The Beauty Of The Changing Seasons

@Joe Brewster Are those chives in one of the pics? I have them around here, I never planted them, another one that just showed up. I use chives a LOT. They have beautiful lavender and white flowers if you let them go.
 
They are some big onions I saved seed off I wanted to see how long they take to sprout
4-5 days
Moms got lots of chives
 
Pretty soon I'll be seeing these tiny little critters doing their "thang". LOL

Tiny tots mating.jpg
 
Wellllll....this is no fun at all.

We had thunderstorms in the wee hours, I don't mind that when they are mild. However, the heavy rain did me no good. Furnace quit. There's a leak at the furnace pipe on the roof that has been repaired before, because it leaked down the pipe and onto the furnace mother board shorting it out, and I've had to replace the board, twice.

This morning it sprung the leak again, this time leaking onto the load limit switch on top causing it to kick off and not reset. UGH
I have replaced the load switch before as well (this place is old), and kept a spare one on hand. I replaced that and got nice warm air blowing now.

Getting on that roof as soon as it's dry to fix the leak....NOT looking forward to that.

I can thank the one above that it wasn't below zero weather, the house only got down to 66 F.
 
My Giant Sunflower seedlings are really reaching up there. I hope I can get these outside soon. Snow predicted next week, but it shouldn't stick long.

@KeithLemon, thought you might like to see.

Sunflower seedlings.jpg
 
Lady Cannafan said:
Wellllll....this is no fun at all.

We had thunderstorms in the wee hours, I don't mind that when they are mild. However, the heavy rain did me no good. Furnace quit. There's a leak at the furnace pipe on the roof that has been repaired before, because it leaked down the pipe and onto the furnace mother board shorting it out, and I've had to replace the board, twice.

This morning it sprung the leak again, this time leaking onto the load limit switch on top causing it to kick off and not reset. UGH
I have replaced the load switch before as well (this place is old), and kept a spare one on hand. I replaced that and got nice warm air blowing now.

Getting on that roof as soon as it's dry to fix the leak....NOT looking forward to that.

I can thank the one above that it wasn't below zero weather, the house only got down to 66 F.
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Sounds like you're really handy. A lady after my heart. :)
 
Ascended Master Kief said:
Sounds like you're really handy. A lady after my heart. :)
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I've fixed my own chit all my life. My Pops and Bro and I learned as we went. Paying repairmen is out of the question. The furnace company wants 85.00 just to drive in, then it's hundreds.....I fix it myself. LOL
 
Lady Cannafan said:
I've fixed my own chit all my life. My Pops and Bro and I learned as we went. Paying repairmen is out of the question. The furnace company wants 85.00 just to drive in, then it's hundreds.....I fix it myself. LOL
Click to expand...
That's how I roll, too. Currently I install and repair softeners and stuff, but before this I repaired RVs, and so much stuff I think folks could have repaired themselves, but paid hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars for me to do it.
 
A regular Red Greenthumb:blalol: where's my duct tape :biglaugh:
 
Joe Brewster said:
A regular Red Greenthumb:blalol: where's my duct tape :biglaugh:
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There is one whole shelf in a cupboard in my laundry room dedicated to.....duct tape.

Time to hit the roof. I have a helper today. YEY!
 
I was looking for a grow photo and ran into this. There is a story here....

A few winters ago I was heading out to work. At the end of my driveway in the middle of the road I saw this bird lying listless. It's a Red Bellied Woodpecker. Traffic was coming from both directions, so I quickly got out and retrieved the poor thing. It was still alive, but apparently knocked unconscious by whatever had hit it.

I took it into the woods and stayed with it, setting it on it's feet on a stick upright and held it there to keep from falling off. It opened it's eyes several times. After about 3 minutes it came around and wobbled a bit. I spent another 15 minutes or so making sure it was able to get around on it's own, I saw nothing broken and it eventually took flight. Of course, I was late for work...but it was for a good cause.

Rest now.jpg
 
Three years ago during a particularly long winter, I had a small Christmas tree in a garden area of the front yard. I had it lit up for the holiday. I pulled the lights off finally during March when it was a fairly unfreezing day. But opted to wait for warmer days to take the tree in.
We had a week of warm spell and Mrs. Robin came around deciding it was time to build. Yep...right in the middle of that artificial tree. No way I could take it down, I would have felt terrible after all that work she had done. (She's a strange bird that used to build on top of my garage motion sensor light outside. That's another story for another day)

Well, I made a place for a camera inside that tree pointed at the nest and after the babies were born I would sit by the window and wait for Momma to sneak in there, then hit the remote shutter from inside. She was startled at first, but got quite used to it.

Here's a photo of the first two kids opening wide to be fed:

Baby Robiins in christmas tree.jpg
 
"I'll be waiting for you...."

Black Swallowtail Butterfly Caterpillar and common fly saying goodbye before the cocoon gets started.

Black Swallowtail Caterpillar and fly.jpg
 
APHIDS
A lot of us are way to familiar with the damage that Aphids can do. Inside grows get them too, so don't think you are absolutely safe from them. They can be carried into a grow any number of ways. They can be several colors, most gardeners see the light green ones around here. I had a dark colony of them on one of my grapevines and watched them for a couple of days.

You may see some with wings. Don't think that just because you've placed your plant out of range of other affected plants, that you are safe from aphids jumping onto them.
Someone insisted to me once that Aphids don't fly and don't have wings. BS! I watched them and photographed it too. When things gets too crowded where they are feeding the females will lay eggs that hatch into winged aphids. Those will fly to new plants that aren't as crowded to feed.

Ant vs. Aphids--3.jpg


Enter the Ants....
Aphids secrete what looks like small bubbles from their behinds. This sugary pee is called Honeydew, and ants LOVE it. You can see the ant in the photo preying on an aphid with a small pee bubble on his arse end.

When the ants invaded the colony and started sucking out the precious honeydew, it did not take long for them to leave home. As much as I dislike ants, they are useful in some situations.


Aphids and ant.jpg



Aphids and ant 2.jpg
 
My front yard a few minutes ago.
I laughed like crazy. One of my cats that I call "Panther Kitty" was stalking behind them and jumped at them. The herd ran...from a little cat. LOL

Deer spooked by cat.jpg
 
OMG, what a morning. I had whitetails all over the yards, front and back. Robins all over the yards feeding and gathering debris for the nests. (There's no shortage of debris here. LOL)
The Mallards have landed on the pond and Panther Kitty has begun stalking them, and Chucky has come out of hibernation. Do I dare get that 600mm lens set up? Is it done snowing and blowing? It's Michigan....I think not. LOL

Chucky is my resident woodchuck. Here he is last year enjoying a sunrise over the pond.


Chuckie watching sunrise.jpg



This male Wood Duck appeared quite angry with me last year. I hope his temperament is better this year.

Mad wood duck.jpg


Panther Kitty stalking waterfowl last year.

Black panther.jpg
 
Well, I sure called that one right. It's freaking almost freezing rain and cold hearted today.
 
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