White Squirrel and Other Wildlife

Today Hubby and I took a trip out to White Oak State Park to lollygag around and watch Cindy Lou set up her campsite. Hubby helped with the Tall Guy stuff and I supervised.

We feed the squirrels (a white squirrel!) and the ducks, squealed at a couple of snakes, and relaxed in the breeze coming in off the lake. I even did some quicky sketches. A fun time was had by all.

My day in photographs......

112 Main St., Prescott, Arkansas

Back in April of this year, April 6th specifically, I had a dream. It was a strange dream, but one so real it was unnerving.

In the dream I was standing on a sidewalk in a downtown area looking at a vacant lot. The lot had broken concrete slabs, cold pack asphalt, and gravel rubble. It was a site where an old building had been torn down. There wasn't anything in particular to see in this lot. It looked the same as any vacant lot in any downtown area in any little town in Arkansas.

What was so odd about the dream is that it came with a specific address: 112 Main Street, Prescott, Arkansas. Now that part was the scary part. Dreams aren't usually that specific. Prescott holds no particular importance for me. I've driven through there once or twice in my life, but that's about all the connection I have to Prescott. This dream was getting curiouser and curiouser.

What was the significance of this rubbley lot? Was I supposed to buy it? Was I supposed to meet someone there? Was I supposed to see something important? Was the former building of some relevance? Was the ghost of someone buried under the slab trying to contact me from The Other Side? I didn't know, but I knew I had to find out.

On April 8th we went to find the address. Lo and behold, it was exactly as I had seen it in my dream. Judging from the addresses of the neighboring buildings, 112 Main Street, Prescott was indeed a rubbley lot. It was serving as a parking lot for the business next door.

I stood in the parking lot with an open mind. I didn't know what would happen next, but I was ready...ready to see, to meet, to listen, to experience.

I was ready, but maybe I was late. Maybe I should have been there on the 7th, I don't know. If I was supposed to met or speak to someone, they didn't appear. Maybe I was supposed to *see* something there, so I took pictures.

What is it that I should be seeing??? Do I need to contact Henry George??? Should I switch to Coca-Cola??? Should I be taking Cardill tonic because I'm a woman???

Pileated Woodpeckers

I got excited when two huge woodpeckers landed in the neighbor's tree this morning. I heard them before I saw them. Their calls sounded like a kitten mewling. I got excited because I thought they might be the rare Ivory-billed woodpeckers causing the big stir here in Arkansas.




After I examined the photos I realized they were the common Pileated woodpeckers found everywhere in Arkansas. They were pretty and I enjoyed watching them interract with each other. Who knew woodpeckers were so loving?

I guess it is a blessing in a way that they weren't the rare birds. While it would have been exciting to be the person who took the landmark photograph, I would have gotten mad when all the crazed bird watchers descended on my house and started stomping around in my garden. Ugh!

Field Trip to Arkansas Post

Yesterday, Hubby announced, "Tomorrow morning, we are going on a field trip."

"Uh Oh", my little kid brain thought, "That sounds educational and I'm not gonna like it."

I was kinda, sorta right. It was educational, but I liked the chosen destination, Arkansas Post. We had discussed doing a day trip there for some time but had never gotten around to it. The part I didn't like was leaving at 8:00 a.m. I don't move well at that hour. This morning we finally got on the road at 10:30 a.m. That's not too bad considering I stayed up until 3:30 a.m. talking to a friend in California.

On the way we passed through the little town of Tillar, Arkansas. The First United Methodist church there had the coolest looking dome. The building is Classical Revival, was built in 1913, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I'm a sucker for interesting architecture and make Hubby screech to a halt at buildings with interesting details.

Most of the landscape over in eastern Arkansas is agricultural fields....miles and miles and miles of soybeans. The sky there is big and wide and you can see forever. It's very different from Lower Arkansas where the landscape is miles and miles of pine trees. I thought this photo of a cloud over a Dumas, Arkansas soybean field was neat and showed the wide-open spaces.

