...and then there were none.

Remember the nest of purple finch eggs on my porch?

Last night I was reading on the sofa under a pair of wee hounds when I heard a sort of *thump* on the porch. Thursday was really windy and I thought maybe something had blown over. Turns out, apparently some larger bird was coming in and robbing the nest. Wednesday night there were still three eggs there, and Thursday night there was no evidence of two of the eggs and the third was partially pecked open, dead baby inside. I think I may have scared away the predator before it finished its business.

Meh. Wildlife. What can you do?

Anyway. It's Friday. I'm happy it's Friday. Here's a video of some nice wildlife that I never tire of watching. Love the woolly fellow in the pickup truck. Hee.

ghost of mirrors past...

I think it must have been about 1987 or so when I happened upon this mirror at a junk dealer's booth at Trader's Village in Grand Prairie, Texas. I remember it was delapidated, even then, and I simply had to have it. I thought it looked grand despite its flaked gesso and the mirror whose foil revealed the warps of the corrugated paper behind it for lo these many decades.



Exactly as it is, I love this mirror. I hung it up this week at the house, and it is the first thing I've actually given pride of place, hung on the first nail I've driven into a wall here. Funny to think about the furniture and decorations that have come and gone since then-- the things I so deliberately chose and set out to buy, and yet, this lowly mirror that looks like a saloon refugee from a hundred years ago, or so, is one of the few pieces I've had longer than 20 years. I rember looking at it and asking the dealer what they wanted for it, and I recall how my heart leapt when he said $5.00. Oh, yes, I'll definitely be having that, my dear.



...work continues apace. Being an old house, there's no end of regular maintenance to be done, but bit by bit I've got to get the yard and other things in order, as well. I've set about de-dandelion-ing the front yard, which is no small task. There's a hand weeding tool I've been using which has a little notched prong on the end which is great for plunging down alongside the root of the weed, then using it to *pop!* the whole plant up, root and all. Actually, I'm impressed at the progress I've made so far.



Knowing how to properly pull weeds is one of those things my mom taught me well: yank the top of the plant off, and you'll have weeds tenfold. Get the root out properly, and if anything remains behind, it will be small, weaker and much more easily routed out later.



I first went around uprooting the remains of spent dandelions, their bald caps petulantly waggling at me from around the yard. At one point, I nearly uprooted a bunch of what I realized was pincushion flowers, but in time, I didn't molest the plant. Pincushion flowers are native wildflowers in Texas, and they are most welcome in my yard. Then with the obvious dandelions removed came the task of seeking out the lettuce-like mounds of soon-to-be dandelions. I had been working at this task for an hour or so and the yard is nearly rid of the little buggers. Next mission in the yard will be for me to remove the sticky burrs, which are poky on tender be-sandaled piggies, not to mention little puppy paws.

Monday night I planted my first container of Iceland poppies, and a container of herbs, and one large flowerpot of mint. Going to be sooooo nice to be able to go out onto the porch and grab a handful of fresh herbs for the kitchen. :)

Last night I unpacked a box of crystal glasses. At a rate of one box a week or so, I may be unpacked in time for my next move!


Life is sweet.

I can has decor!

Things are coming together slowly but surely with the house. Seems most days I just take baby steps. I'll sometimes just line a couple shelves[I'm besotted with Life Liner, btw-- best shelf/drawer liner evar]or unpack one measley box, but eventually I'll get there. It feels more like home when you unbox your stuff and sort of arrange things in a pretty way. This is such a cozy little house, and it's getting better all the time. The pups are loving it, although I suspect that the abundance of pecans on the ground are largely responsible for the furry little paunch where Praline's once concave belly used to be. Chuy is blissed out, and I love seeing him so happy.

Shopping for plants on Saturday I felt a kind of bliss thinking of what I wanted to see growing and blooming around the porch, and of again being able to cook with handfuls of herbs collected from a planter out front. I bought a whole passel of herbs for the kitchen, as well as some lovely perennials I've had great success with in past. I expect in the coming days I'll be using my big bathtub to soothe some sore muscles, and it'll be a lovely reward at the end of hard hours of gardening.

More to come...

On this date in 2006...

This date marks the 4th anniversary of Keith Richards' plummet to earth from the lofty boughs of a coconut tree in Fiji-- not the tragi-glorious burnout we've come to expect of our Keef.

I think this speaks for all of us:



Murray Lachlan Young

...all hat and no horse...

I think that saying is about authenticity and all that--that having the hat doesn't make you a cowboy. Well, hang authenticity: I want these pink metallic chaps, and I freely admit I don't own a horse. Saw them at what LawDog calls Redneck WalMart (isn't that redundant?) but I think of it as Cowboy Walmart. It's a fabulous store. See all those hats hanging from the ceiling in the background? Fabulous. I bought a nice straw cowgirl hat that day that will keep the sun out of my eyes when I'm gardening. Great stuff.

Anyway, back to the chaps-- I won't be having these, because they are only made for small children for some sick and twisted reason. No, I wouldn't wear them in public, but they might spice up my blog posting.

