Tag: nature

Snowmageddon

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

I am so happy that the snow and ice is starting to melt. I don’t mind the cold weather, it’s just the snow and temperatures in the teens that I don’t like. I worry about our feral cat colony. I put out more food than normal because they need to eat more when the temperatures drop.

Mr. Whiskers came for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I would bring him in if he would let me. He will let me pet him and sometimes hold him on my lap, but he gets very nervous. The feral colony actually lives across the street, but I made them a bed just in case they wanted to warm up before they headed home.

My cat was the only one that used it, but he loved the heating pad. All of my cats have the ability to go out and in when they want to. All except the kitten and she has no interest to go out into the cold.

We were going slightly stir crazy since we were iced in and couldn’t go anywhere. We did watch this guy free climb to the top of a building in Tai Pei . I am deathly afraid of heights but I had no trouble watching him climb. Donny is not afraid, but he did not want to watch it. We were watching it live and it was a bit nerve wracking.

My favorite part of being snowed in was how quiet it was at night. No owls, frogs, insects, nothing. The snow made it so much brighter. This was after 9:00 and the street lights didn’t even come on. It was both beautiful and eerie at the same time.

We were very relieved when we were finally able to get out and do things again. Hannah and I ran some errands. When we were in Aldi we saw the saddest Valentine Day decor.

Doesn’t everyone want a colorless concrete heart bookend? And I’m using heart loosely.

But wait, you can also get X’s and O’s bowl filler that look like cat toys. I have no words.

When we got home Gavin was waiting for Hannah. I looked out the window and saw this snow thing in the yard.

Gavin had built a little snowman.

Ok, it doesn’t have a face or arms, but I still thought it was so cute.

Hannah had been wanting me to go to The 504. It’s a 6000 sq. ft. thrift store. There are 9 rooms and every room is filled to the brim. I got lost from Hannah and Gavin because this place was a maze. I could spend hours looking through everyone’s booth. It’s funny because I have two framed pictures of antique sheet music and the day before we went to this store I was thinking how I really wanted to change them out. One of the booths had antique sheet music and I found 2 that I really liked.

Donny still hasn’t noticed that I changed them out. I like these so much better than the ones I had in.

The only other thing I got were some matches.

There is just something so special about lighting candles with matches. The store had so many to choose from and I think the next time I go back I’m going to pick up some more. These were my favorite because, well, I love celestial anything.

That face!

Day #81 & #82

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

Donny rarely takes vacation days. Even when he does he gets many phone calls and more often than not he has to go back into work at least for a few hours. This week he took Monday – Friday off. We had decided that we really needed to work on the yard, especially the backyard. That’s why these two days are one post.

On Monday I decided to weed the front beds and around the gardens. Luckily when I started it was early and the weather hadn’t gotten to unbearably hot. I still sweat a bit and our cat Monkey loves to rub against me and meow for pets when I’m weeding. Every. Single. Time.

While I was weeding I noticed that the house needed to be washed down. Every north facing house has a mildew problem when it rains and then gets hot and humid. Nothing that a little soap, water and elbow grease can’t fix.

I only have to do it a few times a year, thank goodness.

I had an audience while I was scrubbing.

One thing about Donny and me is that we can’t resist running some errands. We had to go to Walmart for a few essentials and found something that makes me so happy.

We had the carpet type floor mats that the dead grass just clung to for dear life. You can see the dead grass I still need to vacuum out. The blue is the same color as the inside trim on the seats.

I had been desperately needing some new gardening gloves since mine were getting holes in the fingers. Scored these on clearance for a buck.

Tuesday morning I started on the backyard. If you haven’t heard of Poke Weeds you are lucky. They have these berries that stain everything magenta and are poisonous. Well, we had a whole orchard of these beauties that we had to dig up.

I also found out, the hard way, that we had devil vines. That’s just what we named them because they look like harmless ivy vines but they have the most wicked thorns. I have scratches all over me.

With my trusty pick ax we got it all done.

While Donny was carrying all of our weeds to the front I started weeding this area. I only found one snake, it was a smallish grass snake.

Now we can start working on fixing the shed.

It was such a productive day.

