soup.  Next week is supposed to warm up and is not soup weather, but there’s no room in the coolers with all the figs and corn. So into a pot with garlic salt and an onion, bay leaf and celery to make broth for chicken noodle soup.      

     

Back to the freezer to try and pry out a few more bags frozen in the ice with damaging the freezer.  I found a container that I’m not so sure what it is.  I keep a sharpie in the kitchen and I had put the date on it, but not contents.  I’m not sure if it’s a dish with a layer of grease on top or grease that I put up for making bird suet.  Go and get a dry pair of socks and throw the others in the floor to sop up water.  Turns out this was cooking lard I saved to make bird suet with.   

Next out comes bags and bags of flour, sugar and applesauce.  I have trouble with fire ants coming into the kitchen after sugar, so I keep it in the freezer. I use applesauce for baking instead of oil. It has 2008 on it, so I guess it’s been a while since I baked.  I find a grocery ticket frozen in the ice from Schnuks grocery in Illinois. Blame that one on Mom. She must have dropped it when she put the flour she bought on sale in the freezer after visiting my sister.  I find a couple of bags of freezer burn meat. Hooligans will eat well today.   A piece of cranberry pound cake is well freeze dried.  Don’t think even think about it. Into the compost bin it goes.  Next a fantastic find, what I thought was a pumpkin bread loaf turns out to be banana nut bread. I grab a cup of coffee and have brunch.    

One last bag dated 2008 still frozen in the iceberg; I can’t tell if it’s peaches or sweet potatoes.   By this time the iceberg in the top starts melting and chunks of ice start falling. I grab a Frisbee on top of the freezer to catch the stream. A friend had given it to me for the hooligans, but they wanted to eat it instead of playing catch.  I finally found a use for it. The lights go out and I step in a puddle of water.  Another pair of dry socks and the pulled off ones are thrown in the pile of towels.    

I haul two loads of the 2006 and 2008 out to the compost bin.  Bags of strawberries still look good; a strawberry smoothie sounds good right now even with cold feet and all.  After thinking about how old they are, into the worm composter they go along with a couple of bags of 2008 blueberries.  Oh the tragedy, good muffins lost. 

After five hours, I still have block of ice large enough to sink the Titanic.  This might take a couple of days. Wonder how  my figs will stay frozen in the cooler?     

     

On the Hooligan front, not much going on with them. I’ve been trimming my Heritage birches in the front yard. I wanted to get them early this year. Last year I trimmed on limb off after the sap had started running and finally had to put a tourniquet on the end to keep it from bleeding to death.  Since the yard is so mushy from all the rain, the branches are still around the trees. The Hooligans have drugged them all over the yard and driveway.  I put out some of those sticky traps in the garage to catch mice. Blackie keeps stealing them mouse and all.  I had put one next to a mouse trap in the garage that apparently was hard to trip; this afternoon, one of the sticky traps had a mouse stuck on it. I didn’t realize that Blackie had gotten behind the barricade I set up and all of a sudden I hear a snap. First time I’ve seen Blackie decide she didn’t need a mouse that much.    

Besides defrosting my freezer, I’ve been trying to get a picture of some of the Bald eagles staying along the Tennessee River.  One Saturday, I got more than I bargained for.  With all the rain we have, the spillways on Wilson Dam have been pouring close to two million gallons of water.  I happened to be near the dam when a fisherman’s boat was found and later him.  I took pictures of the rescue for the Quadcities daily  http://quadcitiesdaily.com.s140587.gridserver.com/?p=69223 an on line newspaper I contribute too. They think may have had a heart attack.   No eagles yet, but I’ve been able to get some of the local nature.  Check out my gardening blog for those:  http://rosedalegardens.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/photography-no-gardening-part-i/ 

Oh I finally got finished and everything back in the freezer at 1 AM.  

