My July 2018 In Photos

Hello, everyone! Before we get into pictures, I want to quickly address the lack of Wonder Wednesdays… for two Wednesdays in a row… 😅 I didn’t intend for that to happen, and the series should resume next Wednesday. 😉 I’m trying to decide among three topics. We’ll see which one I go with.

Back to the post at hand. I finally have the July updates put together. It ends on a sad note, I’m afraid. But first, here are some happy pictures. First, is a dragonfly that I’ve seen around.

I think this is some sort of butterfly. In this head-on shot, it looks more like a flying alien.

Some of my favorite fruits are back in season – the plumcot! It’s a natural cross between a plum and an apricot. It’s a real treat when these come in season.

I had an idea that an old HUGE cooler that my parents didn’t want anymore could be salvaged and converted into a planter if I drilled holes in it. However, before I got around to it, rain collected in it. I was going to dump it, but then saw this leopard frog having a good time in there. So I put some sticks in it for her (so she could get out easier – but leopard frogs have sticky pads and can climb out with no problem) and a little grass to make it seem more natural, and let her have it. (At least, this year… she won’t be around this winter and I can convert it before she returns. 😄)

And as if watching the frog play in there wasn’t enough reason to leave it alone, she laid eggs in there. Here, they are almost ready to leave. Now they are gone. I’ll miss them.

But, in the mudhole, there are new batches of tadpoles! These may be toads, not frogs. Or maybe some of both. I guess I’ll find out when they grow up. 🙂

After exiting the grocery store one day, we had this view.

Ah, I’ll never tire of seeing how the heavens declare the glory of God. 🙂

This is a view of the pond behind my grandma’s chicken house through what looks like a window opening.

I had a lot of fun playing with angles. 😄

This little guy somehow got into my cat’s run. Gabby stalked him and Sparrow had her eyes on him and I knew if I didn’t catch him first, they would – and then they would make sure he had an early death. Fortunately, I caught him first. This is him saying thanks before flying away. 🙂

(Sorry for the mess, but gardening gets messy. 😆) You’ve probably seen me talk about this before, but I’ve been experimenting with growing trees from seeds. I had about 20 apple and pear seeds that had sprouted after spending six months in the refrigerator (when they were only supposed to spend three… my mistake).

The aprium (a natural cross between an apricot and a plum) box (and the plumcot box under it) has my tulip bulbs in it – something came and dug a bunch up and stole them, so I decided that if they want the remaining ones, they would have to really work at it and get through the plastic containers. Anyway.

They looked surprisingly healthy for having a “winter” that long, and I was excited to watch them grow up. But the very next day, something dug up every single seed and ate them. And left me the shells. I was not happy. Even though I was sad that that happened, I’m not short on trees so I still have an experiment:

These are from the last three years of experiments. There are lemons, oranges, pears, apples, and peaches shown here. My plan was to give some of the citrus ones to my uncle and aunt who live in southern Texas so they can grow in a climate that is suitable for them because Arkansas winters are too much for them. As for the others… I’m going to plant some outside where they can grow into normal size trees, plant some of the citruses in large pots so that I can carry them indoors, and then bonsai the others.

These are two lemon trees (Aida and Agnes) that I’ve already planted as bonsai trees. 🙂

Two mandarin orange trees (Mandy the Second and Wren – get it? MandyWren? Mandarin? I know, I’m terrible…) that are now planted as bonsai.

Currently unnamed apple tree. This will not do, it must be named…

The one in the yellow pot is either one of the Five Boroughs of New York or Frank Sinatra. I think. The labels washed off. I think I’ll call it Frank Sinatra and the others that I plan to plant outside in the ground will be the Five Boroughs of New York. The way this one leans, I’m tempted to rename it to The Leaning Tower Of Pisa and start naming the others after famous landmarks. Who knows – it might happen yet. 😆

And now for the sad ending…

One of my cats, 9-year-old Simone, passed away on the 23rd. It was very sudden. I didn’t even realize she was sick. If I were to guess, I’d say it was something like a heart attack because she seemed normal that morning, except she didn’t eat much. But then, the others weren’t eating as much during the day either because it was so hot.

Here she is as a baby! Gabby chose a cardboard box on our front porch to have her litter in. Simone is the one on the left in both of the photos above. (The other two were Scout and Puma; they passed away years ago.) The plan was to have two of them named after characters in the Lion King movie. Timon and Pumbaa. But what happened was, Timon turned out to be a girl and by the time I realized that she already was getting used to the name. So I changed it to Simone which is similar as to not confuse her and changed Pumbaa to Puma to cover up my error. 😆

This is my favorite photo of her. 😂 I had been gardening and you can see my gardening stuff behind her. She was in my way, so I thought it would be fun to take photos. This is the only one that came out. 😂 I caught her yawning.

(Sorry it’s a little blurry – she wasn’t a fan of having her photo taken, so it was hard to find a good one of her as an adult.) She loved rubbing against my legs but was very feisty otherwise. I could pet her twice, and then the paw would go up, daring me to try it a third time. She never did claw me. In the photo above, you can see her raising her paw at me. 😆 She was also the smallest cat I’ve ever had, weighing about four pounds. For some reason, she never grew past that.

She was the fifth cat I’ve lost this year. (I made a post for three of them – the fourth one, Jay, ran away last spring.)

Butterfly! 😀 The post was originally going to end with Simone, but right before July ended, I met this little fellow. They like the mudhole. This one was very hard to photograph because he wouldn’t stay still. 😅 And I really wanted to include him.

And this concludes my July in photos. 🙂