Then there's the quirky stuff. This gigantic tire man was in front of Charlie's Tire Service and TV Repair in Dumas, Arkansas.

The Arkansas River was swollen from all the rain we've gotten lately. The debris was rollin' down the river at a pretty fast clip. I wouldn't want to be a little boat out there on the river any time soon. It would be toooo dangerous.

This is a log cabin just outside of Arkansas Post at the museum.

The grounds of the Arkansas Post National Memorial were beautiful, lush and green. This is a spot on the walking trail by the river.

I was a little disappointed to find there are no historic buildings or re-creations on the grounds, just a few stone foundation outlines. The only existing evidence of the settlement at Arkansas Post was this 24-foot deep brick cistern built about 1811 by Frederic Notrebe, a fur dealer and cotton planter.

There was a scale model of two sides of the fort wall to show how it was constructed. It was built of split red oak. Bullets could penetrate only about an inch into the wood providing protection to the soldiers.

On our way home we passed through the little community of Mist, Arkansas in Ashley County. It's so tiny it doesn't have its own ZIP code. The signposts marking the beginning and end of Mist are about 100 yards apart. I thought Mist was a cool name for a town.

Garden Photos - July 01, 2007

The garden is getting a little droopy in the summer heat. My prized celosia were beautiful earlier but are now toast. I'm ripping them all out soon.

The bugs have had a field day eating up the plants this summer. It has been chemical warfare out there and the bugs are still winning. Some critter who is immune to Sevin and miticide and fungicide is destroying the big crock of verbena and geranium. I don't know what to do and have given up hope.

The lantana in the hanging pot that I lusted after for so long has been a big disappointment. I don't know what's wrong with it. It starts to bloom, then the bloom falls off and goes to seed. The bloom never completely develops. This guy gets dust dry in a matter of hours. Is lantana a very thirsty plant???

Here are a few things that are still doing well.

The window boxes on the back deck:
They are luciously full and flowing down the side of the deck just like I had envisioned. Hubby admires these every morning through the window. He likes having bloomy things more than he will admit.

Here is a close-up of Wave petunias.
These guys look like velvet.

This is Kong coleus. They grow huge! I had three last year and they didn't do much. This guy is in a shadier area and is doing mighty fine.


The green and white caladium:
I planted these in the same spot as last year. By June 1st I decided they weren't coming up, so I planted the coleus plants there. Then, of course, the caladium sprouted. I didn't know how the two plants would co-exist right on top of each other, but the caladium seem to be very, very happy living under the skirt of the coleus.

The Freckled Sunshine Canna:
Freckled Sunshine isn't the real name. But it suits it, don't you think? These guys are growing and blooming profusely this year.

The Basketball Marigolds:
I love these orange pom-pom marigolds. The blooms are big and round. I wish I knew what kind they were. There wasn't a plant tag when I bought them.

The Squirrel in the Teacup:
I made this little teacup birdfeeder after seeing the project in the Arkansas Gardener magazine. The instructions were to drill through the cup and saucer with a special drill bit then screw it to a cork. The cork fits into a piece of PVC pipe. That was all too complicated for me. I didn't want to buy a special drill bit, find a screw to fit, then find a cork. Screwing the cup and saucer set-up to the cork would probably break it anyway. I also didn't want to buy PVC pipe. You can't kabammer that stuff into the ground, it shatters.

My re-engineered solution was to glue the cup to the saucer with Gorilla Glue, then glue a small PVC fitting to the bottom of the saucer. Then I jabbed an old broomstick into the ground. The PVC fitting slips over the end of the broomstick. The teacup lifts off easily for cleaning. The whole set-up is sitting right in the middle of the impatiens bed.

The lady who submitted the project wrote that she had not had any trouble with squirrels raiding her teacup feeder. Well, she doesn't live around here where the tree rat population is at infestation level.

If you look closely you can see a skeeter hovering just over the squirrel's ear. I'm glad the skeeters pester the tree rats too.

A Portrait of My Grandfather

This is a portrait of my grandfather, a man I never knew. It is a beautiful portrait, stark in composition with exquisite lighting, capturing the intimate details of an ordinary man.

