Critters and Crocs and Crap, oh my!
In the past few days, I have encountered various ... critters, for lack of a better word. On Friday night in the Target parking lot, I saw a huge winged insect with big eyes, white pointy teeth, and whiskers. Maybe it had eyebrows, too; I got away from that thing fast, so I don't know. It appeared to be injured, but it was not about to die. Maybe someone ran over it or something -- it was big and scary enough that being run over probably wouldn't have killed it.
Then on Saturday morning, when we were walking out to the car on our way to breakfast*, I saw a huge earthworm in the grass. I know those are beneficial to the garden and all, but this one was humongous and just wiggling around on the grass, not in the dirt, and it hadn't rained the night before or anything. It was pretty gross, too.
Sunday morning we got up early and worked in the yard for a couple of hours. When I was weeding in the tomato garden, I saw a teeny tiny adorable green baby frog! It was about the size of half of my thumb. I held it, and then set it free back in the garden. I think it was the first baby froggie I have seen all summer, but of course, I've seen lots of adults. For some reason, I kinda like frogs. I used to have some of those spotted African frogs in an aquarium, and I just loved watching them move. And I will admit this now -- part of the reason I always take a flashlight when we walk Tater at night is so that I can look for frogs. Sometimes I pet them. But I only ever pick the baby ones up -- they're cuter than the adults. Next year, for the garden, I should get one of those little clay frog houses. I don't know that a frog would take up residence in there, but at least he would have the option.
Later that night, I saw two bats. Last year, we set up the bat house. I got some bat poop (technical name: bat guano) from a state park -- there are a lot of caves in this state, and the rangers at the park sites will gather the poop for you, but you have to go get it -- and put it around the bat house to attract bats to it. Well, last year we saw a few, but I didn't know if any had been around this year -- I hadn't seen any, but I hadn't really looked that much, either (I'd kind of forgotten about the bat house, really). I was glad to see a couple of them in my yard this year.
Yesterday when I was driving home, I saw a turtle in the street about a block from my house. I stopped and got it and drove it to the park (just down the street) and let him go. He didn't even pee in my car. I wanted to keep him. When I was about five, I had a pet turtle. It was one of those with the yellow spots on his shell, so I named him Spot. Peggy, my sometime babysitter, was a college student, an elementary ed major, and she had to write a children's book for a class, so she wrote about the little girl named Angela who had a pet turtle named Spot and a weiner dog named Sadie (whose full name was Sexy Sadie, like the song, but Peggy left that out). I don't remember if there was a point to the story or a particular lesson learned, though. The reason I said book instead of story is because they got to bind them into these little hardcover books with artwork and everything. I think my mom has that thing around here somewhere.
Anyway, this long weekend was full of encounters wild critters (I sound like goddamn Ellie May), and that's not even counting the ones with four legs who live in my house or the squirrels or rabbits or various birds (including hummingbirds) that stop by regularly, so I thought that was interesting, or weird, or somehow noteworthy.
* We went to IHOP, which is my favorite white-trash chain at which to eat breakfast. We go early, so there are usually no nasty people there. Surprisingly, their coffee is pretty good. Anyway, their new promotion is funnel cakes, so I got those. Well, it has been several years since I ate a funnel cake, but I remembered them as being hot, buttery, and sugary. The one IHOP makes is none of those things. In fact, it was kind of tasteless and crunchy, and no amount of powdered suger was ever going to change that. I don't recommend them. From now on, I will be sticking to the griddle cakes or the harvest grain n' nut pancakes, which I do recommend, or the stuffed French toast, if you're PMSing and need to have something very, very sweet right now.
~~*~~
In other news, the tread on my Crocs is almost gone. I have worn those things every day (at least for walking the dog, but not necessarily all day) since I got them back in early May. I think I am going to be boring and buy the same ones again -- same color and everything.
~~*~~
Have I really not posted about my garden? Well, I have tomatoes (grape, roma, and a few beefsteaks) and peppers (red bell peppers and banana peppers) and a good-sized herb garden this year (not gonna list them all), plus several potted herbs and some flowers. (Next year, Chris is making me a huge herb plot over spring break, but I'm not sure if I told him that yet). But I have also decorated the garden. At first, it was just a few things that I saw at the dollar store. Then I decided that as long as it was cheap (I haven't spent more than a buck on any one thing) and craptastic, I should get it and put it out. I'm a little concerned that someone will see it and just think that I have awful taste, when in fact, 95% of it is out there just because it is so awful, but I don't care -- I like my ugly garden shit! And besides, it's in the back.
