Donnie is away this weekend attending a college graduation for his best friend's son, Chris. A big congrats to Chris and all the other graduates this weekend. Best of success in the next chapter in your life!
I saw these pretty Redbud leaves at Yates Mill yesterday. I had 5 minutes in the parking lot to shoot, and the light on these leaves was the most interesting thing I saw. I was missing Donnie and thinking about the heart shapes and how much I love him.
In baseball news, Johnny's team lost 19-18 last night. What an offensive game! Each of the kids had memorable moments. Johnny had two hits and scored one run. We were so proud!
I took a ton of pics in continuous mode of the game which are here. It was all I could do to get through them last night to have them ready to share with the team this morning. Photographers don't need sleep, right? ;-)
Even though it's blurred, this is my favorite picture of Johnny on the night! Get to first!
I sortof knew from the moment I read about the stick challenge that I'd post this older shot taken in January 2009 when Joey was 6. I found the stick took the shot on a walk at Yates Mill. We were so delighted that we brought this stick home with us and it stood leaning up against the house near the front door since although now rotted and fallen over.
I guess I imagine this stick as a forest friend of sorts. I see character in those eyes...
Joey and Johnny's baseball teams both lost last night and non memorable plays for either. Late games after 7:30PM and clouds so I didn't try to take any pics.
I've never been much of a fish eater, but I'm trying to incorporate some new, healthy food into our diet, so yesterday I cooked Donnie and I some salmon.
This orange lily shot was taken yesterday morning in front of the Fuquay Woman's Club on my way to Donnie's house. It was overcast, and the rich orange and green tones reached out to me as I drove by to turn around and go back for some shots.
It's all I can do not to post this shot for my daily! I figure I'd better not post two food shots two days in a row.
This was Donnie's lunch yesterday. I sauteed the onions and sweet red bell pepper in coconut oil. The string beans were steamed but then sauteed for a couple of minutes in the leftover oil. The steaks were pan fried with some salt and pepper. Yum!
The kids had a great time after school yesterday playing dress-up:-)
I guess I'm going to try to make you hungry today:-) Donnie and I with the boys going along for the ride are trying to change our diets to include more 'real' fat and whole and raw foods. High carbs and processed foods are out the door. Local bought cage free eggs are in. Bread with dinner is out. Whole milk and even cream are now enjoyed. So I'm cooking different types of meals and experimenting with new foods and recipes. We're not hungry, and we are losing a bit of weight. Hopefully our cholesterol and blood sugar will be healthy too.
I made Donnie and I a yummy lunch yesterday. I sauteed some Vidalia onions and a sweet yellow pepper in coconut oil. The chicken was marinated in lime juice, olive oil, and garlic. After the onions were almost done, the chicken was added to saute too. Sour cream, whole milk mozzarella, and some diced fresh tomatoes along with the chicken were put on a warp to complete the meal. Yum!
Notice I'm learning to cook in an iron skillet which was not easy for me but after burning some things I've now gotten the hang of using it even for eggs.
I'm not pushing the diets or anything. I may share a food picture from time to time or mention how we're doing modifying our diet, but I won't be talking about it too often.
Donnie has a small creek running through his front yard, and nonnative and invasive Chinese Privet sprouts up each year trying to take over part of the creek bank. The privet is hard to pull up by hand and cutting it off at the base just causes it to send out extra sprouts and be even harder to pull up the following year. Plus, even if you do get rid of it birds eat the berries in other locations like a nearby park and then end up reseeding the yard when they visit. Since it was a semi cloudy 70 degree day yesterday, Donnie decided to do his yearly spring cleaning of the plants before the summer heat and bugs got any worse. He had two new tools this year. One is a handy little Brush Grubber tool that we stumbled upon on a recent trip to Northern Hydraulics. It does a great job on first year up to 1" pieces of privet and small trees. The other was a wire rope and pulley system using a tree and a trailer hitch on his GMC Envoy. Several large clumps previously cut off at the ground and regrown privet bushes were yanked up roots and all. Some roots may have been left behind, but this technique made a big dent in the above ground growth and overall root system. Some maintenance work each spring and fall should keep the privet out of the yard!
Here's a video showing a large clump of privet being yanked out of the ground by the GMC.
Here's a collage showing the problem area, a root of a large pulled up clump, the Handy Grubber at work, and the big pile of pulled up plants after several hours of work. And of course a nice shot of Donnie in his gear designed to avoid mosquito bites and ticks and protect his skin from abrasions. Of course, I'm still not allowed to lift anything over 5lbs. post surgery, so mostly I was providing company and fetching water and some light tools. Oh, and I was taking pictures too:-)
I really like that Donnie avoids the use of chemicals in his yard and encourages native plants to flourish! He leaves ferns, and I've never posted a fern shot for my daily, so I thought today would be a good day. There are at least 5 distinct types of ferns in his yard. The daily shot shows at least two of them. The tree trunk behind them is a huge sweet gum...one of the trees the bluebirds in his yard love to perch on. (Oh, the bluebird box in my yard has 4 eggs!)
I also saw this cool fly. I'm pushing the 140 times digitial zoom on the Canon SX40 HS in this shot. Lower light, higher ISO, and handheld took away a bit of the clarity. Still kindof neat I think.
Finally took a few pics at one of Joey's games where we were in the 3rd base dugout. Doesn't lend well to up at bat shots, but I got some shots of our defense on the field. I used the continuous shooting mode on the Canon SX40 HS, and I'd have to say that I was happy with the images captured.
Donnie and I ordered two Mountain Laurel trees from the Arbor Day Foundation. They came in the mail on Saturday, and Donnie planted in his yard them yesterday. They sent a free red maple too, and we also planted that. Top shot and left bottom shot is the red maple location. Bottom right is the two Mountain Laurels side-by-side. We hope those tree rings do a good job. Donnie used a couple of galvanized nails to secure them.
A hibiscus shot taken in Madi's yard. Hard to capture that red just right but I liked the cheery feel of this shot anyway. I had used a stencil to paint the sun on that pot in the lower right corner over 10 years ago. Glad to see that enamel paint holding up so well!
Madi's cat, is this Andrew or Evan?, looking cute hanging out on the screened in back porch.
Donnie's wife. Mom to Joey 14 and Johnny 13. Trying to do all sorts of cool stuff with life. Taking 1000's of pictures a month to preserve the memories.
