Dust, dirt and dog hair.

Another gorgeous day!  I sat in my rocker this morning for a few minutes to bask in the sun.

The Christmas Cacti are still blooming.  Since before Valentine's Day!  They have yet to bloom at Christmas.  :-)

 The white one has some pretty peach blossoms too.

This poor thing is just plonked in a bit of water and it bloomed too.  They must really like the pond view.

The outside of the bluebird box.

 The inside!

 Maisy is thrilled to have her sunbeam back this week.  And that's Ngaire's loooong shadow.  :-)

Our view is fast turning green.

This little dogwood is doing very well.

This little dogwood is one-sided and we are hoping having a few branches trimmed off the overhanging trees will give it a better chance.

Blue, blue, blue.  Out front.

And out back.  :-)

This is the view from our back porch.  The Tramp and I went around the other day and marked the trees to be removed.  We will still have lots of trees when they are done, but there will be some open space for a veggie garden and running space for the dogs.....after we have a fence installed of course.

The azaleas are doing their thing.  Very nicely too!

I spent most of the day cleaning, inside and out.  I swept as much pollen and junk (leaves, branches, dog hair) as I could out of the screen porch and off the deck.  I threw a bunch of stuff over the side.  Oops.  I think I better go and stash it neatly under the porch.

I also finished up painting the double-decker dog dish holders The Tramp made for me the dogs.  Cute huh! 

(RFLOL!  Lion [Mac OS] doesn't like my spelling of double-decker.  The options it gives are double-Decker, double-dicker, double-docker, double-decked, and double-pecker.  You just can't make this stuff up folks!)

Anyway.....  Dusty, dirty and hairy as I was, by about 1pm it was time for me to finally eat.  The Tramp and I have joined Life Time Fitness.  Mostly we've been swimming laps and enjoying the sauna and steam room.  We also met with a nice young staffer who "evaluated" us and gave us a lecture on eating more fruits and vegetables.  Of course The Tramp tells anyone who will listen that the cows and pigs ate the vegetables for him.  Tee hee.  But we looked up the recommended quantities on the USDA website and are valiantly trying to change our habits.  So to that end I made myself a quasi-English breakfast.  At least I had a serving of tomato!  

Charlie watched all the goings-on with interest from the top of his cage.  Of course when he sees the camera he starts moving!

And finally, we have two new pictures of Stardust.  Clearly taken on different days.  :-)

It's spring!  Why do I need shoes??

La, la, la, la......

Well I was sitting here ripping some CDs to iTunes.  But now my CDROM drive has completely rejected two of them.  It's stamping it's little ROM feet and sticking it's tongue out at me.  Sigh.  Maybe it's tired.  :-)  We did ok with Tony.

And four of these.  Oh well, I'll import them from The Tramp's iTunes.  (He never has trouble with this kind of stuff.  How come I always do???  The million dollar question.)  These CDs and seven corresponding DVDs were our premium from UNCTV this year.  :-)

So anyway....while that was going on, I checked my various picture taking devices to see if there was anything hanging about in their memories from last week.  Yes there was!  Not very thrilling I'm afraid.  Last week it rained.  Every day.  And thundered a good bit too.  (migraine inducing low pressure) You can see the pollen doing a slow spiral in the pond around the stand pipe.

And it rained some more.

And again.

And still.

And some more.  Yeesh!

Today I checked the bluebird box.  After I pretty much tore the nest up, killed the ants, washed out the box, and "rebuilt" the nest I was sure it was bye bye bluebirds.  But I checked this morning and there are eggs!  Woot!  I feel like a proud birdie grandma.  LOL

Apparently the geese didn't mind a week of rain.   At all.  Yesterday we noticed they are nest building on the other side of the pond.

Rainy days aren't so exciting for dogs.

There isn't much on dog TV either.

For Christmas I surprised The Tramp with tickets to the Mythbusters Tour and Sunday was the day.  There were lots of kids in the audience and plenty of audience participation.  We really enjoyed it!

