Back of Morning Glory

Morning Glory Peek-A-Boo

Morning Glories in the Morning

Morning Glory Take Over

Watermelon

Sunflower

Balloon Flower Bud

This is the bud for the balloon flower. It starts out small, gets bigger and finally springs open like the flower in the following post.

Open Balloon Flower

This is an open balloon flower

Pink Flower

Can't remember what this pink flower is called. It is the only one that came up from two bags of bulbs that I got from The Dollar Tree Store this spring.

Tuffee

Tuffee, my Border Collie is hard to take photos of because she has such a dark face and usually in the photos you can't see her eyes. This day I was able to get some good ones. Maybe because she way laying in the shade of our peach tree.

Legends of America

I found this cool site while doing research for a story I am trying to write. It is called Legends of America and has lots of information about what the US was like in the past. It lists ghost towns, outlaws, lawmen, lost treasures, other historical facts, and interesting trivia. I have listed it on my links for furture reference.

Sunflower

From the back side of the flower. This is the wild verity that we have here on the desert. The finches love to eat the seeds.

And the Mouse Came

If it isn't ants or rain storms it's mice, or rather one mouse. I have been feeding bran mixed in with the grain I feed my horses. I had bought a 50 pound bag of bran not long ago and dumped it in one of the 32 gallon rubber maid trash cans on wheels that I put grain in to keep it safe from the mice and rats that want me to feed them. A few days later I noticed a pile of bran beside the can when I went to feed. I wondered how it got there and after a few minutes of investaging I discovered a hole about an inch in size on the botton of the can. I knew it hadn't been there when I had fed that morning so how had it got there? My first and only suspect was some mice had done it. I hadn't had any in the hay shed for a while but it looked like I did now. I poured the bran into another can and put duct tape over the hole both inside and outside as a tempory fix until I could get another big can. I then set 3 mouse traps around the can and sprinkled bran over each. It worked get as most things I have tried are either so heavy they spring the trap or the mice ignore the bait. That includes the usual cheese and peanut butter. Later that evening I checked and one trap was sprung and turned over but no mouse. Next morning - same thing. Hummmm maybe it was a rat and I needed a bigger trap I though. It had been a rather big hole for a mouse to make. Not having a big rat trap I tryed again and low and behold that evening I had a very dead mouse. I have left the set traps for several more days but no more sprung traps and no more dead mouses.
So the moral of this story is that one little mouse can chew a big hole through tough plastic trash cans when it really wants something. And it seems that bran is well liked by that mouse at least. And bran workes well to bait a mouse trap with.

And the Rains Came

On Saturday evening the rain finally came. We had almost 2 inches in less than an hour and we needed it. We had huge puddles in the yard and horse pens that by Sunday morning had sunk into our dry, thirsty ground. And now the ground is almost dryed out again. The rain can come again if it wants to.
Of course the horses had to roll in the mud and get as muddy as they could. But the plants and trees loved it. Plants always do better after a big rain like that regardless of how much water you give them otherwise even when it is well water like we have.

TO BUGS BUNNY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
TO
BUGS BUNNY

I heard that yesterday my beloved cartoon rabbit was 70 years old.
Which makes me wonder - how many gray hairs does Bugs have, and how many gray hairs does an old hare have to have to be an old hare.
Which makes me also wonder - how many carrets has the old hare eaten in his life - and how many times has he said that famous line "What's up, Doc?" and how many times has Elmer Fudd called Bugs a "Wasal-ly Wabbit".
We have lots of rabbits here at the Tumbleweed Crossing but so far none have showed any relationship to dear, old Bugs Bunny. "Drats"
I say Bugs is my favorite but then again maybe it's The Roadrunner, or maybe it's Wile E. Coyote, or maybe it's Speedy Gonzales and Pepe La Pue. And who could forget Taz - The Tazmanian Devil.
The new cartoons just can't compare.

Ants & Chickens

One reader said that her chickens eat the ants. That is good to hear. I have been thinking about getting some chickens. I know they will eat lots of bugs but didn't think they would eat the ants that bite so hard.
Now to be able to aford to build a chicken coop.

