Cucumbers Galore
We are picking 20 – 30 cucumbers every day.
Jack will eat about 4-5 a day he read it lowers blood sugar and cholesterol. I will eat 1 or 2 every few days.
We make cucumber, tomato, and onion salad with Italian dressing it’s yummy. We chop up enough to last a few days.
In the past, Jeanelle and I have made bread and butter and sweet pickles. This is the first time either of us has made dills.
The first batch made 8 quarts I will probably do 8 more tomorrow.
Since Jack is diabetic he does not need the sweet pickles so were not making those this year. I am not much of a pickle person but will eat a dill pickle a few times a year.
We are having a hard time finding jars I know it is the season for canning but its never been like this. I guess everyone’s getting domesticated while quarantining.
Our garden and Jeanelle’s are both very productive this year there has been just enough rain to make them flourish.
There is never a shortage of garden pickers with the four youngest grandkids being close by. Sophia informed us she is the cucumber expert.
A good year with a garden is when it produces enough vegetables to share with your friends and family.
Boxer dogs in action
Daisy and Zoee love to play different games but one of their favorites is jumping for the stick.
Sometimes it is easier if one is in the house so you can have one on one time.
Zoee is an extreme sports dog she is light as a feather at 35#s and she can jump so high the stick and the water hose are her favorite jumping toys.
Daisy can jump good but not as good as Zoee she is probably about 70#s.
The first pic Zoee landed on Daisy that actually makes them mad at each other lol.
The second pic is all about those facial expressions with Zoee.
Third pic Daisy got a hold of that stick.
Fourth pic Zoee is Dancing.
Getting the action shots for me is always a challenge with multiple dogs next time we will try one at a time.
Happy Mothers Day
My mother’s life was taken to soon by the greed of others.
Happy Mothers Day and Happy Birthday today to my mother with wings.
May all you mothers out there have a wonderful day of peace while social distancing.
Cricket week 12
Our Cane Corso Cricket is 12 weeks old now and she loves to eat, play and find sticks.
She eats 4 cups of food every morning and every evening. We buy a high protein puppy food with 28% protein and 20% fat. It is called Valu-pak and we buy it at the feed store by the 50# bag. I think it’s about $35.00.
Our daughter researches a lot of dog foods because the Cane Corso are high energy dogs and they need some really good high protein food. This one was better than the Iams I was feeding the two boxers. I just put them all three on the puppy/ active dog food.
She was 20#s at 8 1/2 weeks and now at 12 weeks is weighing in at 37#s. She has gained 17#s in a month lol. That seems like an awful lot but she is not fat just stocky and she has a thick body.
She likes to sit or lay down during picture time so much for showing off her physique.
Zoee and her spend a lot of time wrestling so she can be quite active when she wants to be. They have a hole they dig in and they love tug of war with sticks and chase.
Her blue eyes are starting to change colors they will end up being a Goldy brownish color. She had on one of Daisy’s collars in this picture so it was too big. I need to order her a new collar I hate trying to figure out the collar colors. I need to get her a name tag as well with my cell number on it.
Actually, I need to get all 3 dogs chipped.
We expect her to be a minimum of 125# pounds but it could be more she is much stockier than her sister is. We thought the sister would be bigger than her.
Cricket the monster dog will be showing up occasionally to give you all updates of how much she has grown.
Orioles in the mulberries
I kept seeing a flash of yellow/gold and I could not figure out what kind of bird it was I was seeing.
Finally, after a closer look, I realized it was Orioles I have only ever seen 1 here before.
This is the first year they have invaded the mulberry tree. The mulberries have been getting picked for about 5 weeks and they showed up this week.
Normally it is the Cedar Waxwings that invade our tree in very large numbers. This year it was the Orioles in groups of 15 or so.
I was able to capture a few pictures but they are camera shy. They really are a bright-colored bird.
Nature is always putting on a show you just have to be in the right place at the right time.
Daisy’s 7th Birthday
Miss. Daisy Mae is our boxer whos birthday is today she turns 7 years old. She still acts like a puppy.
I think she takes a few more naps these days but she’s always ready and willing to play fetch or go somewhere in the truck. She loves picking mulberries off the tree or the ground.
She has this cute moan when you’re not paying attention to her and as time goes on it gets louder and longer most people think that is hilarious.
Daisy has a lot of fun with her sisters Zoee and Cricket but she gets tired of being the babysitter lol.
Happy Birthday, Daisy we love you!
The cat who posed
Mr. Bird is about 10 years he goes outside every morning and comes back into the house every evening. He is never out of sight so he stays on our two acres enjoying the great outdoors.
He loves to run fast and climb trees and I see him stalking birds. Other than that he’s resting the entire time he is outside.
He saw me the other day with my camera and hopped up on the bench for a quick pose with the impatiences and dianthus. I am not sure why he thought I needed to take his picture.
All the flowers and some of the containers of plants in this picture are from last year. We put them in the greenhouse over the winter and saved them all.
As much as I love planting flowers this is a good thing. I still made 3 trips to the nursery before this stay at home order went into place.
You never know when your posing cat might need a good photo background for pictures.
Flowers can add color to a shaded area as long as you pick out the right flowers. This area is 90% shade all day long.
Add a splash of color to your yard and see what a difference it can make.
Babies in the birdhouse
The Eastern Blue Birds have been nesting in this orange birdhouse for a few months.
Well, there are babies I have been seeing the parents come and go a lot so I had to get closer to listen. I can hear lots of baby bird noise coming from the birdhouse as the sun is rising it’s pretty loud.
This mama and daddy bird go in and out all day supplying food for this hungry bunch.
Now I will be panicked waiting for them to fly this so much stress.
Disinfectants, sanitizers, and germs
When the Corovirus hit your area what did you already have and not have to rush out and get?
We had plenty of toilet paper and paper towels, 2 gallons of Clorox, Clorox disinfecting wipes, waterless hand sanitizer soap, Lysol laundry sanitizer, Lysol toilet bowl cleaner, and the good old brown Lysol. These are things we keep all the time. Anytime someone has a cough or cold we Clorox our drinking glasses. Toilets get cleaned and wiped off daily. Cabinets, sinks, and tubs get wiped down with whatever disinfectant is close by but this is something we do all the time.
We had plenty of mask because of my concrete work. The gloves we had were a joke but our daughter gave us some of hers.
We have not had to buy any of these things so my thinking is this why are all these items still out at the stores did people not clean, to begin with?
Did everyone use organic items that did not disinfect now they’re scared and they are buying disinfectants? I need to know the answer to these questions. LOL.
Meat ran out at the stores did everyone normally go out to eat?
The Lysol laundry sanitizer is on automatic shipments from Amazon I have been using it for a few years now. Well LOW and BEHOLD my delivery for today is on backorder. This makes me mad because auto-shipments should be there. This I will run out of. Everything else is still holding up well.
We ran out of paper plates one time and we just ran out again but our daughter got us some at Costco.
We have used HEB Curbside for grocery pickups and about 3 weeks ago we had to wait 8 days to get our order now it’s down to 3.
I am determined to use the food we have first and my arsenal of disinfecting items that I already had, to begin with.
We have not supported eating out I feel like its safer to make your own food at this point.
How do you feel about all this and were you already stocked up on supplies?
Sonya Lira Photography 