In The Night

As many of you know, Andrew Peterson is my favorite singer / song-writer / musician / artist / ... you get the picture.  His newest album, Counting Stars, has been playing non-stop in my car for the past few months.  It's very difficult for me to pick a favorite song, but right now "In the Night" is winning.  I am no linguist, so I am having a hard time coming up with the words that best describe what I think, but in short it is beautiful.

Sweet and Sour

That pretty much describes the personalities of my two cats.  Barnabus is the sweetest cat I have ever owned (and that is saying something if you know how many cats I have had...).  He is a little bashful around strangers, but he is full of love for people he likes.  Every morning on my way to the barn to feed all the animals he stops three or four times to be petted.  In contrast, Rex (aka O'Beast, Bad Cat) runs straight to the barn and meows the whole way.  In fact, from the time I get home from work he is at my feet meowing to make sure I know it is food time.  To be fair, Rex is not really a bad cat, he is just loud and a little bit bossy.  But I love them both.  :)  Can you tell which one is which?

Public Enemy #1

They are terrorists.  They bombard your space and destroy everything in their path.  They cling to you and won’t let go.  You can kill them, but they will always have a brother ready to step in and take their place.  But I am waging war, and this is a battle I refuse to lose.  I will take no prisoners.  I aim to kill.

All joking aside, these little buggers are nasty.  They are eating up my roses, grapes, cherry trees, crepe myrtle, etc.  What do they not eat?  At first I tried knocking them into a bucket of water to kill them, but the next day there would be hundreds more.  So now I have four beetle bags hanging to catch them and I have sprayed what plants I can with insecticide.  Seems to work.  We have caught thousands of beetles and each day we empty all the bags into a bucket of water, put the lid on, and let them cook out in the sun.  (Is it sick that I enjoy the thought of them roasting?)  Our plants are doing much better now, with only a few beetles brave enough to land on them.  Sweet victory.

Potato Harvest

Some people like to party.  Some people like to stay up late and (what do you do after 9???).  I have always had a thing for dirt.  So I was on cloud nine today as I harvested my first potato crop.  Dirty finger nails, dirty knees, and most importantly, loads and loads of potatoes!  I planted gold potatoes and blue potatoes and I had many many more than I expected.  Oh, the joy...

Enough potatoes to cover the kitchen table.

Some were almost as big as my hand!

Baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, potato soup, potato casserole... the possibilities are endless!!

My Favorite Flower

My absolute favorite flower is the Day Lily.  And they are so so easy to care for.  Now if only their blooms would last longer than a day...