    

I love old barns and have tried to capture the ones in my area before they are gone.  Especially since the loss of our old barn that was over a hundred years old after Mom sold our dairy farm.  The following is an event which happened on one of my photo trips out of NW Alabama with a good friend.  The names have been changed, but it has nothing to do with protecting the innocent.  I’ve also included a link to a photography reference website for photographer rights. 

h ttp://www.aclu.org/free-speech/know-your-rights-photographers   

  

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.  The hooligans enjoyed Christmas as Santa came to visit them.  They got some rawhide chews, a pull rope, and a bag of a new Purina Proplan food called Savor which they really liked.  After I handed out the rawhide chews, Blackie stood there for ten minutes trying to decide if she was going to eat it of bury it.   Decisions, decisions, she wasn’t hungry, but the risk of loosing it to one of the other Hooligans won out and she chewed on it for a while.  

  

   

With the economy in the condition it is, the pets are really suffering. The shelters are full and a lot are being dumped out in my section of the country. Coming home yesterday I noticed what looked like a basset hound bird dog mix in the middle of nowhere and covered with ticks.  I stopped and asked her what she was doing here and a little short haired starving dog comes running out of the ditch.  I could take the little guy to my house as he would have been toast.  It was five minutes before the shelter closed; I opened my door and the little brown one jumped in and made a several loops around the truck looking for water and something to eat.  The basset mix tried to get in but her legs were too short, so I got out and boosted her in the back floor board.  On the way to the shelter, the little one rolled up on the front seat and went to sleep.  I felt so bad, but three Hooligans are a handful.  I took pictures at the shelter and posted on all of my Facebook pages and also the shelters page.  Maybe they will find a home.  They both loved to ride.   With a shelter so close why do people dump their animals out in the country?  I’m not sure how strays happen to find me either.

    

    

Patches has renewed her love/hate relationship with the filly in the pasture behind my house now that they are allowed back in the pasture.  My garden area is cleaned off and tilled waiting for spring.  My mediation circle is coming along.  I’ve transplanted some daylilies to it last fall and have few of my potted plants overwintering in the piles of sawdust berm.

 This past weekend while the temperatures were cool, I decided to burn out the yellow jacket nest in the compost heap since the traps didn’t catch them.  Next time which I hope doesn’t happen; I’ll try some sort of fruit juice instead of cider vinegar.   After two days, it’s still smoldering like a bale of hay.  I hate wasting a good compost pile.  When or rather if the temperatures get cold, and it’s stopped burning, I’ll take the tractor and make sure they are gone.  Then I can tell the complete story of their attack on the Hooligans and myself and their demise.

    

Ever wonder who started this New Years resolution thing?  I’m not one who usually makes resolutions, as I can’t keep them for very long, so why bother?   For 2011 I made a resolution not to buy any more plants until I had the potted ones from 2010 in the ground. I’m not sure how many times I broke that one.   Before my November knee surgery, even up to late in the evening before surgery, I worked diligently to get potted plants into the ground and moving and dividing plants from one bed to the appropriate theme bed.  Problem was that I kept adding to the collection.  A couple of weeks after surgery, I found a close out of shrubs ninety per cent off.  I came home with a truck load of Encores, gardenia, sky pencil and rhododendrons, normally around two hundred for a little over eighteen dollars.  I put them in the greenhouse until my knee was back in digging shape.  Later when I went to water them, I noticed that several of the shrubs had limbs chewed off; field rats had gotten in the greenhouse and were eating everything they could in sight, even the half length toilet paper rolls that I use for starting seeds.  Blackie was outside digging up tunnels and leaned on the siding and a piece broke out.  That was all she needed to burst through to get after the mice.  The sun pounding on the western side has made the plastic brittle.  For now a hooligan cage and a leftover piece of clear siding being held up with a couple of concrete blocks covers the hole.   The contractor didn’t follow the greenhouse plans and it gets too hot in the summer and it’s too drafty for winter use.  I plan to turn it into a screen room and order a greenhouse kit

     

   

    

For 2012 I made the same resolution, and again worked diligently get beds divided into new beds and the rest of the potted things into the ground before cataract surgery in November.  I only have a few peonies and daylilies that didn’t make in the ground and have them hilled up in a pile of sawdust for overwintering.  Just about the time I was hunting for a plant anonymous club, my cousin sent me information on a relative Herman Gusmus who was the Head Gardener for the King of Germany.  He went around the globe collecting plants for the king’s garden and even has a plant named after him ‘Primulaeae Gusmus (Herman)’.   Alright! I wrote Pat back, it’s in the genes!  I come by it honestly.  I have a good excuse to collect plants.   If you go back and read last January’s resolutions for 2012, they would basically be the same.