Now for the sad news. We had been planning to go away for a couple of days either back to Lone Star or to this cabin I found near Tyler. Something held up back from making reservations and it’s a good thing we didn’t because one of Donny’s sales guys had to quit due to medical reasons. So, guess who goes back to work tomorrow? Which means he probably won’t even get his Thursday and Friday off. I’m trying to show some grace, but sometimes I have to dig deep to find it. It’s not Donny’s fault and he’s just as disappointed as I am.

But we did find this cool wind chime lol

Day #78 – Shakespeare Garden

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I’m on day 3 of feeling unwell. Yesterday I had to go pick Jackson up from school and ended up getting there a bit early. He had told me about the Shakespeare Garden that was right by the art building. I decided to take a look while I was waiting.

You pick up a sheet that’s on the gate and just follow the path.

It’s so pretty and serene. There are benches placed throughout the pathways.

I loved the butterfly house.

Because it is later in the season there is not a lot blooming right now.

I just love that they have this on campus.

Today was Donny’s day off (yes, he did have to go in for a few hours due to some unforeseen issues) but before that we decided to stop by an estate sale that he had seen online. It had a clown painting that he thought I’d like. Oh, and I did. Too bad it was $140. We always go to this company’s estate sales that they put on, but lately the prices have gotten outrageous. We ended up leaving empty handed. However, as we were walking to the car I saw the first Halloween decorations of the season.

I love Halloween, but Fall doesn’t begin until September 22nd. I just cannot get myself to put up Halloween decorations when it’s still technically summer. It just feels so wrong to me. These were really cool though.

Since my pumpkin vine is getting longer we decided I needed some pollinators. We went to Home Depot and picked up some mums and marigolds. My marigolds are still growing and not yet near the bloom phase. I need so insects to have something sooner so maybe when the pumpkin vine flowers it will get pollinated.

I had to get yellow since it’s my favorite color. Fingers crossed I’ll feel well enough to get this planted tomorrow.

Day #36 – Unexpected Project

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I actually slept in until 9:30. It was much needed because lately I’ve only been getting about 5 hours sleep a night. Donny had been up for a while and was outside starting to bring all of our bulk pickup trash to the curb. We’ve just been piling it up in the back because it took 2 weeks to get a time slot. It’s tomorrow and we didn’t want to have it out for two weeks because that annoys our neighbors. While he did that I decided to weed the front beds. That didn’t take long so I started on the edge of the patio because it had gotten so weedy. Donny suggested putting pavers and I thought that was a fabulous idea. We needed to go get some gravel for this strip around the front stoop. When I started digging up the weeds so I could put the pavers down I noticed that there was SO much gravel under the weeds and dirt. I started separating the gravel by hand, but that was taking forever so I got out a colander and started sifting. 100 degree weather be damned.

Next thing I know I have been out there for almost 5 hours. One thing about me is I love rocks. LOVE them! Ever since I was a little kid and my family and I went to Concan to go camping and I filled the trunk with river rocks. So many that my parents had to remove so many of them because we had no room for our stuff. I’m only about halfway through but I filled 3 buckets with the rocks and have another big bucket full of beautiful sifted dirt.

Luckily I was at a stopping point when this started blowing through. The wind was wicked.

It came out of nowhere. I mean stuff was BLOWING around. Donny and I stood outside for a while watch the clouds swirl around. All of that and it probably only rained about 20 drops.

If anyone ever wonders why Donny doesn’t really help me do my weird projects it’s because he hates being hot and sweaty, where I love it. I would rather be outside than inside any day. But, he went to the grocery because he said since I was doing all of this he was going to make dinner. He did not disappoint.

P.S.

We asked all of the neighbors if they had any bulk items they needed to throw away and if they did, just add them to the pile.

It was unfortunately the dog abusers haven’t been home all day so I didn’t get to ask them, but they need to call and make their own appointment because if I look out my side bedroom window I’m greeted by this.

Maybe I’ll see if they’re home in the morning.

Day #2 – Side Garden

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I accidentally woke up at 5 am. I made coffee and waited for the sun to come up.

When I went to let the chickens out I noticed our Morning Glories are blooming.

Since this is day 2 of day 100 doing what needs to be done to make my life better, I started weeding the front beds. We have 2 gardens. We consider the one in the front mine and the side one Donny’s although they are my plants in it.

Donny has been busy, busy, busy at work. That means long hours and getting home every day after 7. So I felt it was up to me to get the side gardens in shape. Plus I googled when to plant pumpkins in our zone and we need to have them in the ground by July. I have no idea where we are going to plant them because they take a LOT of room. This is what I started with.

