Garden Tour Thursday

IZA:   Hi there!  Glad you could visit to come along on todays garden tour.  I have some VERY pretty flowers ta show.  With the warming weather, the rains, and the sun, some of the plants are bloomin their little flowerheads off!

 

First, I want to show ya the star of todays tour.  Isnt that bootiful?  Its a single Clematis flower that poked through the Nandina shrubs.  Its the same kind (but not the same plant) what is in our header.  We lost the name of it.

Close to it and down low here is a clump of Spiderwort.  Lots of English plants end in "wort" (TBT tells me) and means "cures it".

Over here is the Wave Petunia TBT overwintered.  The stems are gettin longer and there are new buds forming.  Iffen it does well this year, there will be a 2' circle of flowers by late Summer!

And here we have a cheerful little Pansy full of happy little faces!  I told TBT that, next year, he should plant a purple one an a yeller one in the same hole and get both colors together.  He dint look too thrilled about buying twicet as many Pansies this Fall, BUT I could see his face imaginin the way they would look.  MOL, readin his face is SO EASY...

This is the one lone survivor of a patch planted way before I got here.  We dont know its name and it grows from one single stem so we cant divide it an get more.  I just hope it keeps showin up again each year.

Lets see, whats next...

One last Columbine here is still bloomin.  I wish we had more of THAT one!

This Rose is the last of a bed TBT planted when he moved here.  WAY before my time.  Before Skeeters time, in fact.  He gave up on them cuz those Japanese Beetles ate them all up.  But this one blooms really early, before those beetles wake up all hungry.

Now lets go up on the deck fer treats an ta talk about the flowers.  Marley was a little bit annoyed at the common stuff Ayla offerred last week, so he "offerred" to do the catering this week.  Lets see what he chosen...

Ooh, we have HAM and Chick-hen cubes, bits of cheese, and some fancy treats.  Fer drinks, we have toona juice, rainwater-blended-with-Nip (from the freshly-cleaned rain gauge), and some heavy cream!  Way ta go, Marley!

Chair Tent 2

MARLEY: Hmm, Iza is jealouser than I realized.  She is tryin to tear my chair tent down!

She IS pretty good at tearing stuff apart...  You should see what she does to egg-cartons!

So she got down at the floor and "did her thing".

Fortunately, TBT intervened an made her stop.  That was good cuz I never want to raise a paw at my sisfurs.  That wouldnt be right.  TBT says I should just "take it" an discuss it later.   

And I DID!  We had a fambly meeting and Iza pologized.  Well considerin she was caught on camera, she dint have much choice.  It wasnt so much what she DID, it was that she recognized that she did wrong.  My chair tent is very important to me and I need TBT to fix it back up right.  I cant do it myself...

Of course, she never changes, but ya have ta accept that from yer furblings.    They are what they are.

Oh, Im sposed to mention that TBT is sufferred another birfday yesserday.  I think he is a squillion now.  Mebbe a squillion and elebenty-something.   He is 5x our total full year ages +3 today.  Can you guess his age?  Should we order a cane fer him on Amazon? 

We Are Staying Quiet Today

With sad thoughts for the Beins and critters who were harmed by the terrible tornado in Oklahoma yesserday, we are just sitting quietly with crossed paws and purrs of hope and comfort...

Mancat Monday - Chair Tent

MARLEY:  You wont beleeve it, my old chair tent re-appeared today!

I ran RIGHT IN!  Oh chair tent, I missed you so much while Grampa was here.  He took over my chair, ya know?  Now dont unnerstand wrong, I allowed that.  He did need a chair ya know.  But I sure was happy ta see it reappear.

Iza tried to push her way in, but I dint allow that, I whapped her from unnerneath rather fiercly and she apologized an ran away.  Shes actally a good sisfur, she just thinks shes in charge of evrything.  Sometimes I just have to remind her that shes not.

An I am SO HAPPY about seeing it again that TBT says I can post about it fer DAYS!