Tacky Garden Crap Inventory (off the top of my head; I probably forgot some)
Statues:
- shiny plastic owl, orange and brown and yellow (one of my favorites)
- cement hedgehog (I wasn't entirely sure what it was, but 80 insists it is a hedgehog)
- gray stone smiling turtle with black marble eyes
- gray stone frog, lying on his side in a playmate-of-the-month pose, with black marble eyes
- standing gray stone gnome with black marble eyes and a slightly creepy pose
- very ugly ceramic gnome, hand-painted by what I am sure are third-world children who make about a dollar a week, with red shirt and green hat, which makes him look a little like Santa Claus
- shiny light green ceramic crocodile with those multicolored flat marbles stuck on his back (Chris says this one is scary; I think it looks like some kid made it in art class)
- light brown plaster frog sitting up in thinking pose
- bluish-gray stone frog in realistic frog pose
- green ceramic frog sitting up on pedestal, reading (this one is disturbing, because if you turn it around, you can see its butt, which looks like a human butt, crack and all)
- shiny plastic orange snail
- shiny plastic yellow and orange turtle
- two or three of those little beaded wire bugs that hand off the side of potted plants (these are kind of cute)
- green ceramic thumbpot (I have never used it, so I just set it in there)
Staked things:
- 3 small pink flamingos with wings that flap (tag sale -- a quarter each)
- plastic ladybug with spinny wings
- blue butterfly with wings that flap
- copper bug of some kind (maybe a dragonfly -- this one is cute, too)
- small plastic standing flamingo (this one is basically a little statue on a stick)
- extremely ugly plastic frog with legs that move and a movable tongue that has a ladybug on it
- orange stripey cat with dangly legs, which I stuck in the pot of catnip
- 3 flat plastic flamingos (three for a buck -- but these are truly heinous)
- suncatcher with stained glass daisy (this is the one exception to the no-more-than-a-dollar rule, I think I paid $5 for it, but it is also very pretty, and big)
Now that I look at the list, I think I need more of this stuff. I mean, only one butterfly? And not one bee? None of those ceramic mushrooms? No bunnies? No pinwheel? I am so going to some dollar stores this week.
Then on Saturday morning, when we were walking out to the car on our way to breakfast*, I saw a huge earthworm in the grass. I know those are beneficial to the garden and all, but this one was humongous and just wiggling around on the grass, not in the dirt, and it hadn't rained the night before or anything. It was pretty gross, too.
Sunday morning we got up early and worked in the yard for a couple of hours. When I was weeding in the tomato garden, I saw a teeny tiny adorable green baby frog! It was about the size of half of my thumb. I held it, and then set it free back in the garden. I think it was the first baby froggie I have seen all summer, but of course, I've seen lots of adults. For some reason, I kinda like frogs. I used to have some of those spotted African frogs in an aquarium, and I just loved watching them move. And I will admit this now -- part of the reason I always take a flashlight when we walk Tater at night is so that I can look for frogs. Sometimes I pet them. But I only ever pick the baby ones up -- they're cuter than the adults. Next year, for the garden, I should get one of those little clay frog houses. I don't know that a frog would take up residence in there, but at least he would have the option.
Later that night, I saw two bats. Last year, we set up the bat house. I got some bat poop (technical name: bat guano) from a state park -- there are a lot of caves in this state, and the rangers at the park sites will gather the poop for you, but you have to go get it -- and put it around the bat house to attract bats to it. Well, last year we saw a few, but I didn't know if any had been around this year -- I hadn't seen any, but I hadn't really looked that much, either (I'd kind of forgotten about the bat house, really). I was glad to see a couple of them in my yard this year.
Yesterday when I was driving home, I saw a turtle in the street about a block from my house. I stopped and got it and drove it to the park (just down the street) and let him go. He didn't even pee in my car. I wanted to keep him. When I was about five, I had a pet turtle. It was one of those with the yellow spots on his shell, so I named him Spot. Peggy, my sometime babysitter, was a college student, an elementary ed major, and she had to write a children's book for a class, so she wrote about the little girl named Angela who had a pet turtle named Spot and a weiner dog named Sadie (whose full name was Sexy Sadie, like the song, but Peggy left that out). I don't remember if there was a point to the story or a particular lesson learned, though. The reason I said book instead of story is because they got to bind them into these little hardcover books with artwork and everything. I think my mom has that thing around here somewhere.