Such a weedy mess.

After almost 4 hours this was the result.

I twisted dragged the hydrangeas to the front because they were burning up where they were. I moved all of the random sunflowers Donny planted, some of my avocados and plants that didn’t have a home where the hydrangeas were.

I weeded the enclosed garden, but once plants start bearing vegetables they get big and take over. I feel like I accomplished so much today that wasn’t on my normal to-do list. That side garden is looking so much better. There’s still a lot of work to be done in both the front and back, but I feel if I can work on it everyday it will get done.

There was no rain in the forecast at all so I was surprised when the dark clouds blew in and it started pouring. I’m glad it did because it cooled everything off and filled up our rain barrel. I’d used quite a bit of the water in the gardens.

Because I cannot get over how patient O’Malley is with Ruth:

She’s a little stinker.

Let’s see what Day 3 brings.

Day #1

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I saw two videos that really made me think. In the first one a man says “If you stop effing around for 100 days and everything you know that you needed to do you did, just think how much ahead you’d be”. Then I saw another video where a woman was explaining that if you just did 1% more every day just think how much everything would improve. I completely agree with both of them. I always have things on my to-do list that I either just don’t feel like doing or I don’t make time to actually do them. So, today is Day #1 of me getting my shit done and improving all parts of my life every day. It might not be something big, it could actually be quite small, but an improvement is and improvement.

Today was an outside day. I started calling them this when I was doing my funeral directing/embalming apprenticeship at a funeral home in a small central Texas town. Every single Wednesday I had to mow, weed eat, blow off the grass and leaves and mow that path on the land behind the funeral home. It was hard work, but as an apprentice you always had to do the not so fun jobs. This is what I always think of when it’s an outside day.

Well, I mowed, which is a normal thing for me to do every week, but today I cleared off some brush that Donny had cut down. I also got to work on the chicken coop’s Johnson grass and weed problem. Y’all, it was HOT. I had to use my pick axe to get to the roots. Some I couldn’t get to due to the board skirting so I had to use scissors to cut them down as far as I could.

This was the mess I was wrangling. It doesn’t look that bad in the picture, but the weeds were taller than I am. I finally got through them after a whole lot of sweat equity.

Our coop is made of recycled materials. It has 3 stories in the back and a small run in the front. They are really only in it at night.

It has a latching door, but we fortify it with the screen and boards so that the night critters can’t get in.

The fence line plants are growing back and the chickens are enjoying all of the shade.

We are finally getting cucumbers. The ones I have bought from Aldi have all been so bitter. I’m happy to say that these are so good and not bitter at all. Last night I made a salad with cucumbers, tomato and red onion. Delicious.

When I finished all of the outside work that I was going to do for the day, the weather said that the “feels like” was 102. I could actually wring my shirt out.

I could not wait to jump in the shower. Did I mention that I’m allergic to Johnson grass? Ugh

One of the highlights of the day is that the construction crew is officially finished with our street work. They also did something I’ve never seen before. Because they had to dig up a lot of our yard, they brought a big truck and were spraying grass seed.

Ours was growing back pretty well, but hey, I’ll take it.

Holey Hell

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Medical stuffLeave a comment

Monday started off great. I got the front yard mowed. We had grabbed some honeysuckle off our trail 2 years ago and this year it has finally vined.

Some of the plants are growing back from where the neighbor butchered it bald. We still have plans for our cozy corner, but rain is heading our way for the next few days so all of that will have to wait.

Then, while I was mowing the backyard, my foot slid into the infamous hole. I had marked it with a faucet cover the last time I mowed, but apparently it had fallen in. This is what the hole looked like.

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I KNEW it was there, but in the heat of mowing, I completely forgot about it. It’s about 14″ deep and my foot slid down pointed and I jammed my whole foot.

After falling to the ground and yelling some not so nice words, I kept mowing. It hurt. Bad. That, however, didn’t stop me from going on to my next project which is our shed. That poor thing was chipping and the wood needs tending too. I got our some wood screws and tightened the panels.

Next I sanded and scraped the loose paint off. Everything looks better with a tan so I used the brown storm coat paint I already had.