Easy Like Sunday

AYLA:  Iza an Marley are outside, so Im doing the Easy Sunday Easy myself today. 

I sure like the bloo blankies, but this extra towel is special-colorful!  I'll allow that today.

Sometimes, "fancy" is good.  And who doesnt like an extra softy towel on the pile?

OMC!

TBT:  You know how sometimes the cats all have good spots to sleep though the night?  And not on you sometimes?  And sometimes you don't worry about that?  And you know you got them in before dark?

What if you forgot where they were?

I forgot yesterday.

I had a very peaceful night in bed.   But at 6 am I suddenly woke up and realized they WEREN'T in the house.  I nomally just KNOW where they all are.  I was stunned.  I ran out onto the deck in my underwear and there they were all sleeping happily on the deck near the door.

They woke up. stretched and sauntered inside as if it was normal.  Oh man, did they eat a lot of food though.  And even Marley didn't complain when I picked him up afterwards!

We all went to bed after that for another 5 hours.  We all slept like logs.  Marley and Iza were under the blankets with me, and Ayla was on top of my legs as she prefers for some unaccountable reason.

I can't believe that I lost track of where they were.  In 45 years of cats, that has never happened before.  I sure hope it never happens again...

Freaky Friday

MARLEY:  TBT tried to get us all in one picture.  Well, we WERE all in a row. There I was on TBTs lap, Iza on the otto-man, and Ayla on the TV stand.  She likes to watch the TV eyeball to screen.  She keeps hoping fer golf cuz she loves to watch the little ball move around.

Ayla isnt yackin here.   It was a yawn.  (Just made ya yawn, right?)  Stuff blowin up doesnt innerest her, but golf balls do.  Girlcats...  I loved the esplosions.  Bright fancy colors!

Iza doesnt seem ta care about annythin on the TV.  Come ta think about it, I'm not sure she has EVER paid the least attention to stuff on the TV.  TBT says he is gonna put the catsitter DVD on sometime soon to see iffen she even pays attention to the mousies an birdies.  Ayla an I sure do!

Garden Tour Thursday

IZA:  Welcome to this weeks garden tour.  Please come along an Ill show ya whats bloomin this week!  BTW, that tall grass in front of me isnt unmowed, its the seedheads of the blue fescue border.  But I will hafta remind TBT to trim them off.

 First, we have the Spring Flowerin Almond bush.  They wernt bloomin last week and here they are all fadin away already.  Some years they bloom better than others.

On the other paw, the Columbines have been bloomin longer than usual, which is nice.  I like the way the flowers bloom way up high on skinny little stems.

This is the most dense part of the perennial bed.  All these plants just keep growing year after year so thick that there are no weeds fer TBT ta hafta pull.  He LOVES that!

Ill also have ta remind TBT that there are altogether too many weeds in the vegtable garden pathways.  Its annoyin ta have ta hop over them alla time.

The Pansies are bloomin real nice now.  They finally caught up after bein planted kinna late last Fall.  An notice the red an white Wave Petunia.  TBT dug it up last Fall and grew it inside all Winter.  There are 2 cuttings of it there too, but they are still small an got no flowers yet.

Ya can see it better up close like this.  It should spread out an fill an area the size of a trash can lid in a few months!

The Azaleas dint do much this year an bloomed just a few at a time this year.  These are the last ones.

And finally, this is my favrit Hosta.  I like the color patterns.  The purplish plant next to it is a Japanese Painted Fern.  We have a bunch of them scattered around the hosta bed.

Ayla says there are snacks out on the patio unner the deck.  Its a bit warm today so the shade will feel good.  Plus its nice an dusty-dry fer rollin around.  She is keepin the snacks simple today.  She has brought out some Stinky Goodness (Wellness an Avoderm) to try out iffen ya havent had those before.  Plus there is real treats an nip-water.

Straw Hat Wensday

OK, we swear onna stack of mousies, we dint plan it to come out like this, REELY.  We were all arguin about who should wear the straw hat fer the today holiday.

