Author Archives for pchemkelly

Happy Birthday, Older Sister!

Today, October 30, is my sister’s birthday. My older sister’s birthday. She will always be older than me. I’m younger. (and possibly obnoxious)

Because of the timing of her birthday, I regularly provide her with Halloween themed gifts (thankfully, she actually enjoys this!)

 
Last year I got her a skel-a-gnome to put in her newly renovated yard:

 

This year, I had to add to the theme and sent her a skel-a-dragon baby:

Because who doesn’t want a yard full of skeleton figures?! (okay, perhaps me…)

These are available at many fine retailers. In case you want one.

Pumpkin Carving, 2011 retrospective

Each year my mother and I carve pumpkins for Halloween. I’m not certain how this got started, but it’s quite the affair now. We get patterns, pumpkins, tools, and far too much ambition for our own good. Then we get to it and it always takes longer and is more difficult than we imagine it will be. However, there is always wine and laughter so it’s good. These are last year’s pumpkins (we coerced dad into doing one as well) – note that a couple of them have the backs carved as well so they cast shadows to enhance the image. I will post the full story of the 2012 pumpkins soon…

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Rudy, the backup cat

We have a cat. She adopted our home as a kitten while it was still our construction site, and lived through many hard years before becoming the spoiled cat of the house. Her name is Stray Cat. This causes no end of confusion at the vet.

She does not like other cats.

This is an interesting conundrum because other cats like our house. They visit our yard and hang our on our deck. Sometimes they do so enough to have us give them a name. In recent months a ginger cat has decided to hang out on our porch. We have named him Rudy. If you ask me, it’s for “Rutabaga” which are orange when cooked. If you ask my husband, it’s for “Rudolph the red-nosed cat”. Either way, Rudy visits and gets a small bowl of kibble. He is skittish and won’t let us near him, but enjoys the kibble. We’d like to capture him and get him to the vet for shots and a check-up, but it seems unlikely for now. I’d love to get a photo of how he stretches his neck when coming out from under the porch to see if there is kibble in the bowl, but that will take a bit of luck. In the meantime, this is a photo of Rudy watching me wander around the yard taking pictures of flowers.

Late summer flowers, part 5

I finish my celebration of the last of the blooms in my yard with our carpet roses. We have a variety of colors and all are still blooming. Carpet roses are great – they take no effort and re-bloom all summer long. The only thing I have to do is prune them back once in a while or they will take over the yard.

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Late summer flowers, part 1

Most of the flowers have decided they are done blooming, but there are a few who are still hanging in there. So, I’ve decided to celebrate the end of the summer flowers by sharing them with you. First up, the last of the stella d’oro:

These lovely lilies bloom and re-bloom all summer. We also have varieties in purple and red, but those seem to bloom only once – the stella d’oro come back several times, and keep the yard sunny.

 

Dragonfly on me!

We get a lot of dragonflies in our yard, attracted by the water (and bugs to eat, one presumes). Usually they land on plants or on the deck or not at all – but sometimes they decide to pay us a visit more personally. This little guy decided to land on the edge of my shorts (taken when it was much warmer than it is now!) and I managed to get my phone out and take his photo before he left. Quite auspicious, I am given to understand. Their wings are amazingly complex.

Periodic Frog October 20, 2012

Having very few frog sightings lately. Today I did see Uptown Frog, albeit very briefly. He also saw me and quickly dove underwater. This made me decide it was time for another archive photo for a periodic frog. This is Cave Frog, with his beloved plant pot. It’s an earlier photo before I got a bit better at this, but I love how his little hands are hanging on to the edge of the pot. Cute!