Ok gardeners… need your help on this one.  Our second go at squash is going great, actually our second go at squash & cucumbers.  But these are getting a bit bigger and actually they look to have buds coming in.  All pretty cool…

Now, on with the problem or questions or whatever…

Check the picture below.

I show you this picture first, not to ask if those are buds, but for you to look at the leaves close up.  See how they have those highly defined viens of white.  Is this normal?  I will show you the other picture from farther away and it almost looks white for the most part.  This has us worried since it is already getting late in the season and have yet to pull anything off in regards to squash.  Do we have a disease?  It doesn’t look like all the pics we have looked at of powdery mildew… but we lean on you guys to help us out.

So what do you think?  Here is a pic of it from a bit further away.  We are not sure the exact type of squash at the moment but could find out.  I didn’t feel it was some super rare kinda - picked it up at just a local store.  Anyhow tell us what you think.

Tags: Gardening, Pictures by James
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Once again it has been awhile since I graced our blog, the last time was June 18th to be exact.  It’s not that I don’t love our blog and everyone elses that I read, it’s just that James is the writer of the family so I let him write while I do all of the watering, babying, picture taking, pruning, planting and all the other hard work.   He gets off extremely easy if you ask me!  Ignore those posts about that tree, I’m the one doing all the work but I choose to let him take credit, he needs to feel like a man!

Ok, ok back to the blooming.

As James posted a couple of days ago, we had nice rain this weekend and it has really helped all of the plants.  I did water a little bit yesterday so that things didn’t completely dry out.  Our weather has been quiet unusual and the overcast, cool days are a nice change.  Our plants are loving it and are showing us some great blooms.

First off is MY celebrity tomato plant.  I picked it out because it looked like a great plant, actually I liked the name but whatever the reason was it has been growing good and is finally putting off some blooms.  We haven’t had many tomato blooms and I think that it is due to the extremely hot weather, but with the cool front came these blooms.  Maybe it will stay cool enough for a couple more to show up.

Next, our first pink canna bloom.  The yellow one bloomed what seems like forever ago so I was excited to see these blooms.  You can see behind the flower that there is a whole bunch of them just waiting to burst open. 

We have posted quiet a few up close 4 oclock pictures but none of the whole flower bed full of them so I tried to snap some pictures last night.  We call these our 7:30 oclocks because that is about the time they bloom.  I had never noticed their scent until last night.  It isn’t very strong but is very sweet and nice.   These flowers have quickly become one of my favorite things in the yard.  They require very little water, are sturdy so they stand up against west Texas wind and they are beautiful when in full bloom.

I hope that everyone has a very fun and safe 4th of July weekend.  Our weekend is already booked and we plan to enjoy every minute of it!

Tags: Gardening, Pictures by Shala
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Sometimes we snap pics while we are driving, other times we might be eating or walking or whatever we happen to be doing where something doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Or perhaps the irony of it all just goes overboard.  Whatever the case, this is one of those posts - and honestly it is a dump of pics we have snapped over time and just forgot to post for whatever reason (we GET BUSY WITH LIFE OK!).

So enjoy this batch of nonsense… hope it leads into your holiday weekend nicely.

Oh and one last thing… I apologize for the picture quality on most of these.  They are normally taken with my phone and well my phone is a phone… not a camera or camcorder or dvd player or Baskin Robbins.  So deal with it.

This first one is one I snapped while driving home and realized that this person really doesn’t know the purpose of a back window.  Or maybe I do not know the purpose.  Amongst all the stuff on the back window, the sticker claiming the high school, the stickers claiming colleges and then the supporting of some kind of organization…  you find the overall thing of graduating in 2008.  The topper… the fact that a bird tagged the car as well with its special message… POOOOOOP.

With this next one, it just seemed funny because the bumper sticker said… “Bad Boys Drive Bad Toys”.  I have to agree completely with this one… this is one BAD toy.  Bad bad bad.  Perhaps this “bad toy” was bad in the early 80’s eh?

I have actually ate the foods sold by this next company, however… it still doesn’t make the name appropriate if you put a big friendly bear on it.  **shakes head**

And when did toothpicks start going bad?  Better check yours.

Once again… seeing things like this when it is upwards of 90 degrees outside (hell, even on a cold day) - makes me LOVE my job.

All these rappers claim Compton and how gangster it is… you can barely make out this sign - but it is Compton.  Doesn’t look all that hard to me?

And finally… this wasn’t snapped by me, but it was on our local news.  I think we found the Bad Boy driving the Bad Toy from above.  This guy deserved to be arrested with hair like this.

Tags: Funny, Pictures by James
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My little girl is growing up…

I wish I could tell you this “little” puppy was a snuggly bundle of pillow-y white goodness, but over the past few months, she has grown into a stinky old dog that licks herself, eats poop and doesn’t really have an off switch.  So long little girl, hello ghost dog.

This past month I have began calling her Ghost Dog, simply because of her coat and her streaky appearance the majority of the time when you want to take her picture.  All you see is this blur of white run past your viewfinder and then again, then again… then you eventually put the camera down in disbelief and give up.  She will sleep eventually, then we will get a nice picture of her.

