Where am I?

Is anyone up for a game of Where's Necia?


Had some errands to run this morning and stumbled upon this great site for a photo shoot. I know that it will be hard for some of you to recognize me because of my great tan and all! I had to get out of there quick just in case the workers came back. By the way, why wasn't anyone there working? It was only 11:10, not time for a lunch break yet. Hmmm.......

For my gardening friends, I went to Smith's today and spent my Birthday money. I bought a Russian Sage and Creeping Thyme. I will put the creeping thyme between the stones in this path:


The Russian Sage is a Xeriscape plant that won't need much water and will thrive in the sun. I highly recommend everyone send for a copy of the High Country Gardens catalog. It is a great reference tool for plants that will survive our summers (and it is free)!

Now I need to get outside and get these babies planted before the heat comes back!

'Till next time............(thanks again Stevo!)

Our Zoo (Part II)

Continuing with the Zoo slideshow, here are the craziest animals at our house. This was, of course, on Easter Sunday. The girls thought that it only made sense to Easter egg hunt in their bathing suits! After Bailey got hers on, she said, "Are we going to Nancy Snow's house to swim?" It was so cute! Of course, when it came to picture taking time, her Daddy's genes prevailed!



This is our dog, Haus. He is 1/2 Lab, 1/4 German Sheppard, and 1/4 Airdale terrior. He is about 6 years old. He is such a cutie, but, quiet naughty. He hates the rain and/or thunderstorms. He digs his way out of his yard, goes through the hole in the back fence, around through the back field, and onto our front porch everytime! Jeff taught him to sit, lay down, and roll over for treats. Most of the time, when you tell him to sit, he goes ahead and lays down/rolls over. Then he pops up, ready for his treat. Ashah taught him how to shake. She is working on teaching him how to jump over obstacles. It is rather amusing because he is soooo smart that he just runs around the obstacle! (Who wants to jump, anyway? It is too hard on the knees.)



This is my favorite picture of Little Boy. Some of you have seen it before. He likes fresh water and waits for me to fill up this bird bath and then stands on his tippy-toes to take a drink.



This is the surprise that I was telling Cassie, Jorin, and Gin about Sunday at Bible Class. He (or she) was in my potting soil bin in the greenhouse. Ashah caught him and we brought him into Jeff to hold for the picture. (I was too scared to hold him! I was afraid that he would jump on my shirt or something; that would surely send me to the hospital from a heart attack!) After doing some research, I decided that it is a Meditterranean Gecko. We were very careful with it and put it back where we found it. I went into the Greenhouse to check on it and it was still there, but it's tail had fallen off! So, we feed the tail to the chickens. They loved it.


These are our Honeybees. They took up residence in an upside-down 5 gallon bucket 4 years ago. They are great helpers in the garden, so we do everything we can to keep them happy. They have stung Jeff twice, but never anyone else. When we were laying the mulch for the new veggie garden area, they did keep buzzing around my head, ready to sting. I don't think that they liked the smell of the mulch. It didn't help that we had let Haus out of his pen and he sat in front of the beehive trying to catch/eat the bees!


Off-topic of the Zoo, I am seriously considering boycotting Rick's blog until he posts on mine! Put the word out.

Hmmmm, what will I blog about next..................................

Our Zoo (part I)

Here are some of the little ones that keep us busy! I can apparently only post 5 pictures at a time so this will be part I.

These are our new chickens. I wanted to get all different breeds so I could tell who's eggs are who's! The first (L-R) is Tilly, then Patty, the little white girl is Ophillia (notice the feathers on her feet; Kat wanted to call her Bell Bottoms but we had already named her), and lastly is Cocoa. We had to kill two of the old chickens last weekend as they were pecking Cocoa and making her bleed. Speaking of killing the old hens, Jeff and the girls found (3) screws and (1) washer in one of their gizzards! They also found 4 eggs that looked just like little egg yolks. It was a cool science lesson!

This is Kat's cat, Virginia. She is a runt! Being a siamese, she is the most disagreeable cat that we own. Kat paid for Ginny's shots and to be fixed.

This is the "Gray Family". Tinkerbell(at top) is the Mom, Little Boy (on left) is the Baby, and Booboo (right) is the Daddy. I can't tell the boys apart now, but the girls can. They have all been "fixed" now!

These are the two strays that have adopted us. Neither have been fixed. The Calico(Calli) was in heat in this picture. She was trying to get away from Skitty. We named him Skitty because at first, he was very Skittish.

This is a close up of Tinkerbell. She stays gone alot. We don't know where she goes. Probably just wants to get away from the torture of Kat and Ashah!

Time for lunch and Key Concepts now. Stay tuned for the rest of the Zoo!

During my afternoon stroll around the Yard, this is what I saw:

Clematis growing on the Dog's fence.

Monarch on my Chaubaud Carnation. This butterfly was very photogenic. It stayed for atleast half an hour so I could take pictures!

Alaska Daisy

Red Corn Poppy

Front porch ~ This is our newly painted brick. I would like to add shutters to the windows above the chairs and remove the lamppost (it doesn't work).

Tomorrow will be a day of picking up the yard, mowing and housework. We have to get ready for the Easter Egg hunt with Heather and Bailey!

This is Freaky!

This just seems so weird to me. Writing something that the whole world could possibly read. Oh, the pressure to keep it interesting!

I guess that I will just keep this as a Gardner's diary of sorts.

Here is what I have done today (so far!):
Weeded all of my flower beds (I have 7 total not counting the Veggie garden). Well, that doesn't sound like much, does it? But, trust me, it was a lot of work. It took 2 hours and my back is killing me!

I came home with (3) new Ice plants yesterday. I admitted to Jeff that I had bought them this morning as he was cooking breakfast. (You know, things just keep popping into my head to say. For instance, Jeff normally eats biscuits with honey or cinnamon rolls for his weekend breakfast. But, since we are going on vacation to Mexico in 6 weeks, he has decided to start eating healthier, hence the reason he was cooking eggs this morning. I know, I know, this has nothing at all to do with my Garden Blog. How in the world am I going to keep this coherent? I would love to start telling you all about our vacation to Mexico now. Or, how about my dieting/exercise progress? Oh, geez, at least this will help some of you understand how my brain works. I have a million things going through it all the time!)

Ok, hmmm, where were we before Cybil showed up? Oh, yeah, so, I was admitting to Jeff that I bought these (3) little plants ~ I quickly interjected that they only cost $1.25 each ~ and that I was so sorry, I had already bought them before he told me yesterday afternoon to quit buying plants so that we could save money for vacation (there that vacation is again!). He is such a sweet, sweet Husband because he said, "I'm not telling you that you can't buy plants. You just can't buy them everytime you go to Wichita." (So, can I buy them every other time? No, I didn't ask that! Innocent as Doves, remember?

I am now going to talk about my Christmas gift from that Sweet, sweet Husband. It is a three tiered planter. I have planted it with Purple Wave Petunia's, hot pink purslane, and purple Wandering Jew. I will try my hand at posting a picture. Let's see if this works: Ok, that worked but didn't work. I wanted the picture to be down here. I will have to work on that. But, at least you can all see it!

I am going to go stroll around the Yard now to check on everything. Did I mention that I have the house all to myself? Jeff took the girls fishing! They were sad that I didn't want to go with them, but for heaven's sake, I need some ALONE time!