It is haunting, timeless, and speaks volumes.

It should be hanging in an artsy New York photography gallery.

Garden Photos

The garden is lovely now. Not quite the bushy jungle I was aiming for, but it's only late May. Here are a few photos of my favorite garden goodies:

-----PINK HYDRANGEA-----

The blooms on this are intense pink and big as cantaloupes. They have been glorious with all the rain we've been having.

-----HOSTA-----

I was afraid the after last year's drought, the hosta might not make it to a second year. They came back with a vengeance early this spring and even weathered the Easter frost. Then they started growing straight up like a canna and I didn't know what was going on. I thought hosta were just a low mounding plant. I discovered the tall bits are the bloom stalks. They now have the most delicate little lilac colored blooms.

-----IMPATIENS-----

The front bed is a sea of bushy, mounding impatiens. They too are just glorious this year. In addition to the solid red, pink, and salmon ones in the photo, there are candy-striped varieties in these same colors. Just glorious.

-----WINDOW BOXES-----

The window boxes on the back deck are about the only space I can find to have sun plants. Shown above are: (top to bottom) black sweet potato vine, orange marigolds, lime sweet potato vine, and an electric red variety of geranium. The lime sweet potato vine glows neon green in the noonday sun; grows bushy as well as drips out of the box; and is happy in wet or dry, sunny or shady conditions. Too bad it is an annual. I love the high contrast of color and foliage in this little mini garden.

-----GYM LOCKER MARIGOLDS-----

These are 'Bonanza Bee' marigolds planted in old gym locker baskets. I think they are charming. Hubby says they are cute. The other gym locker basket has rusty-colored marigolds.

-----CALLA LILY-----

I was holding my breath to see if this little guy would bloom this year. I planted three bulbs this spring as an afterthought in the experimental bed. He seems pretty happy there. I hope his two brothers bloom too.

Coons and Skunks and Possums, Oh My!

A steady stream of wildlife ambles through our yard each night. Some are welcome, some not so much. The mangy possum I wasn't too thrilled about, he looked kinda sick.

Last night a skunk wandered by the front step as I was standing five feet away on the porch. At first I thought he was another possum because he was ambling along so slowly. In the darkness I really couldn't tell who he was. When I reached for the Nocturnal Critter Identification Flashlight we keep on the porch, I bumped the table and made a noise. I heard him scurry off into the darkness of the neighbor's yard. When I found him with the flashlight I realized he was Pepe LePew's cousin. Ack! I'm glad I didn't make the noise ten seconds earlier or I might have regretted it for a few days. Those skunk hiney salutes linger around for a while.

Tonight the cutest little guy wandered through the yard and up the neighbor's big oak tree. He seemed as interested in me as I was in him. It's not often the wildlife around here has the patience for me to go inside and retrieve my camera, finagle around with the settings, then sit still long enough to have their picture taken.

(Click on photo to embiggen)

He was about 20 feet up in the tree in the darkness. It's amazing the photos came out this clear. You can see the little hairs in his ears.

It looked like he had had a long day and was looking for some place comfortable to bed down for the night.

New Digital Camera

Woo Hoo! I finally have a digital camera with a viewfinder so I can actually SEE what I'm taking a picture of. The view screen on my old pocket-sized point-n-shoot was so small I had no idea if I had the camera pointed in the direction of my subject. I'm getting too old and bi-focaled to be peering at a tiny opening at arm's length.

The new camera is a Canon Power Shot S3 IS. It has a 12X zoom so I can get in tight on faces from a distance. Nobody wants a camera six inches from their nose, but those are the photos I want. I can now stand back and let the camera get in their personal space instead of me.

I finally got the picture of my puppy I've been trying to take for so long.

Lunar Eclipse over the Ouachita River

Tonight I was out on the Ouachita River just as the lunar eclipse happened and was lucky enough to have my camera with me.

It's not the greatest picture taken. My little point-n-shoot doesn't have the right doodads to take a good night scene photo.

Note to self: Buy better digital camera.