Invasion of the Ants

We finally cooled off some and had a bit of rain. Only about a quarter of an inch but it was enough for the 'Invasion of the Ants'.

The rain caused the ants to swarm. Have you ever seen an ant bed swarm? That is when all the ants that want to be queens grow wings and come swarming out of the hole to find and set up their own ant beds, or holes. This is most common after a rain. I had seen it happen with some of the smaller ants that we have all over here but this was the first time I saw one of the big, black, biting ants do it. They are about a quarter of an inch long or maybe a little more. We have red ones and black ones and they hurt worse than a bee sting when they bite. They are really bad about climbing up the inside of someone's pants leg when working in the garden and taking a bit out of the tinder part of your leg when they start getting squized between you and your pants. Anyway this bed decided to swarm right outside of my hayshed under my nicest shade tree. I walked out to feed the horses and saw the ground was black and moving. And flying. There was a sort of circle of ants about 12 to 14 feet around and across. It was kind of horrifying like a horror movie and I didn't think to take a photo. We could only think how to kill them before they got into the hay and over on the horses. I used the water hose and hubby used his big push broom to sweep them into a wet pile and not having any kind of ant spray Lee poured some left over chainsaw gas on the pile of wiggling ants. Of course this took about a hour of hard work. there were still plenty of the little devils flying around while we were working and even afterward. Hubby shoveled the pile of wet, gas soaked ants and dirt into a trash sack to wait for trash day. It was all we could think to do. They were coming out of a crack in the ground near the shade tree where I didn't even know there was an ant bed. I try to keep a handle on those kind of ants using a product called Amdro that is a poison you sprinkle on the bed. I don't like using any kind of chemical but on the big ants, sometimes called fire ants because of how bad the stings are I do use the Amdro. Anyway we did kill most of the ants and haven't found any trying to make homes in the hay but did see a few starting beds in our dirt driveway and I gave them a dose of Amdro.

A week before I had dosed about 10 beds just on the border of our property as the ants had started invading the horses feed areas to steal hay for food and to line their nests with.

I am hoping it doesn't happen again. I saw a couple of the little ants swarming some but it was so minor in comparison that I just ignored them.

Fly Preditors

Rising Rainbow says she loves fly preditors and they are her best friends at this time of the year. I totally agree. If you don't know about these tiny little bugs they lay their eggs on the fly larve and their larve eat the fly larve. For more information or to order some go to www.spaldinglabs.com. or google fly preditors or spalding labs. If you are ordering from spalding labs for the first time please give them my name. Barbara Borror. Also some of the feed stores sell them and you can order through some sites like www.horse.com where horse supplies are sold. If you havn't tried them to so You will be amazed at how well they work. Also, good for dog kennels.

Ants & Flies

Still hot. You know it's really bad when the tumbleweed start dieing due to the lack of water.

I sent a long hour today wandering and crisscrossing my property and going around the outside edges to kill out all the ant beds I could find. the ones I am after are the big black ant and big red ants that sting so hard. Each year they decide they need to line their nests with pieces of hay that are left behind by the horses and start invading the horses eating areas and feeders. And of course the horses don't like to be stung by those horrid critters any more than I do.
Ants are the only thing I use a cimicial on to kill. I use a product called Amdro. It is the only thing I have found that works. I found about 10 big beds just on the edges of the property as no one else around here seems to fight them. Just as they don't fight the flies either. Which of couse means that have more flies than I should even though I fight them.
I use fly preditors as well as fly traps for the flies and make my own fly spray for the horses out of viniger and Skin so Soft from Avon. It actually works better than the commercial cimical kind.

Wonderin' Words

I have been devoting my other blog Wonderin'Word (see links) to writing my life and my family history. I'm not sure why, don't figure many are going to want to read it, but I now have most of it finished. I have been working on it since I was in high school and had to do a paper on it then. I have interviewed relitives, and friends and checked facts with my sister and the internet. I have added links to as much information as I could find when I figured there might be something about the subject on the net. Especially the tourist places that we visited when we were traveling.

So if you think you might be intereted take a look.