Anyway, this long weekend was full of encounters wild critters (I sound like goddamn Ellie May), and that's not even counting the ones with four legs who live in my house or the squirrels or rabbits or various birds (including hummingbirds) that stop by regularly, so I thought that was interesting, or weird, or somehow noteworthy.
* We went to IHOP, which is my favorite white-trash chain at which to eat breakfast. We go early, so there are usually no nasty people there. Surprisingly, their coffee is pretty good. Anyway, their new promotion is funnel cakes, so I got those. Well, it has been several years since I ate a funnel cake, but I remembered them as being hot, buttery, and sugary. The one IHOP makes is none of those things. In fact, it was kind of tasteless and crunchy, and no amount of powdered suger was ever going to change that. I don't recommend them. From now on, I will be sticking to the griddle cakes or the harvest grain n' nut pancakes, which I do recommend, or the stuffed French toast, if you're PMSing and need to have something very, very sweet right now.
~~*~~
In other news, the tread on my Crocs is almost gone. I have worn those things every day (at least for walking the dog, but not necessarily all day) since I got them back in early May. I think I am going to be boring and buy the same ones again -- same color and everything.
~~*~~
Have I really not posted about my garden? Well, I have tomatoes (grape, roma, and a few beefsteaks) and peppers (red bell peppers and banana peppers) and a good-sized herb garden this year (not gonna list them all), plus several potted herbs and some flowers. (Next year, Chris is making me a huge herb plot over spring break, but I'm not sure if I told him that yet). But I have also decorated the garden. At first, it was just a few things that I saw at the dollar store. Then I decided that as long as it was cheap (I haven't spent more than a buck on any one thing) and craptastic, I should get it and put it out. I'm a little concerned that someone will see it and just think that I have awful taste, when in fact, 95% of it is out there just because it is so awful, but I don't care -- I like my ugly garden shit! And besides, it's in the back.
Tacky Garden Crap Inventory (off the top of my head; I probably forgot some)
Statues:
- shiny plastic owl, orange and brown and yellow (one of my favorites)
- cement hedgehog (I wasn't entirely sure what it was, but 80 insists it is a hedgehog)
- gray stone smiling turtle with black marble eyes
- gray stone frog, lying on his side in a playmate-of-the-month pose, with black marble eyes
- standing gray stone gnome with black marble eyes and a slightly creepy pose
- very ugly ceramic gnome, hand-painted by what I am sure are third-world children who make about a dollar a week, with red shirt and green hat, which makes him look a little like Santa Claus
- shiny light green ceramic crocodile with those multicolored flat marbles stuck on his back (Chris says this one is scary; I think it looks like some kid made it in art class)
- light brown plaster frog sitting up in thinking pose
- bluish-gray stone frog in realistic frog pose
- green ceramic frog sitting up on pedestal, reading (this one is disturbing, because if you turn it around, you can see its butt, which looks like a human butt, crack and all)
- shiny plastic orange snail
- shiny plastic yellow and orange turtle
- two or three of those little beaded wire bugs that hand off the side of potted plants (these are kind of cute)
- green ceramic thumbpot (I have never used it, so I just set it in there)
Staked things:
- 3 small pink flamingos with wings that flap (tag sale -- a quarter each)
- plastic ladybug with spinny wings
- blue butterfly with wings that flap
- copper bug of some kind (maybe a dragonfly -- this one is cute, too)
- small plastic standing flamingo (this one is basically a little statue on a stick)
- extremely ugly plastic frog with legs that move and a movable tongue that has a ladybug on it
- orange stripey cat with dangly legs, which I stuck in the pot of catnip
- 3 flat plastic flamingos (three for a buck -- but these are truly heinous)
- suncatcher with stained glass daisy (this is the one exception to the no-more-than-a-dollar rule, I think I paid $5 for it, but it is also very pretty, and big)
Now that I look at the list, I think I need more of this stuff. I mean, only one butterfly? And not one bee? None of those ceramic mushrooms? No bunnies? No pinwheel? I am so going to some dollar stores this week.