By this time my foot was killing me so I only got the front done. I have more plans for it but had to stop for the day. My foot was swelling and bruising. I iced it that night but it couldn’t sleep well because of the pressure the covers put on it. The next morning we were concerned that I might have fractured it so off I went AGAIN to the bougie ER.

After the x-ray it was determined that it was just a really bad sprain so they sent me home with this beauty.

It actually does help stabilize my foot, but I am so ready to be fully functional again. Rain is supposed to let up by Saturday so I’m planning on at least finishing the paint on the shed. Fingers crossed.

New Month

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

October was a challenging month. Donny’s shoulder got a little better and then it moved to his elbow. He went to the doctor and they ran a complete blood panel and everything came back good. They have no idea what is causing this migratory joint swelling. We went to his family reunion and one of his cousins has the exact same thing and they doctors can’t figure out what causes his symptoms either. Well, since last Sunday, it has left his shoulder and moved into his knee. It’s so painful that he is having a hard time walking. This has been happening since the kids were little. It only happens in either October or November, but it has usually only affected his foot and ankle. The big thrift store is having a 5 cent book sale the month of November. I found this book today. I’m hoping I can find something in it to help him. He does have a follow up appointment on Thursday.

There is a mama cat and her two kittens that hang out across the street. The, what I’m assuming is the dad, has been hanging out on our driveway and patio. I have been putting food and water out for them in our ditch because they feel safer eating where they can’t be seen and have the storm drain to run into if they feel threatened. The neighbor across the street on the corner has set a live trap to try to catch them. Luckily I was notified of this by my other neighbor so I can keep an eye on it. So far she has only trapped a possum. I’m hoping it’s not one of the ones that I feed. I’ve seen the larger possum and thought I saw the smaller one, but I only saw its face so I can’t be sure which one it was. The skunks are getting along with the possum(s) now and I’m still feeding the 3 raccoons. I came out tonight and the largest raccoon was stuffing his mouth with marshmallows like a little kid gorging on candy. Raccoons have a huge sweet tooth.

All of our cats have a 10 o’clock curfew now. I always make coffee and then let our cats outside. I go with them and have my coffee on the patio. The other morning after I let them out they went into the front yard and then bolted past me onto the grill. I stood up to see what was going on and I saw this HUGE coyote coming across my yard. I immediately started yelling at it and chased it down the street. I’m worried about the mama cat, kittens and Mr. Whiskers, the dad. So far everyone is still doing good.

Mr. Whiskers just chilling.

I’m going to be trying to keep up with my blog this month. Donny has been having to sleep on the couch so he doesn’t roll over on his elbow, shoulder and knee which means I’m not sleeping well. I used to think I wanted land to live on, but taking care of the animals we have and everything else while Donny is incapacitated has made me change my mind.

We did early voting last Friday. I think I’m getting election fatigue. I am very ready for November 5th to roll around. Only 4 more days!

And yes, I went to the polls with no makeup and needing to shower but we just wanted to get it over with and avoid the lines on election day.

Coyotes

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

Our cats are inside/outside cats. Milo was a stray that we took in. Monkey was from a litter from a cat we rescued after the flood in Baton Rouge, Queso is my daughter’s cat that we are keeping for a while and Tommy is the cat that we have had for 11 years that we got off craigslist when we lived in Corpus Christi. Well, Saturday morning when I went to let the cats in, Tommy was not there.

Tommy and Monkey will stay outside maybe 4 nights a week. Tommy and Milo are best friends and Tommy hated coming in when Milo was outside, so that is why he was outside Friday night. Gavin was over and the kids were up until the wee hours of the morning and didn’t hear any type of ruckus outside. He was just gone. No trace whatsoever.

I put it out on 2 Facebook lost pet groups in my city. I put it on Nextdoor. I found the older gentleman that is always walking the neighborhood and asked if he had seen Tommy. He hadn’t. I asked our mailman. He also hadn’t but said he would keep an eye out for him. We looked EVERYWHERE for him. No trace.

The next morning I went out to let the hens out of the coop and noticed a pile of feathers on our side and our neighbors side of the fence. We have reinforced the fence, but apparently that didn’t stop what I know believe was a coyote. We know there is a den off of the trail where I walk and that they will come out of the park that is adjacent to the trail. To say we are all devastated is an understatement.

