A Walk in our Neighborhood – November 2024

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A lot of the leaves have fallen; the oaks are holding on the longest. As I walked around our neighborhood ponds, I took leaf arrangement pictures – on pine needles, in shallow water, in deeper water, and on the path.

I noticed a pine that had dropped cones near the path and picked up a few for my sister to use for a craft project with her grandson.

There are still some green water plants that the community is trying to establish at the edge of the pond. We haven’t had a killing frost yet. I hope they come back stronger and more numerous next year.

There was a very small red eared slider on a branch above the water….on the other end of the pond I saw a large snapping turtle – too far under the water to get a good picture.

The day was in the 60s and sunny – the aeration on the pond created a rainbow.

It was not a long walk; I should make the circuit more often.

2nd Anniversary in our Missouri Home

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Today is our second anniversary in our Missouri home and I am thinking about what has changed relative to the house in that time. We still have some boxes in the storage areas of the house that we haven’t unpacked – a sure indication that we probably moved some items we didn’t need.

We’ve changed more in the yard than inside the house.

I planted a wildflower garden in the back and some hens and chicks in the front.

One of the pine trees in the backyard fell over last summer and I’ve planted some irises and native plants in the area where the stump was ground up after the tree was taken away; colorful stinkhorns are coming up in the mulch too!

We hired a crew to mow the yard the first summer, but I mowed it last summer and this summer too. The depression in the area where the previous owner took out a large tree in the front yard is obvious when I mow….and when mushrooms come up in the grass.

Both my husband and I are glad the yard had a sprinkler system – even though we haven’t needed it so far this season (we got 10 inches of rain in May!). This is our first house with a sprinkler system, so we have a company to check the system in the spring and fall.

We haven’t used the community pool or walked around the ponds as much as we thought we would…but I did enjoy walking patterns on the tennis courts in the snow last winter. The amenities of the neighborhood are greater than anywhere we’ve lived previously.

As far as the inside of the house….

I like my office in the basement (with windows on three sides) as much as I thought I would. The views were nice to begin with, but we’ve added bird feeders, a bird bath, spring bulbs, and some native plants. I also like having the mini-kitchen near my office. I’ve turned off the gas to the gas fireplace and put a magnet blanket over the opening; it leaked heat (from the pilot light) into my office in the summer and let in a cold draft in the winter. I like that my office area has its own heating/cooling.

We’ve only used the basement storm shelter once….but I am glad it is there. Fortunately, the storm did no damage in our neighborhood. Our challenge in using the shelter is getting our three cats (additions since we moved to the house) into crates and down there in time!

Both my husband and I have enjoyed the large shower – just as we anticipated. We still have not used the Jacuzzi tub!

The laundry chute has eliminated the need for hampers…and eliminated the need for carrying dirty laundry. We did put baby latches on the doors to the chute since the kittens were way too interested and dexterous at opening things; we added latches on the lower cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms for the same reason.

We discovered magnets strong enough to hold a wreath for our front door (it is metal) and added a Ring doorbell since the door did not have a peephole already installed.

The 3-car garage is a wonderful upgrade from our previous 2-car versions. We enjoy the room (and have not filled it up!).

Both my husband and I agree that this is the best house we’ve owned. It’s very satisfying to realize that we’ve thought the same thing every time we have moved!

Ducklings 2024!

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Last year I saw ducklings on our neighborhood pond on April 14th. This year I photographed this year’s brood 3 days earlier than last year on the 11th (although a sighting was posted on the neighborhood Facebook page on the 9th). There are 14 ducklings this year; no losses so far. The Mom Mallard was wisely keeping them close to shore protecting them from the turtles (turtles can pull a duckling underwater, drown it, and then eat it). Click on the images below to enlarge…see if you count 14 ducklings. When they are close to shore, one or two seem to always want to climb up on the mud and nibble the grass. The last picture has all 14 (I think). Their down make their bodies look out-of-focus, so count the heads!

Zoomed in, the ducklings show how fuzzy they still are.

Mom Mallard took them on a brief loop out into the pond before going back to the shore. The line of ducklings is somewhat easier to count.

I noticed some other things around the pond: robins,

Plastic swans (an attempt to deter geese from nesting near the pond),

And, of course, turtles. Most were red-eared sliders; there might be one that I photographed that was something else. I didn’t see the large snapping turtle. I’m not sure how large a turtle has to be to pull down a duckling. Fortunately, the Mom Mallard was keeping them at the other end of the large pond.

Before I headed home, I saw the ducklings again in the inflow channel of the large pond; there had been enough rain recently that there was still water in it and the ducklings were loving it! They were moving around finding bits of food and sitting down letting the water move around them. I wondered where the Mom Mallard had made her nest since they seemed to be heading up stream.

Alliums

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I planted allium bulbs last fall. They sprouted and bloomed in the spring. I enjoyed several photographic sessions with them over the past few months. In May they were blooming, and I tried various levels of zooming and lighting. The buds unfurl until they are an orb of color.

In early June, I cut them because the grass was getting too long where I had planted them – and it needed to be mowed. I did some high key images of the wilting flowers and seed formation.