This week is proving to be lovely but I don't have any pictures to prove it.  :-)  The sky has been "painfully" blue (migraine inducing high pressure....sigh) and completely cloudless.  Monday was doll club day.  I am being totally uncooperative and not making the doll the rest of them are working on.   I have too much unfinished stuff to start something my heart isn't in to.  I really wanted to make a doll from this Tilda book.  She is sewn and stuffed and waiting to be assembled.   I have four Tilda books and have yet to make something.  It's about time!

Tuesday morning was quilting bee and one of our members has inspired several of us to knit scarves from Starbella yarn.  It's weird stuff to work with but the effect is really nice.  I'm not sure what you would do with it besides making scarves.  Hmmmmm.  They have a crocheted vest pattern.  I wonder who would have the patience?

Today I finished preparing some shirts for a custom t-shirt quilt and delivered them to Julianne.  71 images!  I can't imagine how large this quilt is going to be!

Day 83

Well.  I finally broke down and put on the air conditioning.  Oh how I hate to do that in the spring just when we are enjoying open windows and the sound of birds and community.  :-(  But the pollen...as well as the unseasonable warmth...forced my hand.  Sigh.  I feel sort of gritty all over when I come in from outside.  Maybe it's in my head?  Certainly you can see the drifts of pollen blowing by as you are driving around.  This is oak pollen which they say most people aren't allergic to because the grains are so large.  The next round with finer pollen will be worse.  Really?

Most every car on the road looks like this.

Can I see through those windows??  Not much sense in washing the car though.

I took a few fuzzy cell phone pictures of the garden before I realized that the recent rains had caused a huge army of ants to relocate into the bluebird house.  The bluebirds had just added the soft nest lining.  Yikes!  I took out the nest and sprayed and washed until most of the ants were gone.  I did my best to rebuild the nest as it was and am watching to see if the birds come back to it. The same thing happened last year to the mailbox.  After some heavy rains, I reached in and brought out mail coated with ants!  Yuck!

It seems that all of the daffodil bulbs I planted in December have come up.  I also planted crocus but they aren't behaving at all as expected.  Up north crocus would be the first sign of spring.  These are only just beginning to bloom.

I've been trying to catch up with my houses.

In between wiping pollen off the sewing table of course.

#55  A funny picture of Poyla wearing Stardust's sunglasses.  Poyla and Middle Daughter have a lovely house in New Jersey.  Along with a frog grotto, they have a fish pond with waterfall, deer wander through the yard regularly, and one day Poyla looked out his office window to see a bear lumbering through the yard!  Poyla is quite attached to the fish in his pond and they are currently trying to figure out how to keep the herons away.

#54  Eldest Daughter.  The roof is as blue as her eyes.  :-)

#53  A house for my houses!

#52  Jack and Jill getting ready to go up the hill for water.

#51  Grand #3 with an iconic Kiwi Busy Bee toy on his roof.

#50  The Grinch!!  That is actually part of a photo of The Tramp wearing his Grinch t-shirt.  :-)

#49  Dad.  Just because.  :-)  Actually, Dad will be turning 90 in a few weeks!  Yeesh.  I can hardly wrap my head around that.  I can't even wrap my head around my own 50-something age that will be 50-something-more in April too.  My mom always says her birthday doesn't distress her nearly as much as mine bothers her.  I get it now!  All my kids will be in their 30s soon.  Really???  And I will have six grandchildren.  OH! MY!  I wonder how she feels about great-grandchildren's birthdays?

#48  I love this pic of Grand #1 in his hat at the beach.  

#47  The Sailor Son.  The pic was taken the day of boot camp graduation.  Wow.  That was nearly six years ago.  The only boat picture I had for the window was of the Ark.  I guess that's appropriate.  A fully equipped aircraft carrier is the sailor's ark.  May it always come home safely.

#46  The Sailor Son and Grand #2.   I miss all my boys.

#45  We have the Evil Step-daughter and her hubby in their New Zealand "love shack".  LOL
 

#44  And last (or first if you count the other way) but not least, is the Led Zeppelin Fan.  Love him.  Hope he can find a job down here soon so I can have them, and Grand #6 close by.  :-)

Yesssss!  55 houses done.  But since this is day 83 I still have a bit of catching up to do!!!