ALL US:  WE sure werent gonna do the Straw Hat Wensday, we HATE wearin stuff!  We told TBT HE should since it WAS his straw hat an all. 

But HE dint wanna get pictured, either.    But he keeps a yeller towel with him fer when werking hard in the yard,  An he hangs it over a big moon bulb floor lamp inna corner.  And lately, he sticks his straw hat on there too when he comes in.  So while we were arguing about who should wear the straw hat, MARLEY asked who was that cute Bein in the corner. 

Marley is sneaky about solvin problems that way...

Well, we all looked, an the yeller towel an the hat DID look sort of like a Bein, so TBT got a sharpie pen an drew a (sort of) face on it. 


Sooooo.....  Here is OUR Straw Hat Day pictures...

Kinna cute, issnt she?

Marley is one DIPLOMATICALLY DEVIOUS DUDE!  You can see why he holds the place together.  ~ Ayla, Iza, and TBT

Toesie Tuesday

IZA: I was nappin on TBTs lap last night and he mentioned the next day was Tuesday, so did I wanna do "Toesies" or "Tummy"?  I dint feel like shiftin around too much, so I stuck out my paws.

I looked around sleepily and asked iffen that was good.  

He said it was "pretty good".

So I went back to my nappin...

Mancat Monday

MARLEY:  After a good mancatly day of runnin around the backyard, sneakin up on mousieholes, and catchin a few bugs, its good to come inside fer some Stinky Goodness and then curl up on TBTs lap fer a snooze!

He does a pretty good lap, though he gets a bit squirmy after a while and I have to leave.  But he stayed put fer a while this time...

Easy Like Sunday, and Pictures Gone

AYLA:  Well, first, I gotta say that the REALLY NEAT PICTURES of us lickin each others heads alla same time seem to be really really gone.  TBT searched evrywhere.  First, he tried reloading the old camera memory card (there were no pictures there).  He looked through all the file directories ("Finder" on a Mac) in evryway he could think of, discovered that iPhoto had some 3500+ pictures stored in a special trash file that had never been emptied, and searched EVRY SINGLE ONE, an looked through ALL the saved iPhoto "events" (individual batches of original pictures).  They dont seem ta be annywhere.

When pictures are uploaded to iPhoto, the usual routine is to upload them, see them there, then delete them from the camera memory card.  That has never ever failed to werk before.  The pictures are in iPhoto fer processing an all werks fine.  The best he can guess, he uploaded those pictures from the old camera, saw them in iPhoto, then uploaded pictures from the new camera, overwriting the old camera ones.  He suspects he had never done 2 memory cards inna row before processing the first batch and is pretty sure he wont do that again.  But he may test that situation with some meaningless pictures taken for the test.

He says he is a big believer in the laws of some Bein named Murphy what says baddest things happen to stuff most important.  Like, iffen ya leave a coffee cup on top of the car, it will be yer favrit one.  Or iffen ya oversleep ONE time all year, it will be when ya had a very important early meeting.  Stuff like that.  I think theres a book.

Enough about that.  Spilled cream over the dam an unner the bridge or something like that, etc...

So we are takin it easy this morning.  Marley an Iza are nappin together on the squishy waterbed.

Marley likes the "prawn"; Iza stays more traditional.  

Im watchin from above.  Ive been likin bein up higher the past few months.  TBT says he wont be surprised iffen I start climbing trees again.  Its not that I dont wanna nap with them, I just really am getting back ta heights again.  I eat up there most of the time too. 

But TBT isnt worried.  I am nappin down with them most of the time.  Just not today.  Princesses get to make choices like that!  Especially ones what are way smaller than the peasants...

So today is an Easy Sunday for all here.  Ecept TBT of course.  He is out werkin in the yard. 

Caturday Activities

MARLEY:  I got behind the TV stand today searching fer a wayward kibble TBT threw carelesslly (he is SPOSED to toss them in plain sight).  It was a tight fit fer me...

