Yellow Bellied Sapsucker

He is the first colorful bird I've seen around the house in a couple of months.  No Cardinals, Blue Jays, Blue Birds, Finches of any kind have been seen.  We wonder if the drought in our area has them living elsewhere.

Happy New Year everyone!

Summer Tanager

Wow.  My blog is still here.  It's been how many weeks -- months since I was here last?  

Is anybody out there?

Had to post this guy.

Juvenile male Summer Tanager

He is getting his red/orange coloring, slowly but surely.

Hope I can spot him again from the kitchen window.

Christmas to Color

A brand new coloring book for myself.

Will I actually use the colored pencils I also bought and fill up the pages?

Doubt it.  But it does look good on my coffee table.

And made a pretty picture, too.

November Sunset

Summer Summary

I'm still kickin'.  Well, maybe not kickin' exactly, but getting by.

Here is the extent of summer action around the place.

(I did spare you from photos of grass mowing and all the things that have bit the dust here in the last three months.  Oh, and all the appointments, phone calls, forms, signature guarantees, etc., which one has to deal with following a death.  So complicated.

Hopefully, I am about done with all that bother.

Some patriotic harvest, thanks to a volunteer little white pumpkin/squash.

Wheat field with some color.

Green wheat . . . 

Golden wheat . . . 

Rain . . . 

A visit to a friend's beautiful shady garden oasis. . . 

Some bathers . . .

Some eaters . . . 

Some bunnies . . . lots of bunnies . . . 

A couple of hunters . . . .  one stayed close enough to get a few shots - with the camera, of course.

Icky batches of insects all over the crape myrtles. . . 

And a great 50th birthday party for a good friend.

Hope everyone had a good summer.

Blueberries

The blueberries are almost ready.

This photo is from last year, but the same holds true right here and now.  Last year we had a bumper crop.  I gave them away, and still have bags in the freezer.  There does not look like as many on the bushes this year.  I'm kinda glad.

The Barn Collective #31 - News

Just off Hwy 64 between Lawrenceburg and Pulaski, TN

Hello all.
I am happy to announce that Tom, The Backroads Traveller, would like to take up the barn meme.   Currently, we are experimenting with my existing linkup on his blog, so bear with us.  It might not go perfectly (or go at all) at first.

Many thanks to Tom!!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Gone to seed

Broccoli gone to seed in my husband's garden last spring.
Currently, his garden spot is grown up in weeds as he was not able to plant anything this year before he died.  I'm not sure what I'll do with it next year, but I'm going to keep the fence up and keep the weeds beat down this year until I decide.  I have visions of becoming the old widow woman in the gardening hat with hoe in hand in a garden full of flowers.
We'll see what next year brings.

I am going to halt The Barn Collective for now.  I don't know if I will continue it at a later time or not.  I will be happy for someone to pick it up.  Just let me know.

Thank you to everyone for your kind comments and emails.  Words can be of such great comfort in times of grief.  We are very fortunate to have friends who have visited both at the hospital (two hours away) and at home, brought food, ran errands, looked after my mother, fed the cats, and even mowed the lawn.  My son and I are plodding along with each day.  He will be starting his permanent job next week after a delay due to the illness and death of his father.  I am glad he has something to occupy his mind.

Until next time.

The Barn Collective #27

This is one of my favorite barns from a few years ago.  One day the pretty rusty roof had been painted or replaced.

We have been home from the hospital for a few days now.  My husband had a partial hip replacement due to the cancer going there.  The hip surgery went as expected, but there were lung  complications and we ended up staying a week longer than expected.  He is better now.

Thanks everyone, for the well wishes.

The Barn Collective #26

Appleton, Tennessee, U. S. A.

This is a repost from a few years ago.  I am not able to keep up much these days.  My husband has been in the hospital for over a week.  I hope to be able to get back soon to whatever our normal is these days.

Thanks for hanging with me!

Sittin' pretty

Baby Tree Swallow
June 2014

It's cold in Alabama

The weather man down the road from us reported 5 degrees on their farm this morning.
Thought a sunflower might make us feel better.
This lady was 12+ feet tall and that sunflower is almost 2 feet in diameter.

October pool party

Four Blue Birds and several House Finches had a ball in the pool a couple of weeks ago.

Glowing

These flowers were glowing at me from the field next to the house at dusk one October evening.

Multi-colors

Lorepetalum

I don't know which variety these are, but we love them.

All my spidey friends

Thought this still appropriate for the day after Halloween.
Some of my human friends are saying "I thought she hated spiders . . . .?"
Sharing with Saturday's Critters

And BTW, no one correctly identified what my re-purposed jack-o-lantern was from a couple days ago.  It was the sand filter from our swimming pool pump which had to be replaced this year.

All Hallows' Eve

Who's scaring who?

I found these paper lanterns this year that even the cats can't get to.

It's clear that no one is scaring Big'un.