Bookworm Game

I don't play hardly any of the games that are available on the Internet. But I have become hooked on a simple one called Bookworm. It is sort of a scrabble game as you make words out of letters for points. The best part of it is you can play by yourself. You can play for free if you are willing to wait for a video ad every 10 minutes or so. That is fine with me as it gives me time to check emails or get a drink or what ever. You can also buy it for a small amount. Here are links to it.
http://zone.msn.com/en/bookworm/default.htm   from here you can try the game in all it's variations. Start by clicking on the number 1. It's great for those times you are having to wait some where for a few minutes or feel the need to do something else while watching TV or waiting to get to the person you need to speak to while on the phone. Or in the middle of the night when you can't sleep like I was last night. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Cats in a Box

Last week we bought a new vacuum cleaner and the cats have had fun with the box. First Cassie crawled in the box and peaked out to see if anyone was watching her.

Then Murphy came and peaked in at her to see what she was doing.

Then Twinky came to see if Cassie was all right in that big box.

Twinky tried to get Cassie out like Murphy had done.(Murphy is solid black, and Twinky is black with white feet. Cassie is gray with white feet.)

Twinky got Cassie to come out so Cassie told Twinky to get in.

Twinky crawled in and peaked out to see if the other cats were watching her.

Cassie was watching and she thought Oh, good, I got Twinky now. and she stood on top of the box so Twinky couldn't get out.

And Wiley just laid near by and watched all the younger cats and the oldest one, (Murphy) playing with the box. Wiley decided he was to good to be playing with a box.

Trave and Stormy

After Bonita had her fill of running for fun (see previous blog) I let the ponies out into the big pen to play. They ran and ran and then took a good roll. some of the photos are blurry as the camera couldn't focus on them fast enough.

Bonita

My quarter horse mare, Bonita decided to have a running play day. Here are some photos of her.

House Plants

Everyone in our family has always liked houseplants. Houseplants are plants that do well in the house. Many of the plants commonly seen outdoors don't do well in the house, and many houseplants won't do well outside but there are the exceptions as some do well both places. I got my love of plants from my mom and my grandmothers. My dad liked them but wouldn't have cared for them if Mom didn't. I was able to get some jobs in plant nurseries were I learned more about houseplants. I have always had some. At times there have been lots of plants and at other times only a few. Recently my sister came for a short visit and brought several big plants that she had been caring for since our mom passed away. One of them is the big Ponytail Palm or Elephant Foot Tree shown in the first photo. I remember when my uncle gave it to my mom and it wasn't more than 6 inches tall. That was about 35 years ago. Now it is about 6 feet tall. These plants originally come from a desert in Mexico so do well as houseplants since they don't need very much water. In fact they only need water about once a month. Its probably one of the easiest plants to care for as long as you don't over water it. If you do it will rot and die. When I looked on the internet I found it is difficult to start baby plants and it takes a male and a female to bloom and make seed. I don't know which this one is. I did see some photos that made this one look tiny.

Another plant she had that was Mom's is the euphoria shown in the last photo. This does have thrones on the edges of the almost 3 sided stalks but it is a succlent as it has a few leaves along those same edges. It, too, wants to be very dry, but it does stick if not careful and if handled wrong does have a white sap that leaks from it that can be irriting to some peoples skin. It is sometimes called a Milk Tree because of the white sap. But it not milk as we think of it. This plant, too, is about 35 years old. It is easy to take cutting from this one to make more plants.

Garden Flowers

All the garden veggies are flowering. We are eating zucchini, and yellow squarsh, cucumbers, and have green tomatoes. The corn is tassling and we hope we get some this year. Apple tree and peach tree are loaded with the branches hanging down to where they almost touch the ground. Just waiting for them to get ripe enough to eat.

Butterfly

It was a bit ragged but this little butterfly was still making it's way around the flowers yesterday.

Sunflower

Summer Flowers

Some flowers I found blooming the other day. Blanket Daisy, large zennias, miniture zennias, one big zennia, a small wild sunflower, morning glory, and tiny white flowers that are covering my sedum ground cover right now.

Bumble Bees

We have an over abundance of bumble bees in our garden. Anything that is blue they seem to be attracted to. A bee on a Vitex bush in first photo.

 Second photo shows a bee on a Blue  Mist Spirea shrub.

Third bee in on a Blue Mist Spirea, too as well as the one in the 4th photo.

5th photo is of the very tiny blue flowers on a Blue Sage also know as Big Sage with one bee right in the center of the photo. (the round blue object is a bird bath.)

Although most of the bees were after the blue flowers I did find one on an almost gone zinnia blossom. We hadn't had a lot of problems with these bumble bees even though there has to be several hundred buzzing around until this morning. Lee was watering a Vitex bush when one went up his shirt and stung him on the back. Some solercane spray seemed to take care of the sting. (no, I didn't find a stinger in it)