TBT got cutesy with THIS pic.

But I look much better wif my natural colors.  It sure was tight in there though.  Ayla can just trot right through there!  I dont know HOW she does that.

An there were all those wires in the way.

But I found it and ATE it!  No kibble will EVER escape my search...

I should esplain.  TBT tosses kibbles around fer us ta chase and catch an eat.  We LOVE THAT, it is about the funnest game EVER!  But as he tries to play foolies on us by tossin them in strange places some get inna place hard to find.  Ayla an Iza just ignore those.  But I LOVE them so dearly, I hunt them down.  Sometimes it takes MINNUTS!  But I figure that is just part of the game. 

Freaky Friday

TBT:  GLOOM...  This post is without pictures.  Because I LOST THEM (pictures, not the Mews).  And they were GREAT!  I was on the computer last night and the Mews were all sitting in a triangle with their heads together and they were engaged in a 3-way mutual head licking session.  I took a dozen pictures with the old camera (only one in reach).

I uploaded the pictures to iPhoto and saw them there.  Then I uploaded some pictures from the new camera.  Somewhere in the process, the previous ones disappeared.  Well, OK, I've never uploaded pictures from 2 memory cards at the same time, and that is likely the problem.  But I sure hope those mutual grooming pictures are lost SOMEWHERE on the computer.  Because if they are anywhere there, I am going to search for them.  But I fear they got "over-written" somehow. 

I'll describe them...  Ayla was licking Marley's head, Marley was licking Iza's head, and Iza was licking Ayla's head.  I've never seen 3 cats doing that in my life.  And I HAD pictures.

I sure hope I can find them somewhere, lost in the computer...

Garden Tour Thursday

IZA: Welcome to this weeks garden tour!  I have some neat stuff to show ya today.

The pansies are bloomin their pretty little heads off (finally).  But notice the red flowers in the front.  TBT planted the Wave Petunia he dug up last Fall and kept alive unner lights.  So it is happily back outside in REAL sun again.  I am hopin fer great spreadin flowers this season.

The garden path, on the other paw, needs some werk.  I had to HOP over some of the weeds there.

And the path is not the ONLY problem.  See those "strawberry" leafs with the little yeller flowers?  Thats a "mock strawberry" and they are EVERYWHERE.  THEY really gotta go!

Some of the tomaters are happy in their new composty bed.  TBT planted them early cuz its warmer right against the house.

Take a good look up close.  They been inna ground several days and gone through a thunderstorm already an still look good.  That clip helps them stay up while they get used to the new situation.  BTW, the clips are fun ta bat around in the basement.

The evil Lysimachia are growin.  They look BOOTIFUL with the purple leafs an have nice little yeller flowers, but they spread an take over evrywhere.  They are contained with some deep edgin plastic stuff fer now.  TBT says he should pot them up an sell them ta Beins he doesnt like. But actally, he has some plan about where ta put them where they wont be a problem.  More on that in a future tour...

Next to the evil Lysimachia are the Stokes Aster.  They have BOOTIFUL bloo flowers later.  They look really nice by the small pond.  And you can see the Skeeter and LC memorials in the background.  I stop by there often.

The columbines are bloomin too.  Ignore that grassy stuff; I'll remind TBT to weed them out tomorrow.  I know he cant do evrything at once, but I DO have to keep after him on that stuff.

Sorry the ground was a bit damp.  It rained fer 3 days.  But the good news is that we have cool snacks up on the deck.  Ayla looked through the fridge (OK, TBT held her up there while she looked - we have one of those kinds with the coldest part on the bottom, so the GOOD stuff is up a bit higher).  She found HAM!  And pork cubes with FAT on them!  Marley considered that an decided that cool pond water with NIP blended in would be the best drink (well isnt it always?)  The slight fishie taste (from the goldfish) is a good complent to the fresh Nip. 

After the snacks, we can go inside an you can all help us finish shredding the Ess so TBT can re-cover it to go along with the NEW one he has to buy (by populer vote).