In July, I noticed that the seeds were visible in the open husks. I took some macro images before I took them out and distributed the seeds into some flower beds where it would be great to have them sprout next year!

Our Missouri Neighborhood – February 2023

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There were a few days of snow and ice early in the month; I stayed indoors for the first days but then the sun came out and I decided to bundle up and walk around the neighborhood to document the event. The pumps in the largest pond were keeping some open water.

Two geese ventured out on the ice…but turned around and rejoined their friends on the bank before getting all the way to the unfrozen part of the pond.

The snow that fell on the slides in the playground had gone through some freeze-thaw cycles and was extending past the end of the slides!

The contrast of tree trunks and snow/ice was stark…the snow creating a different pattern than usual when the mulch around the trees is almost the same brown as the tree trunk.

My favorite sights of the morning were the neuron shapes in the pond. My theory is that the center part that looks unfrozen is either a shallow spot or has a lot of water plants near the surface. The ‘dendrites’ coming out from the center are cracks in the ice that are mostly refrozen. I zoomed in on one of the centers; the texture of the ice looks like cut glass!

Or maybe I was just thinking about neurons too much since I’ve been learning about them recently…stay tuned for tomorrow’s post for more about that.

Memorable Events of 2022

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2022 has been a year with more memorable events than most years.

My health. For most of the year, from the surgery at the beginning of the year until early fall, my health seemed to be sputtering; it was the longest period of my life to be uncertain that my health was good to excellent. Fortunately, it seems that I have recovered and am back to feeling as healthy as in recent years. Every other time I was concerned about my health was much shorter in duration: the month before and after pregnancy in 1989 and the month after a surgery in 2006.

Pets and family. 3 kittens…oh my! They are getting a little older now but still quite capable of causing havoc. The last time we had a kitten around was in 1985. The first baby in over 20 years has arrived in my extended family…and he adds a whole new dynamic to family gatherings. The milestone 70th anniversary of my parents adds to the list of memorable events in this category.

Home and Travel. Moving from Maryland to Missouri was a big undertaking and we’ll probably look back years from now, seeing it as a pivot point in our lives just as the move from Texas to the east coast In 1983 turned out to be. On a smaller scale, the week in London, Ontario was memorable for time spent in another country (the longest since my trip to Mexico City in 1966 when I was in elementary school) and the amount of time I was on my own in a new place.

Changes in the world. Queen Elizabeth II’s death is on my list this year because she was queen for my whole life…a constant in the world that I consciously knew would not last but that I will miss. The other change is one that reversed something that was constant for my entire adult life and increased my confidence that I would receive the care I needed when my husband and I decided to have a child (which we did successfully and without complications); when Roe v Wade was overturned, I became anxious that younger women will not have access to the same level of care that I did.

I am hoping that 2023 will be a little less memorable!

Our New Neighborhood – October 2022

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It’s our first fall in Nixa, Missouri. The trees around the ponds in our neighborhood are full of fall color although they may be more muted than some years because of the dry summer we had. Still – there are plenty of reds and yellows that have been added to the greens still left from summer.

I am glad that there are maples around that are as brilliant as the ones we left behind in Maryland. My favorite time is when the tree has a lot of different colors!

At the edges of the ponds, I noticed some honey suckle blooming…and seed pods.

In the water there were two different turtles. Ones was a red-eared slider.

But I’m not sure what the other one was. It was larger than the red-eared slider…had very different markings and shell. Too bad I didn’t get better pictures. It’s good to know that there are at least 2 kinds of turtles in our neighborhood!

Kittens! – Month 1

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The first month with our 3 kittens has been full of small adventures for the whole household. They quickly got comfortable outside their sequestered area. Sometimes they were quiet enough for us to take pictures.

When I started packing for my trip to Carrollton, one of them decided one of the bags was a good perch….and he didn’t want to vacate.

While I was gone, my husband experimented with them out of their room during the night. The first night was OK but the second one they wanted to play most of the night. So - we’ve reverted to enticing them into their room with a late night snack.

The kittens like my husband’s office. They sometimes attempt to take over his keyboard and monitors. He has tried putting towels and boxes over the electrical cables on the floor to discourage their biting on the cables….they prefer the towels for naps. They still get into the extra office chair, but it will soon be too small to hold all three at once.

Puma discovered the receipt bin and Pooky joined him…tussle ensued. Typical behavior when they meet anywhere in the house.

The kittens have broken two glass coasters as they race around the house and over/under end tables. One end table fell over sending a coaster flying and another was swept clean when the racing kittens used it as part of the route through the den…another coaster flew and shattered. I’ve put the remaining glass coasters away and we are using unbreakable coasters.

It is now impossible to keep them off the kitchen counters completely. I made a small bouquet with items from the yard. The roses and crepe myrtle are still in place, but the wavy grass seed heads are bent and scattered. Maybe they looked too much like a toy to the kittens.

Overall – it’s been an eventful month and we are anticipating continued kitten adventures.

Previous Kittens! Posts: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, week 1, week 2