front door/back door

dlyn tagged me for her front door back door meme awhile back, and I'm finally getting around to doing it. Here are her rules:

1. Step out your front door and take a picture.
2. Step out your back door and take a picture.
3. Put them on your blog, along with the rules.
4. If there are things in the photos that you particularly like or dislike, you can point them out, or just explain what we are seeing. Maybe changes over the seasons or some junk in your neighbor's yard that drives you nuts.
5. Tag as many or few people as you like - preferably at least one though.
6. Do it again next month if you like.

Ready? Here we go...

This is what I see when I step out my front door:

Our patio. It's a mess. What you see: a car seat with a blanket on it (the car seat is from a car and the blanket is from when we were playing in the yard last week), part of a drum set, some boxes of clothes waiting to go to goodwill, an old futon with a kid's jacket on it, an empty flowerpot, a playset in the back ground, yada yada yada. The open windows on the left are where the snake attempted to come in and investigate the baby bird smell. This picture was taken before that happened; my windows have no screens, therefore they will not be open again until sometime in December.

Our front door doesn't really face out the front of the house, so let me step forward and turn a little:
What you see: Christmas lights hanging from the roof, grass that is at least 3 ft. tall, a BMW that can't move because it needs a new transmission (I think), and a large orange depression in the ground. That's our "pond." As you can see, it's dry right now. Sometimes it has muddy water in it, and the ducks swim around in it. One day it will have a liner and some landscaping and some... water.

What you don't see: no road, no houses, no neighbors. That makes me happy.

And now for the back door...

What you see: an old overgrown pear tree, a lot of privet and brambles, some broken pottery under the tree, and over there on the left, towards the back, is where the ducks live.

What you don't see: any evidence that we own a lawn mower, weed whacker, or even a pair of clippers. We do own all three, we just rarely use them. You also can't see our woods; they're back there behind all the privet and brambles, and they're one of my favorite parts of this property. I'll have to post a picture of the woods sometime.

I'm not going to tag anyone in particular, but if you're reading this and you'd like to do the front door back door meme - grab your camera, and let me know about it so I can come see.

note to self:

If you're caring for a baby bird in your home, you might not want to leave the windows wide open.



You never know who might try to invite themselves in for lunch.

Oliver

This little fellow has been keeping our resident animal lover very busy. Moops found him on the ground Wednesday evening. The nest we believe he fell from was too high for us to put him back; so we tied a little basket into the privet underneath the tree and put him there, hoping his mama would find him.

By Thursday morning we had seen no sign of his mother, and he was cold. So Moops adopted him and has been feeding him and keeping him warm in a little box in her room. He feeds well and is quite energetic.

Surely he won't always be this ugly...

my baby can sing

Little Miss loves to sing, and her favorite song by far is Frosty the Snowman. She sings it every day, without fail. It seems she needs to keep in practice. Who knows when it will start to snow and she'll need to know how to bring a snowman to life?

Just in case you don't know the lyrics, I'll post them here:

Fros-dee duh No-man

wuzza happy jaw-wee soul,

widda cute hat-top

anna buttin nose,

and two eyes made outta coal....

Now, don't let anyone try to confuse you and tell you there are actually more lyrics to the song - because there aren't. You just repeat that stanza over. and over. and over.

egads!

Look who's in town again.
Mmmm, nothing hits the spot like a good old duck egg!

Moops found this hungry rat snake in Quacker's nesting box and called me out to take a picture. As I was clicking away, I began to wonder how long it will be before she calls me out to see a copperhead or a rattlesnake eating one of those delicious eggs...

Then I started to get creeped out.

I needed to squash that mental image and replace it with something more fuzzy. Something soft, and warm, and cute. Something without scales, fangs, or venom. Something like this:

(I think I'll call him Nutkin)

There. Now I feel better.

Wordless Wednesday

loldukz

(I am so, so, very sorry for posting the image above. It is silly, tasteless, and horrifically strange. My only excuse is...Moops made me do it.)

Wordless Wednesday

early evening visitor

It's almost embarrassing how excited I become when I look out the kitchen window and see a bunny hopping through the grass. If I were, say, 2 years old, I could get away with hopping up and down and squealing, "Look, a bunny! A bunny rabbit!!"

But I'm not 2 years old. No, I'm not. So I squeal inwardly, clasping my hands to my heart, and open the window as quietly as possible... run, get the camera....run back to the window... point, focus, click. click. click.

Yay! I've got some bunny pictures to play with!

Later, I pull this one up on the 'puter...

huh. Wait, what's that? Is that a third eye on the back of the bunny's head??

Zooming in...

Eeeewwwww. What is that?

All I can come up with is:

a). It's a third eye; therefore, we must be living on a nuclear waste site. Not comforting.

b). Okay, maybe it's not a third eye, maybe it's the biggest, most disgusting tick in creation. Still not comforting, but not quite as bad as living on a nuclear waste site.

c). Wait... maybe it's just some kind of wound, or, um, something.

d). Do bunnies have horns? Maybe that's just a little horn starting to grow there. Maybe I fell asleep during 9th grade biology class and didn't hear the lecture on bunny horns. Yeah, maybe that's it.

Mommy's little helper

Hey, everybody! It's me, Little Miss!

Mom-Mom and I have been looking for pretty little things to take pictures of because she likes taking pictures of little things almost as much as she likes taking pictures of me. Would you like to see some of the pretty things I helped my mommy find?

NO?

Yeah, well, too bad ~ because I'm in charge today!


My sister Moops planted some daffodils last fall, and this is the prettiest bloom we've seen so far. Mom-Mom thinks it looks just like a little fairy has landed right in the middle of it. Do you see her there, hiding her face? Mom-Mom said fairies don't like to be seen by regular people like me, so we didn't bother her. Don't tell my mommy, but I really wanted to grab that fairy and take her home with me!

My mommy really likes flowers, so I found these for her:

a pretty little pink one...

and a pretty little purple one.


Mom-Mom snuck out of the house the other morning to take this picture of a flower in the rain. She said I couldn't come out because the rain might make me get sick; but I know she really just didn't want me to come outside and get muddy.

We found lots of pretty little things in the woods, too.


Mom-Mom said this was a cedar tree, but I think it looks like a Christmas tree.

Here are some brand new baby leaves. Just last week, most of the trees in our woods were naked, but now they all have baby leaves growing all over them. Everything is turning green, and my mommy says that means I'll get to play outside more often.

And look! Baby pinecones! Once they grow up and fall off the tree, they'll be a lot of fun for me to play with.

We also found this mushroom in the woods. I like to eat the mushrooms in Mom-Mom's spinach pie, but she said I shouldn't eat this one.

And finally, here are some pretty little rocks I found for Mom-Mom. That's my hand in the picture! Mom-Mom thinks my fingernails are awfully dirty in this picture, but I like them that way.

Well, bye now. I'm going to go play with my new play-doh.