1. On my try to do list again this year is not buying anymore plants until I get the rest of my potted plants into the ground.  I ordered my plants and seeds the first of December so I have that one in the bag.  However a couple of seed packets, Kiphofia hirsute traffic lights and Courgette zephyr, I have no idea what I ordered and will have to go back to the website and find out what they are.  The names are England English and don’t have the common names on the packet.   I also picked up a Shooting Star hydrangea in full bloom.  I just couldn’t resist. After moving it from a 4 inch pot into a half gallon pot, it was added to my collection overwintering in my garage.  How did I use to get two vehicles in there?

2.  Decide the location and whether I want an arbor or two pergolas.  I put up 2 poles a few years back for a pergola and then decided to do an arbor for kiwi on the other side of the garden and put 2 poles up there.  Then after thinking about it again, I thought about doing a pergola in each spot.  This year finally there will be a decision.  Note to self, this resolution is three years old.

 3. Repair the sheetrock and repaint the wall where the water pipe ruptured from moving the washer and dryer into the utility room I added on to the house.  The contactor nicked a water pipe several years back when installing the baseboard back and it eventually ruptured flooding the back entryway. I hope the three colors of paint are still good, I don’t’ have to repaint the whole room as I ragged rolled it.

4. Run a new summertime waterline along the creek to replace the one the mad tiller chopped up last summer.  I have a couple of 100-200 foot sections that I took out when I should have hee’d instead of haw’d.  While the ground is moist I’ll take a middle buster down as deep as I can so it’ll be safe from shovel or tiller.

5. Finish the stackable retaining walls around the house and garage.  I started this project a couple of years ago.  Knee and cataract surgeries have slowed this one down.

The hooligan’s resolutions haven’t changed much either:

Patches 

Stop playing with skunks.

Stop playing with skinks, especially if they run up a screen and up in a downspout.

Don’t help Blackie dig up trees chasing after mice.

When Mom walks to the barn to feed us, use dog door to get in instead of standing scratching on the walk through door.

Don’t worry Mary when the batteries get weak in our collars.  This one is a piece of cake.

Chase Noah up a tree (neighbors cat who teases the Hooligans) when our collar batteries get weak. 

Stop bumping Momma in the rear with my nose while I wait for my bowl, thinking maybe I’ll get mine first.

Stop pawing visitors for attention.  It’s okay to paw Mary even if she doesn’t like it.

When playing with sticks don’t poke Mary in the leg.

Don’t fling around my tire toy and hit Mary in the knee

Continue to play keep away when Mary reaches for something I have.

Stop playing with skunks

Blackie 

Stop playing with skunks.

Stop playing with skinks.

Don’t help Patches dig up trees chasing after mice.

When Mom walks to the barn to feed us, use dog door to get in instead of standing scratching on the walk through door.

Don’t worry Mary when the batteries get weak in our collars. 

Chase Noah up a tree when our collar batteries get weak

Try not going through walls after mice, Mary seems to get upset.

When Mary opens the garage doors stop, say hi first instead of running past her looking for mice.

Stop playing with skunks

Levi 

Start playing with skunks.

Start playing with skinks.

Start chasing mice.

When Mom walks to the barn to feed us, use dog door to get in instead of standing scratching on the walk through door.

We have a battery in our collars?  Why do I need a battery in my collar?

Don’t moan while rubbing on Mary especially when wet, as she doesn’t seem to like my singing.

What the hooligans and I wish for you in the New Year:  We wish you health for those sick, prosperity for those with out a job. Take time to enjoy the beauty that has been given around us.  Stop long enough to watch a sunset and take time to smell the flowers.   I ask that if you suddenly think of a friend or family member and think to yourself you need to call them later, please do it at that time.  That friend may not be here tomorrow.

Oh my oh my, I just got in garden catalogs from two of my favorite companies. Maybe it won’t be a piece of cake.

I’m ready for spring and the return of hummingbirds.