Come to that, a few weeks ago, Christina said "I don't even want to know why you have a hobby horse hanging on your bedroom doorknob." Because it makes me giggle, silly. :P

Oh! I guess I do have a horse, after all! Yee Haw!

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: Snortals-- start your kombat!

Teh puppehs had a rousing session of Snortal Kombat on Saturday evening. The weather was beautiful and all afternoon I had most of the screened windows open and the back door, so they had the run of the place. I also cooked dinner and they got lots of treats and they just generally went hog-wild -- if wild hogs could manage cuteness in the process.








Here we have a few illustrations of a cycle of snortal kombat.






The first overtures of snortage, with Jack Russell playing the role of aggressor.



Then comes The Chiweenie Strikes Back phase



Then it all goes blurry



Finally, well-spent, everyone collapses and dreams of living to snort another day. Woohoo!



Life is good. :)

zombies...

*snerk*

Bath time!

When I was a little girl, one day I fell miraculously, strangely in love with Brussels sprouts. MMM, they were gloriously yummy noms, but I didn't come across them very often. Once we were on a road trip out to California and we went into one of those Shoney's/Kip's type places, and I ordered a plate whose side dish was Brussels sprouts. My mom said "you're not getting that plate just because of the Brussels sprouts, are you?" I solemnly swore I wasn't. The food came out a bit later, and I ate the Brussels sprouts off the plate and left the rest.





Well, I've been secretly afeared that my mom would think this is the reason I bought this house. I swear it isn't. There's also a lovely tin tile ceiling above this. Quite nice, I think.



Now for a proper bath. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... Someone sent me a box of goodies from Lush. SQUEEE!

But I didn't choose the whole house just for this one feature. There's a tree house, too. And a porch. And some pretty built-in shelves at the back of the dining... and two massive pecan trees... and other stuff as well...




*le sigh*

Giggleworthy

*hyuk* *hyuk*

Found in email from Swamp Rabbit:

Back in the days before Facebook, I would never have learned that my high school marching band drum major's daughter's friend's domesticated bobcat had been toilet-trained.
(note- not my friend)

Squashttocks

I don't know-- it just looked like a butt to me.

I made a delicious spaghetti squash dish on Tuesday night. Om nom nom.

Things are moving apace on the house. Once I'd cleared away some more of the crap and wiped off some dust in the kitchen, I found this hideous roccoco (oh no!) switchplate cover. Covered it up with black, but it still doesn't cover the way the crap laminate veneer was cut wonky and too wide for the aperture. *eye-rolling*

One day in the next year or so, this whole suite of cabinets and counters are going to be kicked to the curb.

unintentionally funny item from Reuters:

Iranian missile may be able to hit U.S. by 2015

Uh, that's one slow-assed missile. You could walk there that fast.

I worried I'd be caught, but it sort of excited me...

...going out in public thusly dressed*-- what was I thinking???

I rather slinked into Wal-Mart, blushing furiously as I went. Everyone who saw me must have known what I was thinking. My eyes met another's, and I quickly looked away, my blush deepening.

Naughty in public. I can does it.

Something electric coursed through me, my skin felt on fire-- so this is what it feels like, doing this. I felt so exposed. I looked over my shoulder, careful not to be followed. If I needed to cross a main aisle, I stuck my head out and looked both ways before crossing, and that very quickly. I grabbed a few things, tossing them carelessly into cart, and then the big reveal, making my way up to the hordes massed around the 3 working registers, stark standouts from the 40 or so ghostly registers standing lonely vigil like some subterranean terra cotta army which means to leap to life again one day. Christmas season, perhaps...

I carefully look around and notice no one staring-- wait! is that a camera phone? Oh noes! I want to get away with it, and I'm horrified of appearing here. Yes. I'm Phlegmfatale, and I am a people of Wal-Mart. I can quit any time I want to. It's not a habit. I know that lots of people must have been relieved to see me walk out the door, but I know that secretly, they long for my return. And just when they think I'm gone for good, I'll come back and wearing something again which will make me blush to consider.

*Black pants, black top, denim jacket-- all inoffensive enough, but paired with my gold smurf shoes and the fluffy day-glo orange house sock-booties, well, how horridly, uh, horrid.

...nesting...

So I normally would not tolerate such a thing, but too late I learned there was a little bird nesting in a bit of wood work on the porch. She always flutters away when I come onto the porch, but she appears to be a house finch. I LOVE finches!



Anyway, I was reading on Wikipedia about them, and it said Dandelion seeds are among the preferred seeds fed to the young. That would explain why they chose a house on this property: I'm up to my eyeballs in dandelions.



As I said, I would not knowingly let a bird build a nest and rear babies in or on my house, but this one already had 3 eggs when I found it, and I would never destroy a nest with eggs*. We'll keep it here until they fledge and bugger off to budgieland. I'm sure I'll be cleaning poo off the porch in a few weeks. More grumbling on that later. In the mean time, here's a snap of my grandbabies:




*Except for that Alien in Aliens. Ripley was completely justified in toasting those crocquettes. Srsly. But that was no bird.