One of our most prized plantings this year is a gorgeous Butterflyweed. This spring, Nancy picked a half dozen small seeds from a Butterflyweed pod. She started them inside and nurtured them into small plants. When she brought them outside, she knew the damned squirrels would get in them and dig them up so she put a heavy wire guard around them with a top to keep the squirrels from climbing … [Read more...]
Mockingbird Visits
We’ve lived in our house over 45 years and there has always been one mockingbird that visits. Usually, they have nested in thick bushes in our neighbor’s yard and stop by our place only for a sip of water or when the blueberries and blackberries ripen. I feed all my other birds, but I’ve never been able to draw the local mockingbirds to my feeders, until a few weeks ago. I wrote recently about … [Read more...]
Virginia Beach Doormats
August is typically the time when big flounder start showing up at the weighing scales. The big boys, however, are generally caught in deeper water near wrecks and structure. This week, lots and lots of 4 to 6 pound flatties were netted near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and The Cell, but a monster 12 pounder was landed by Capt. Brandon Cook out of Virginia Beach. Hurry down, the action is … [Read more...]
Curb Service
How do young people meet these days? Kids don’t have weekend dances. There are there no more drive-in movies and there are no drive-in restaurants to speak of. The malls are dead zones. And young people would practically need a second mortgage to pay for a movie date – when there are movies. But Baby Boomers look back nostalgically at the days when a young lady called a carhop would take your … [Read more...]
Mexican Pasta Salad
What, exactly, do Mexicans eat as a side with their Tacos or Burritos besides corn chips and salsa? Refried Beans? That’s not a side, that’s dog food. But since I have been doing more and more Mexican cooking – I actually like these spicy dishes – I have been searching for a decent and consistent “side” for a Mexican entree. I think I found a good one recently. I tried my hand at a … [Read more...]
Frogs in the Pond
I put a dozen tadpoles in our little goldfish pond about eight weeks ago, hoping at least one would make it to frog-dom. One did, and there’s another tadpole soon to become a frog. There may be more, but we have so many water hyacinths, it’s hard to tell Truth be known, I wanted a frog pond all along. The goldfish just gave me an excuse. For the past several years, we had frogs in Nancy’s … [Read more...]
That’s a Big Hummer
A hummingbird showed up at our feeder a few weeks ago, and it’s the biggest hummer I’ve ever seen. It has an enormous wingspan, maybe five or six inches. Naturally, the hummingbird has staked out our feeder and woe be to any rival that tries to sneak in for a sweet sip of nectar. Most every hummingbird I have ever seen has been sweet, tiny and delicate. This hummer is a stud. I think he’s been … [Read more...]
My Golf Game Is In Shambles
My golf game is now in shambles. Due to the intense heat, threat of thunderstorms and irregularities due to the Chinese virus, I haven’t played in 6 weeks. This means I have lost all momentum and will have to start from scratch in returning to my well-established bad habits. It’s not easy to master, for example, the rocket-ship sand blast. I’ve been working on this unique shot for years. To … [Read more...]
Queen Anne’s Lace
There is a stretch of sheer beauty along Route 29 just south of Ruckersville. For several hundred yards, tens of thousands of Queen Anne’s Lace plants adorn the roadside. It’s almost as white as a January snowfall. I wrote about Queen Anne’s Lace last year and received many responses from others who admire this delicate plant. Some advised that the lace-like flowers could be … [Read more...]
A Three Headed Sunflower
We wondered just how high our giant sunflower would grow. We think it came from a packet of assorted flowers that Nancy scattered along the garden, but unlike other sunflowers that top out at two or three feet, this one went for the stars and reached 11 feet. The reason I know this is because we secured it to a ten foot pole and it grew another foot. The head of the sunflower spread … [Read more...]
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