Monday, May 30, 2011

Happy Memorial Day



Thank you to all the brave men and women who have fought/fighting for our country!!!
We love you!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Donate Blood and get a $10 Gift card or Movie Tickets





I was on iheartpublix.com and they posted this great deal.



Florida Blood Services is offering a $10 gift card to Publix, Walmart or Movie Tickets when you donate blood. It is only at certain locations and times so please visit http://www.fbsblood.org/html/promos/Publix.aspx for more information.




To me this is a win win deal, you get to help someone and get a gift card in return. Gotta love it!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Meet Charlie
























Let me start off by saying I am not a fan of squirrels. From a gardeners point of view, squirrels are constantly digging up plants, eating my fruits and veggies before I can pick them, and they even eat some of my flowers. I will admit they can be very entertaining to watch, I would just rather watch them in someone else’s yard. Having said all that, I do have a soft spot for baby animals, and that’s where Charlie comes in the picture.
Last Saturday evening my neighbor and I are out sitting on the dock when we kept hearing some sort of chirping sound. At first our hubby’s thought it was the water pump. But upon further investigation we realized it was coming from a tree. So we decided to walk over and see what critter was making the noise. Just as we were walking over to the tree, we see something fall out of the tree. So I ran over to find a small squirrel curled up in a ball. We are guessing that he’s at least month old since he had fur. He was sooo cute! We called the kids out so they could see this adorable little creature with big brown eyes. The kids begged us to keep him, we of course said no, that we need to leave the squirrel and let mamma squirrel have a chance to come and rescue her baby. Well it was getting dark and the mosquitos were coming out, so it was time for us to go inside. The kids were very worried about the squirrel, especially Jordan; he’s my animal/nature boy. So finally after a few hours my hubby decided he would let the boys go and see if momma squirrel had come. Well momma squirrel didn’t come and the boys had brought the baby squirrel inside and had already named him “Charlie”. We didn’t want Charlie inside because he had bugs, so we put him in a shoe box with a towel and let him sleep in the garage. We sent the kids to bed and my hubby and I begin to discuss what the heck we are going to do with this thing. My hubby wanted to let nature take its course and put him back outside. I just couldn’t do that, to me it seemed cruel; Charlie is too cute for that kind of ending. He reminded me that I do not like squirrels. I told him that Charlie was just a baby, I’m a sucker and that tomorrow we would drop him off at the wildlife clinic.
Sunday after Church Jordan I drove to the wildlife clinic and they were closed. We were very concerned for Charlie because he hadn’t eaten anything since we got him. So we decided to go to a pet store for advice. They were extremely helpful. We had to buy some puppy milk and a dropper to feed Charlie. It worked great! Charlie quickly learned that the dropper was food and would even help hold it. We ended up keeping Charlie for a couple of days before we took him to the wildlife clinic.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

New Dock













































Our house has a man made pond behind it and ever since we moved here we always thought a dock would be really nice. But a dock was one of things that was way down on the wish list since we always had so many other things to take care of and we didn't know how to make a dock.





Well this year our luck changed a little. One of our neighbors organized a pond clean up where we pulled invasive plants out, and put in native plants in. Well, at one of our meetings we got to talking with another neighbor and he mentioned he wanted a dock also and he used to build them! So after much excitement, planning, budgeting my hubby and our neighbor built some docks. One weekend they built his dock and the next weekend they built our dock. AS you can see in the photo's the water level was extremely low. We have lived here over 6 years and it has never been that low. But it worked out great for us because it made building the dock much easier and the very next week it stormed for a couple of days and the pond level returned to normal.



We love our dock!! Our pond is stocked with bass, catfish and a few other kind of fish so now everyone likes to fish off the dock. Me, I like to sit back and relax and enjoy the gentle breeze that blows over the water. I don't know what it is but I swear it is a few degrees cooler and much more peaceful on the dock than on land.



Thank you to my wonderful hubby and our skilled neighbor for working very hard to build our dock!!!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

I love you Mom!








Happy Mother's Day Mom, I love you!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Fragrant Gardens



Gardenia Miami Supreme



Old Fashion Honeysuckle



Gardenia Vietnam






I love this time of year. So many flowers are in bloom, including many of my fragrant ones. Almost every evening I stroll over to one of my gardenia bushes,pick a flower and wear it in my hair for the rest of the evening. It makes pulling weeds and watering plants much more enjoyable. I am sad when my gardenias are done blooming but I am excited for other fragrant plants that are blooming.
Flowers aren’t the only thing with fragrance. Many types of foliage have a scent. I love brushing my fingers through basil leaves, lavender, lemon grass, rosemary and other herbs.
It is amazing to me how powerful scents can be. Scents have the wonderful ability to trigger memories. Have you ever strolled through a garden to be reminded of some childhood memory, or a food, or a friend?
One of my gardenia bushes is very special to me. My parents gave it to me when my 2nd son, Jordan was born. If I ever move I will have to take cuttings of it, because it is way too big to dig up.

Currently the fragrant flowers I have blooming in my garden are;
Gardenia Augusta Beauty
Gardenia White Gem
Gardenia Miami Supreme (I think)
Gardenia Augusta 'Vietnam'
Honeysuckle which was sold to me under the generic name “old fashion” (it is definitely not the invasive “Halls honeysuckle”)
4 O’clocks

Fragrant Flower I have that are not blooming;
Gardenia Frost Proof
Butterfly Ginger
Kewense Ginger
Sweet Almond Verbana
Citrus Trees
Pink Crinums
White Crinums
Michelia Figo aka Banana Shrub
Tea Olive