Seldom is the case though.

She also has the nickname of “the lion”, because you can catch her laying (similar to a lion) in the middle of the backyard regal, loyal… broad shouldered… basking in the sun - head up and full of pride.  Dare anyone to step foot in her domain.

Recently when a friend of ours came over, he walked out the backdoor to Izzy barking and at a full sprint straight at him.  He took one step out and one step back in and shut the door. 

“GET YOUR DOG DUDE!”

It is a good feeling really, since after a few moments and her realizing that all was ok - she went back to normal.  But for that split second her domain was breached and someone was going to lose an eye.  Or at least scream and run off.  I know it makes Shala happy to know that two dogs could keep some folks away that could mean us harm.  At least when I am out of town.  Just don’t tell anyone that one of them is shaped like a hot dog and about as friendly as one as well.

As for the big dawg (that is what we call Mikey, he has a complex) - he is showing his age more and more.  Even though he is only 5 or so… this past year and with Izzy showing up seems to have mellowed him out considerably.  We worried about him at first, because she was so 100MPH and he couldn’t help but try and keep up… but he damn sure did.

The sad part was the fact that Izzy spent most of her time trying to feel things out so she had no clue of how hard she was biting him and when she was closer to his size she did a number on Mikey’s neck & ears.  I mean he would have scabs galore (I know that is gross to hear) - but still… he couldn’t turn down a fight. 

That eventually went away, and now they will play and neither gets hurt or even yelps for that matter.  An hour and a half of teeth showing and high pitched growls eventually ends with Mikey jumping up on the couch to snuggle with Shala under the blanket.  Izzy then finally gives in to the sleep monster and all is well in our world.

Mikey is funny though.  Something we both have noticed lately is his lack of urgency for everything.  You can say…

“You want to go outside?!?”

Used to he would hit the ground running and BAM! he was out the door running.  Now after about a minute of calling him specifically, he will ease off the couch then walk to the backdoor.  He just isn’t all that into it.  I’m sure deep down he is thinking…

“Is ghost dog going to be out there?”

Yup.  You bet your Oscar Myer ass she is.

Same with everything else.  Eating isn’t all that great.  Coming inside also has lost its cool.  Everything is just ho hum at best.  I laughed last night when we were waiting for him to trot his happy butt into the house and I told Shala.

“I’m sure Mikey is thinking, in the last 5 years they have yet to leave me behind… I doubt they are going to start now.”

He is right too.  We always spend a little extra time & effort with him.  Izzy would have long been left.  It is a bit harder to be patient with that big ox of a dog.  She is such a goofball at times and so you never know if she really doesn’t want to go outside/eat/play/pee/inside or if she just isn’t understanding/listening/paying attention or whatever.

It is hard to think that she was once this…

and is now this…

but it is true.  Lord is it true.  I guess Mikey did the same thing though.  Just the transition from this…

to this…

wasn’t as drastic.

The one thing that rings true though, is the fact that even though they have grown up - they are great friends.  We worried about them for a while - didn’t know if they were going to be friendly or not.  Then one day it just clicked for them.  I think we caught that very day on camera, and it seems a long time ago now.  We were glad that they both came around though.

Tags: Double Danger Dogs Diary, Personal, Pictures by James
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As many of you know, I worked on getting our dead tree down this past weekend.  Really my plan was to just get the small stuff cut down, so that one weekend we could really get after it and take the big ones down.

Well… when you get going on those type of things, you just don’t want to stop.  So I worked for about 4 hours Saturday straight and had half the tree down.  The problem with this is the fact that I had no real intention of cutting down the big stuff so here was about a ton of wood laying on the ground and all I had was a pole saw to chop it up with.

Not cool.

Our friend Chris said he would help out, but I don’t think he knew what he was walking into, when he showed up he looked at it all and went straight for the beer.  I don’t blame him, I was half drunk by that time anyhow.  The massive amounts of wood that had to be cut up and stacked seemed to force a man to drinking.

If there was a plus side, most of the stuff was pretty dead - so it could be broke just with a swift kick.  So after a long break (it started acting like it was going to storm), we started in on it again.  Chris busted ass to get most of the small stuff broke down while I cut up the larger stuff with the pole saw.  It was sorta like beating in a nail with a wrench -but it did the job.

After about 2 more hours of work, we had most of it cleaned up and decided that a chainsaw would do the best work so most of the big stuff laid waiting.

Yesterday (Monday) I got out there about 5:30PM and started hacking away at everything again.  Took down two HUGE limbs and some smaller ones as well.  Got them chopped up, along with some more from the days before and began stacking once again.  HOLY HELL IT IS A LOT OF WOOD!  HAVE I MENTIONED THAT!

So after 4 more hours yesterday, here is what we are left with - and hopefully today I can finish it up without many problems.  Lets hope anyhow.  Actually here is a picture of the tree prior to trimming, after trimming and then the wood pile created so far.

Below you can see what it looks like as of this morning…

Then of course the wood pile, now remember there are about 6-7 huge limbs on the ground as well, not part of that.

Tags: Gardening, Living Green, Pictures by James
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