Chip

Who doesn't love chipmunks?

We named this little guy Chip. I know, it's not an original name, but it fit the little critter. He used to hang out outside our back door on the deck. We put out bird seed for the birds, and he showed up to gather the seeds that fell to the ground. Eventually, we put out bird seed on the deck for him. He would "vacuum" the seed up into his face pouches, and then would race down to his home below the deck to empty the pouches. Quickly he'd be back for a seed refill.

Chip wrapped his tail around his feet on cold autumn days, as you can see in this picture.

Jack loved to watch Chip. Chip spent hours resting on the old rug on the deck in front of the windows when he wasn't stocking up on seeds. Jack spent hours glued to the window watching Chip.

The Jack Tree

Jack's favorite thing to do is to take walks outside. We only let him out on his harness - he tends to scare easily and often runs, but doesn't always pay attention to the direction in which he runs when he gets scared. I'm sure he'd come back home, but he may take the long way. And here in the country there's animals much tougher than Little Jack, the spoiled cat. He doesn't have a chance against the two stray tom cats, Jerry and S2, who visit us regularly, not to mention the coons or foxes.

Here's Jack on a walk today. He's cruising along on the standard walk route. He knows right where he's going.

Hurry up, almost there!

There it is! It's a low, old dogwood, perfect for climbing.

Jack scampers up the tree and sharpens his nails.

Life is good in the Jack tree. From this vantage point, Jack watches all that goes on below.

Garden Bounty

I just went out and picked more squash and cucumbers from our garden today. These are by far the best crop from our garden. The squash just never stops producing! There are more on the vine right now! I can't wait to try the spaghetti squash - they are one of my favorites!

Here's a fresh plate of cucumbers.

Signs of Summer

Just a few pictures of summertime...

Here are some baby wrens that were raised in the plant on our front porch. Baby birds are always a sure sign of summertime.

One of the woodchucks who resides in our back yard. We have so many woodchucks, but luckily they don't dig their holes too close to our house. When summer's gone, they too will be gone, down into their homes.

Baby deer that I saw out by our woodpiles. There were two, but one ran before I could take her picture.

My two cats, Shadow and Jack, being lazy on a summer afternoon. What else is better than an afternoon catnap upside down?

Poison Ivy

My husband & I went out for a walk in the woods Saturday morning. It was a nice, peaceful, relaxing time, just like the hundreds of other walks I've been on. We walked the same paths, didn't climb through any brush or bushes or anything strange...

Then, on Sunday, I noticed I was scratching my neck. No big deal, I quit scratching. Later Sunday evening, I realized I had a rash - on my neck, of all places! It was all red & nasty. I didn't scratch it anymore, but by Monday morning it spread to a second spot on my neck. Nice...

Now it's Tuesday, and sure enough, it's still there, looking like I have something nasty right in the front of my neck. I'm treating it, and hoping it's doesn't look as bad as I think. And of course I'm in a training class for my work, which means interacting with strangers, going out to lunch with strangers & coworkers, and generally trying to make a good impression, all with a nasty spreading rash on the front of my neck...

Monday I wore a turtleneck sweater to class to hide this issue. It was 105 degrees outside, but there I was, with a turtleneck. It was cold in the classroom, you understand. Today I gave up hiding it & displayed my poison ivy with a normal shirt. I did try to keep my long hair in front of it, though.

So, if you're attending training with some poor girl with a nasty poison ivy rash on her neck, it just may be me. Try not to laugh too hard!

-Lynn

Take a walk & check out the trees

Yesterday morning my husband & I took a relaxing walk in the woods. I love to check out the different types of trees that we have on the property. My husband has researched many of the trees that we have, and he told me the tales of trees as we walked along. Come join us for a quick visual walk!

Here's our backyard, the open gate just calling us to come out...

Wild crab apples on an old apple tree. We have many old apple trees, planted long, long ago. The birds & critters seem to eat the apples before they get very big, but these ones escaped and have gotten pretty large:

Trees on the edge of an unruly field:

Wild spearmint. Maybe one day I'll use it in my cooking, but right now it grows wild down by a field. It smells so good when I break off a leaf!

One of our most hated trees, the tree of heaven. It grows wild & takes over an area. When I was a child I always confused this tree with a poison sumac.

Sycamore tree. We have a lot of sycamores.

A row of red cedar trees along a path. They are dry because we went through a dry spell, but now we are getting rain again, so hopefully they will liven up again. I don't know why, but I love old cedar trees planted beside a path.

Young sassafras tree:

Sweet gum tree. I hate these trees because they drop a "gum ball" in the autumn - a sticky seed that hurts your feet when you walk barefoot on it! We have a lot of wild sweet gums.

Black walnut tree. They have a lot of large walnuts, which the squirrels love!

Red maple tree. This is one of my favorites ~ we used to have one in our yard when I was a child. I used to love to climb it! Now we have one near our garage. The left pic is of the tree itself, the right is closeup of the leaves & the neat little seeds. When I was a kid we used to put the seeds on our nose!!!

Spruce tree. This one drops a sap on anything below, but has the coolest big pine cones!

Red horse chestnut tree. One of my favorite trees, it's close to our house. It has pretty red flowers in the spring.

Well, thanks for taking this walk with us. Time to go inside & have a nice cold glass of lemonade.

It's been nice, come back again soon!

Mystery tree

We try to keep track of what trees we have on our property. It's good to know if we want to keep them around as new, young trees constantly grow here.

We've identified a tree that we just can't figure out what it is. We have many of these "mystery trees" pictured here up close to our house. They may actually be an overgrown bush - many bushes are huge here as they have not been trimmed since time began. The tall ones of these trees are over 30 feet tall, one is about 2 feet in diameter at the base. The young ones are much smaller. The trunk is light wood. It has thick, soft leaves that are fuzzy on the bottom. It sort of looks like a lilac, but it never has flowers and the leaves are much softer. A few of the leaves have what I call the "glove look", as you can see in the pictures, but as the tree matures the leaves get more heart shaped.

Does anyone have any ideas what this could be??

Here's a picture of the morning sun shining through the leaves of the mystery tree. I took it standing underneath in the shade.

Cardinals

We've had lots of birds around, especially baby birds. Here's a few pics of a daddy cardinal feeding his baby. The baby is big enough to feed herself, but the dad seems to be doing such a good job of feeding her. The baby was cheeping really loudly, which attracted my attention.

Garden update

We picked fresh veggies from the garden today... Here's the squash & cucumbers...













Yellow squash

We are going to be so tired of eating squash!!

Don't laugh ~ our corn didn't do too well!! We have corn bites!

Fallen tree in the road

Today Randy & I were considering going out to the movies - we wanted to do something that didn't involve any work whatsoever. We wanted a day off from work. Before we went out, Jack (the cat) begged for a walk in the woods. Jack so loves his walks. So Randy & Jack & I went out on a walk in the woods. Jack was sharpening his nails on a tree when we heard a loud crashing, ripping sound. Jack scampered up the tree & had to be retrieved & put back in the house. Randy & I went to investigate ~ an old pine tree fell across our dirt road.

Just the top of the tree was across the road.

It knocked other smaller trees out of it's way when it fell.

There is never a day without work on the farm. I gave Randy this chainsaw a few years ago for his birthday. People thought I was strange for giving him a chainsaw for his birthday, but I knew he'd appreciate it. He's used it alot since then.

Logs after the cleanup was complete. There is always logs to be split around here.

Road is now all clear.