Ominous Beauty

As you can see from the radar image, Hurricane Rita is creating circular bands of clouds covering the SE quadrant of the United States. Tonight, the sunset clearly shows the cloud bands from the hurricane. I've always admired the beautiful skyline here. The sunsets are often breathtaking but tonight it's ominous.

Hurricane Supply Grand Central (AKA Wal-Mart)

The local officials are recommending that we stock up on 3 days worth of water, non perishable food, batteries, keep cash on hand, and fuel up our gas tanks before Saturday. They say this hurricane will probably be a category 1 tropical storm by the time it hits us and could spawn some tornadoes. In other words, there's a possibility of power outages in the area.

I dropped my daughter off at her piano lesson after school and had exactly one hour to make a Wal-Mart run.

I got sucked into an all-out feeding frenzy.

What a zoo!!! It was worse than the day after Thanksgiving!!! Every person had bottled water in their carts, briquettes, paper plates, plastic tarps, ice chests, etc... and the canned food isle was a major traffic jam. I seriously thought there was going to be a fist fight over the last can of tuna. One woman tried to convince me to buy some Spam, she said it was good for occasions like this. I just smiled. Too icky. It was hard enough for me to buy Chef Boyardee and Baked Beans. I don't usually buy canned food but hey, in times of crisis it's sustenance.

No propane left, bottled water almost gone, no D size batteries either. Good thing I didn't need any of that stuff.

One confused woman stopped me in the check-out and asked, "What on earth is going on here? I've never seen this store like this before!" When I told her, she just stood there with her mouth gaping open. She only had a 6 pack of diet coke and some kleenex in her cart. I think she turned around and went back for more supplies, still thoroughly befuddled.

Needless to say I was late picking my daughter up. But we're well stocked and ready to go now!

The Mailman isn't as easygoing as I thought

Got this note in my mailbox today so I had to give cousin it a haircut. The pictures are front/back of the note we found in with our mail. I can't say I blame the mailman. The plant is a monster.

I still get my mail!!

I'm surprised the mailman still delivers my mail. I dumped a few morning glory seeds in the planter box next to the mailbox this spring and voila, now we have a "cousin it" plant!!











I didn't purchase any annuals for the flower beds this spring. I worked fresh compost into the soil and decided to let it rest for a season. We installed a soaker hose for the beds, attached it to our sprinkler system and left it. I promise you, where you see a mass of flowers now, the soil was bare!! The white flowers (actually pink in person) are annuals (vincas). I planted Vincas last year and they must've reseeded themselves. The Torenia (purple and blue) is also an annual but I planted it 2 years ago and it also reseeded itself!! I was amazed. I don't think it would've looked this good had I planted them myself!!

Vine Sphinx, AKA Hummingbird Moth

I saw one of these when we first moved here and it really freaked me out. It was evening, and I had stepped outside onto the porch to water my flowers when I heard this noise that sounded like a hummingbird in flight. Then I saw it hovering over a Mandevilla flower drinking nectar. "How strange," I thought, "a hummingbird at night?" When I realized it was a moth....it really gave me the willies. I've since learned to take our giant bugs in stride and am actually fascinated by them. I found this dead one in the garage today. I think I'll save it and let my daughter take it to her Gardening meeting after school tomorrow. I apologize for the poor quality photo. My digital camera doesn't do close-ups very well. Here's a web site with beautiful photos of hummingbird moths: http://www.whatsthatbug.com/clearwing_moth.html

Glue Torture & Coffee

Did you know you could send someone into a state of physical shock by torturing them with a hot glue gun? The scorching hot glue sticks to your skin and sets it ablaze with searing pain and as if that isn't enough, then you have to peel the glue off along with a half fried piece of burnt flesh! Yes, I'm whining because I burned myself. Dr. Moss needed a new pair of pants and I had to glue them onto him.....(he's a pirate statue).

My daughter & her daddy created a coffee cup out of play dough today. Dad helped make the cup and she decorated it. Then she took a picture of it and asked if we could post it to the blog. I know I'm biased but I think it's pretty cool.