Amphibian Valentine's Day

That flat trill is back again. Only, he's not alone now. Oh no. There is a veritable chorus of flat trills calling out for love in wet places.

And then, there are the ratchety croaks and breeek-breeeks. There are groups of them singing too. The amphibians in my yard seem to think that now might be a good time to hook up.

No eggs yet, but I'm still checking. I need to set up the tadpole nursery pretty quick, as I suspect I will have large groups of the little wigglers.

If the eggs all hatch at once in the pond or water barrel gardens, they'll throw the water's chemical balance off and use up a lot of the oxygen. That tends to kill fish.

They've been very loud the last few nights. Usually they do this after a good rainstorm, but we've not had a good gully washer for a couple of weeks. I suppose that they could be waiting for it to rain. It is humid enough, but we just aren't going to have any for at least another week.

So now, I guess the amphibians are sending out love notes.

An orgy is being planned.

And here you all thought I had a G rated blog...
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I Love My American Gothic Chicks

I was whining to one of my American Gothic Chicks today about my pain and she mentioned that ever since her brain tumor, that anytime something might go wrong, she hears a little voice in her head that says "It ain't no brain tumor!". She also said this a lot before it was taken care of.

We all have our own coping mechanisms.

I've known her for several years now. We talk a lot on line, sometimes on the phone and someday we hope to have a ...humm can't be REunion....nor blogmeet........so..........OnlineMeet?

I met her through another online friend, V. V. is someone I met while playing pool. She'd just had a baby. There is a lot more to this than I've said just here, and things have gone worse for her, but they've gone on the upturn now....

Let's just say for now? We've seen each other through quite a lot of stuff. Enough stuff to fill several potboiler, 4 hankie Gothic novels....hell they'd even qualify as SOUTHERN Gothic, which has even more melodrama.

'Course the melodrama is real, so it really qualifies as Drama. Suffice it to say just now, that all three of us have gone through some major shit. Luckily a tripod is a lot more stable than a single leg. Even better, we've got another part-time member, P. She's not as into chatting online, but she's real life for Val. She's also going through bad stuff. She may be the most stable of us all.

So. Four legs to support a bunch'a STUFF we're going through. I've felt very fortunate to have had this support system.

So, my friend calls V. V. is an artist. She did the graphic here:


Please, don't copy this graphic. If you'd like to share it, please do a link back. We've got possible plans for this...

Oh...hell

I've been in pain since Sunday...well, Saturday, really.

Tonight 'Pup and I went to the movies (Narnia, Prince Caspian, well worth the price of the ticket!). As we sat in the seats, I was in pain. As I walked out of the theater, I was in pain. 'Pup saw I was having to struggle to walk and went ahead quickly to get the van. As I waited for him, I leaned on a post and had a sudden realization.

I recognized this pain.

It's the same pain I had before the surgery in December of 2004. Back then, I couldn't walk, stand, sit or lay down without a lot of pain. It was a memorable pain. The surgery got rid of that particular pain...for the most part. The radiculopathy pain is a little different. Not less, but qualitatively and quantitatively different. I can live with the radiculopathy pain. I sit down, and it goes away, mostly. This pain isn't going away.

The neurologists told me the spinal stenosis could happen again.

This does not make me happy.

Truth is, it scares me silly.

Frog Song

It is close to 2 am and there is a frog singing outside my window. And by frog, I mean probably a toad, and by singing I mean a really loud monotone trill. A trill, I tell you, and yet, I do believe that trill is flat.

(This is not to be confused with a certain Star Trek Trill, who was most assuredly many things, but not flat.)

I suppose this amorous amphibian is advertising for a lady love. Which means that tomorrow, I need to go check the fountains and the pond to make sure the water hasn't been displaced by an equal amount and number of amphibian eggs. Not that I mind tadpoles. I like the little critters, and I'll even set them up a special nursery pond, aka: a kiddie pool (snerks...kiddie pool...get it?) for them to live in and grow up in. Heck, I'll even feed them goldfish food. I like toads and frogs. They pay their way in a garden, eating up a lot of the skeeters and other bugs that might plague me.

It's just that... well... I do wish he weren't tone deaf, and I REALLY wish he'd get an answer to his call and just be quiet long enough for me to get to sleep. And I really wish he'd get his trill tuned.

A Dinner Engagement

I had dinner with three nice men tonight. One was 'Pup...okay, I usually have dinner with him. But I also got to spend a very nice couple of hours with Ellison, who is in town for a couple of days of meetings, and with El Capitan. I'd met both these gents at past blog meets, and was happy to see them again. We met at a New York style Deli, and the food was very good. It was surpassed, in fact, only by the company we shared it with.

I hope to see these gents again at future blog meets.

Pay It Forward

Okay folks, a new meme is upon us. However, unlike other memes, this one brings you a present.

Here’s how it works: I will make and send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I do not know what that gift will be yet, and it won’t be sent this month, probably not next month, but it will be sent (within 6 months) and that’s a promise! What YOU have to do in return, then, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.
I will now Pay It Forward to you THREE, I wonder who you will be?! Please, be a PIF! You will enjoy it just as much as we do!
And, remember…you have 6 months to get your gifts done! Come on, you know you would love to be one of my angels. Then, one day, when you least expect it, you will get a gift that I have made especially for YOU!
Please remember, you don’t have to knit or crochet to participate, anyone who can make a nice handmade gift is welcome to join.

The first three to volunteer will get a gift from me, handmade (maybe hand grown?) and in return will post an invitation to three others to play.

I can't wait to see who wants to play.

Incandescent

Light through the Morning Glories....

Calmness...

OH %$^&^$#%^&&^##$^(!!!!!! UNCOMPOSTED MANURE BRAINS!!

The tree in our side yard needed a trim. Let me repeat that: it needed a TRIM!!

A neighbor down the way said he had 15 years of experience in pruning and trimming trees.

Saturday morning I went to work. The neighbor showed up and quoted a (fair) price. 'Pup agreed to it.

This is the result:

They left as I was coming home. It may have been the smartest thing they did all morning.

Yes, I am weeping for this lovely tree--and it really was lovely. In bringing down all those healthy, nicely formed branches, they smushed my hibiscus, damaged my monster sized split-leaved philodendron, messed up my tomatoes (dragging out full sized limbs past the pots of tomato plants) damaged several other plants, broke my variegated ginger (!!!) and left an unholy mess.

The six spiky things sticking out of the philodendron (which is about eye level to my 5 feet) are some unopened blooms. When open, they look like...uhmmm...well...........bananas. Yah, bananas. Let's stick with that. Bananas.

I know, most everything will recover...but the tree will never look good again.

But the ultimate loss was the growing end of this Gloriosa Rothchildiana flame lily. With it mashed up, the plant will not grow any buds or new leaves. It might, MIGHT(!) grow a lateral branch and bloom from there, but I've not had much luck with that.

I'm so mad I could just SPIT.