A few pictures from this afternoon.
I get a lot of visitors after I feed but this cardinal was posing.
The beauty of the cardinal
The mulberry thieves
We get excited about the mulberry season.
The grandkids love to pick and eat them I love to make jelly with them.
The mulberry thieves are back this year and every time we get some dark ones they swoop in and eat them all. These are cedar waxwings they are quite unique looking.
Even Daisy hunted the ground for some and could only find red ones and she wanted the black ones she loves to eat them so does Zoee.
Last year we got lucky and they left our tree alone this year they are making up for it.
You never know what the wildlife will do from year to year. I do think these birds are quite pretty.
We have about 10 baby mulberry trees growing we are going to dig up and put in pots for Livingston. They are about 4 ft tall.
Cricket turned 3 years old
Cricket turned 3 years old on February 2.
I never did get her picture posted because I had just gotten out of the hospital on visit 1 and little did I know there would be another visit a few weeks later.
Cricket had to go on a diet. Her body was resembling a square instead of a curve in the hip area. She was eating 5 cups a day now she is getting 4 cups and as you can notice she has a dip in her side which is perfect. Cricket’s body is built deep from the top of her back to the bottom of her stomach. When you roll her over she is so wide.
I hate when I have to cut her back because she is a very big dog but at the same time, big dogs can not function if they are overweight. She can still run right at you like a bulldozer about to knock you down.
I can not believe she is already 3 years old. The next time she goes into heat she will be getting bred again. I think we figured up this should be around May.
Update on the Livingston House
This past weekend our son Joshua brought his skid steer to do some clearing and leveling on the hill.
When you have trees mulched it leaves behind 4 – 6 inches of wood so all that wood has to be scraped into piles.
The good thing is Jeanelle & David can use it at their place next door for the muddy areas on the trails because the kids are always driving the Polaris Ranger around.
He got the hill scraped and it looks good. This is a picture of him on the skid steer.
The concrete guy came out and gave a general bid. Our plans show an 11′ 9 x 40-foot front porch well we are also going to do a back porch the same size. The side entrance is by the kitchen and there will be a sidewalk joining both porches.
Even though we are on a hill with concrete you still buy dirt for us it looks like 6 – 8 loads of dirt to go down before the concrete. He will come out this week and shoot a grade and give the actual estimate for the job.
We could have a slab in a few more weeks. Woo Hoo!
I made the down payment on the building but told them by the time we get the culvert set, the temporary driveway built, and the slab and plumbing it will be the end of February before we can start the building.
It sure would be nice to think that we could have the house by the end of March this is my springtime dream.
We wanted a Barndominium that will be Zinc metal which is dark grey with a white roof and black trim and black trimmed windows.
Here are a few pics of the property on the hill we are thinking of naming it “Magnolia Hill” because there is a magnolia on the hill. That is it leaning on the right-hand side it is leaning because there were other trees supporting it at one time. We are hoping it will straighten back up again. If not we can brace it until it realizes it has more room.
There are a few clusters of magnolias on the property in the front and the back yard.
I want a black iron gate that is 20 feet wide with Magnolia Hill on the gate and maybe our address.
Progress is moving along and I will share pictures as time goes on.
Happy New Year
We are driving to Livingston today to meet our oldest son Joshua.
We are hoping to get started on the weekend house in January.
Everyone please stay safe on the roads and remember to watch out for the other guy.
We will be back before the crazy starts. Livingston is 1 1/2 hours from us.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Another day another hawk
The hawks are everywhere.
Do not get me wrong I love looking at them but when I go outside after I feed the birds I can spot four different ones in trees.
I am going to try hanging small mirrors to see if that will keep them away.
Does anyone else have any ideas?
As you can see this one was eyeballing the ground from high up in a tree.
Merry Christmas
I want to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas.
If you are traveling stay safe and watch out for all the crazy people driving on the roads.
I will post again before the new year.
Fungi on the forest floor
The forest floor in the piney woods offers the greatest opportunity to photograph some of nature’s wonders.
This time I concentrated my pictures on the Fungi in the damp pine straw under the pine trees.
I have no idea what the names are and whether they are edible or not I just know they photograph quite well.
The piney woods never lets me down there are always a lot of things to photograph.
Beauty Berry Jelly
In Livingston in the woods beneath the trees lies the beautyberry bushes.
They are everywhere if you can beat the wildlife to them you will have a treasure.
The wildlife loves the berries but they are too tart for people to eat. They do make some delicious jelly.
My grandchildren picked almost two gallons and then asked me to make some Jelly.
This was my first time making the beauty berry jelly but it turned out great.
We ended up with 14 half pints in the first batch and 8 pints and 2 – 1/2 half pints in the second batch.
That was not too bad for almost 2-gallon zip locks of berries.
Mushrooms on a dead tree
This hackberry tree fell down about a year ago it was blown down by strong wind while the ground was very wet.
My husband cut part of the trunk up for me to use as plant stands outdoors. They work pretty well for this.
These mushrooms look like oyster mushrooms but I am not sure for sure if that is what they are. The tree trunk was taken over by them and this did not happen until the tree fell down.
I thought the mushrooms made a nice picture.
The fungus is among us.
Sonya Lira Photography 