Birthday Boy is Growing Up

It was the oldest grandson's birthday last week and his birthday celebration was Saturday. That's him sprawled out on the couch watching a movie...
He turned 17 years old. Seventeen Years Old! I remember him as a little baby in the hospital bassinet with the long skinny feet.

It was just a small family gathering. He's not much for crowds anyway.

There are only 12 candles on the cake because he didn't want the pink and purple ones from the other package.

These weren't your regular candles. They had wicks on top and some sort of flammable liquid in them which made them burn with different colors.

The Birthday Boy blew out the candles without too much effort.

And after eating cake and ice cream it was time to get to the presents...

He doesn't really get presents so much anymore, he gets money, and he prefers it that way. Any movement in his direction and his hand goes into protective mode over his loot.

The peanuts were a gift from Gr-grandma. Growing boys ALWAYS appreciate food.

Everyone had a good time getting together in celebration, isn't that right, PK?

Which End Do I Talk To?

I believe that if there's nothing going on and a person feels like sleeping, then they should be left alone. So when the grandkids come over, I let them sleep till they get up. The other day the oldest grandson had spent the night and I had walked through the playroom to see this...
...I just HAD to get my camera. I showed the picture to my husband and asked him which end he thought was his head. He was wrong. Which end to YOU think is the talking end?

B-rad's B-Day

It's the first grand baby's 16th birthday! They grow up all too fast.
Birthday boy's dad grilled again this year and surprised us with some steak and shrimp kabobs.

All the little ones are getting so big. Here's the oldest granddaughter talking with my mother and aunt, her Great Grandmother.

The party started off with chowing down on hamburgers, hot dogs, kabob, corn on the cob, cooked onions and chips and cheese dip.

Then the birthday boy opened his presents. There was a whole stack of cards, all with some monetary value, one small gift bag...

...and one small package the contained some napkins and a spoon.

That small package was just the intro to a much larger package....

...which pleased B-rad greatly!

I was a small refrigerator filled with snack packs of pudding.

After the gift was hauled off to his room I heard my father say, "These children get the strangest presents."

Time to blow out candles and sing "Happy Birthday"...

... Ice cream on a stick...

...watching a movie...

...conversing...

...relaxing and enjoying...

...then outside to enjoy the beautiful weather.

All the kids went out to play.

It rained nerf bullets on the trampoline...

...which the children enjoy gathering up to reload the gun.

It was a great day with lots of fun and the grandson still couldn't believe he actually got a frig days later. The dog was ready to relax by the end of it all.

Wildlife in My Yard

These are photos that I have taken on various days recently. Below is a turkey vulture that was circling over my block. Must have been slim pickins out in the country for it to come looking in the city. It didn't hang around long.
This is a paper wasp getting ready to take wood fibers from the pallet back to it's hive. I've had an unusually large number of these around this year. I've read that they are natural predators for beetles and things that do damage to the garden, but I've had a couple of grandsons stung by these so I've been knocking them down when I find them. What a dilemma.
I don't know what this little bug is, I've see quite a few of them around. The picture isn't focused real well because the little guy just didn't want to stand still.
One morning I was surprised to find this baby bird in my garden. It just sat there while I walked all the way around it and then came in for a closeup. I turned my back on it to pick lettuce and when I looked back it was gone. No clue as to where it went.
This was a really strange spider. When it sat still it pulled it's legs in next to it. I tapped beside it with a stick and got it to run, looked like your average spider, but then it stopped and pulled in it's leg.
Now this next one is really strange. I've taken this picture with the macro lens, the bug is only actually about 1/4 inch long. It has wings on it's back that stand up at right angle to it's body and look like one circular piece. My grandson found this bug crawling around on the down locus tree.

Remember the gold fly? Now here's a green one. This was in my pool filter, so it was dead when I found it.
Had to get a shot of the full moon, it was a brilliant orange that night.
This bird is a Mockingbird and often sits on top of the utility pool while I'm in the garden and sings and chatters and just makes all sorts of noise.
This is one of the two bunnies that dine on my lawn. I think this might be the female. The other bunny is a bit larger and more colorful. They seem to be letting me get closer to them before they run.
And finally a beautiful overcast sky with a mixture of light and dark.

Dirty Work

Over the last week or so I've been busy rototilling and area for a garden. It needed some work because I haven't had a garden in many years. I'm just glad I had an actual rototiller to use as that the last little garden I had I turned by hand. I think I was more active then and all my parts worked better than they do now. Yesterday I took three of my grandkids with me to our local hardware store and purchase some plants and seeds. Below are the flowers that KP1 transferred to the pots for me.
After showing her what to do I pretty much let her do the arraignment all on her own.
K-Monster and I drove posts to make the fence with pallets for my cucumbers to climb, and BW (who is now to be known as B-rad, which is what he said they call him at school) laid out the paths between the beds. K-Monster, KP1 and I then laid down newspaper and boards to walk on in the paths.

KP1 had a pumpkin plant from a school project that we planted on the backside of the pallet.
I prefer to plant in beds, I have no luck with rows, I loose them. I bought six tomato plants. There wasn't much of a choice. Two of them are yellow tomatoes, I know nothing about these. The others are two different varieties of Roma. I've planted zucchini, cucumber, carrots, okra, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, watermelon, cantaloupe and onion. Some of these are probably in too late, but, oh well, I'm giving them a go anyway. I just realized that I haven't gotten any bell pepper plants.
The Mulberry trees are loaded this year and the birds are really liking it.
More storms moving in tonight.
I still have to get the pool set up, but I did get the area cleared, I'll see about doing this in the next few days.