Tommy was the sweetest cat ever. He lost his leg 5 years ago when he got it caught in a louvered closet door (at least that is what we think happened since we were all asleep). During the flood when we were stuck on our roof, he fell off the roof and Donny had to wade through 4 feet of water to rescue him. He never hissed, never tried to fight other cats. He loved our dogs. His favorite thing was to climb up in my lap and be held like a baby. I will miss him so much. He was just a kind old soul. I hope he found Bailey in Heaven and they are playing chase.

Through all of the sadness, yesterday morning when I let the cats out Milo was chasing something and came around with a baby bird in his mouth. I chased him trying to get it, but I couldn’t. I went back inside for a few minutes and when I came back out Queso and Milo were both just sitting there staring at the baby bird. I scooped the baby up and put it in a box, covered by a dishtowel, on my bed. I thought for sure it was not going to make it because it did not move a muscle when the cats surrounding it.

I gave the poor creature a few hours to rest and then I went into our bedroom to pick it up and take it outside. That dang bird flew out of the box as soon as i lifted the dish towel. He flew up to my curtain rod, then onto the ceiling fan, then onto my closet door all the while I’m trying to catch it. He then flew behind our chest of drawers that has our TV on top. That thing is so heavy, because it’s an antique, so I had to lift the TV off and take out drawers to be able to move it enough to get my are back there.

He flew out before I could catch him and flew into Hannah’s room where I was finally able to catch him and take him outside. As soon as I opened my hand he just flew off into the great blue yonder. I now know he wasn’t hurt because Milo just wanted to play with him and not consume him. I got my exercise that day for sure.

Beach Days

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn SummerLeave a comment

Since Bethany and Cassidy were leaving on Monday she wanted to go to the beach. Hannah, Gavin and Jackson wanted to tour the Lexington so while we headed to the beach, Donny dropped the kids off at the Lex and met Bethany and me at the beach.

Cassidy loved the water. Luckily there were no red or purple flags flying, only a yellow flag which means swim with caution. We found out why. There were SO many jellyfish floating around in the water. I grew up in Corpus and have never seen that many in one place before. We caught one in a bucket so we could watch it swim around.

We still had so much fun running around in the little tide pools. Cassidy loved the “big beach”.

After a takeout dinner from King’s Seafood Bethany and Cassidy had to head back home because she had to work the next day. If you are ever in Corpus I highly recommend King’s. It’s not fancy and the prices are really good plus their fried shrimp is to die for.

While Bethany was in the kitchen she happened to look in the cup with the hermit crab shell and sure enough she saw a crab peek out of the shell. We couldn’t keep the poor thing so we took it back down to the bay and let it have its freedom.

The next morning, while everyone was still asleep, I decided to take a walk down to Oleander Point where we had taken the crab back. There is a little staircase that leads to a rocky beach. I wanted to do one more hunt for sea glass.

I had never been down to that cove. I had the beach to myself. It was so peaceful.

I heard someone coming and it was a lady racing down the stairs yelling “I made it. I made it. I made it”. She ran by me straight into the water and started dancing around telling me again that she had made it. Of course I had to ask her where did you make it from and she proceeded to tell me that she lived in Missouri and that it was her 59th birthday. She decided that she was just going to take a road trip, wanted to see the beach and she had just driven in. She was so happy and asked me if this was the beach. I told her it was the bay. She wanted to see the beach with the waves and the sand so I gave her directions and she thanked me and danced off to go put her toes in the sand. I hope she had a wonderful sandy day.

I stayed a little while longer then went to wake up the kids so they could have their beach day.

This post is heavy in pictures, but I just love the bay so much. I got a couple of our secret cove from the top.

Jackson decided that he didn’t want to go to the beach with us. (he REALLY does not like sand and we had something planned for that evening that I knew he’d love.) Rousing up two teenagers to get ready to go takes a lot of patience, but we finally got out the door and back to the beach. Gavin had never been. His family has land on the border of Arkansas and Missouri so that’s where they spend their vacations. He was not disappointed. For some weird reason the jellyfish were gone except for a random couple we saw floating around.

I found a big shell to add to Gavin’s collection.

I know some people rag on Corpus’ beaches, but I absolutely love them. Is the water crystal clear? No, but it is where I grew up and I love the smell of the salt air and the way you skin feels after you get out of the water. The smell of sunscreen and the way the sand sucks at your feet when the waves come in. It feels like home.

My blown glass fish where I keep all of the sea glass I have found over the years was fed once more.