Praying Mantis Update

The other day when I went to turn the lights on in the garage I found the Praying Mantis again! I say again because I believe it’s the same Praying Mantis from my post titled “Garden Visitors” but of course I have no way of knowing for sure. But I’m pretty convinced it’s the same one since the garage door is just a few feet away from the planter where the cone flowers are planted & we usually keep the garage door open all day.

I put a piece of paper towel near him to crawl onto so I could place him back in the garden. He seemed happy to get back to the cone flowers but since then I haven’t seen him… maybe he snuck back into the garage!

Tomatoes and More Tomatoes!

Let me start this post out by saying that I love tomatoes... the more the better!

In the past seasons I planted my vegetables in containers because of those little critters called Gophers. I can remember one year weeding in the garden and just like in a cartoon I saw one of my green bean plants disappear down a gopher hole. Since I didn't see many traces of gophers this year I decided to plant my tomatoes directly into the ground. The only problem was that the plants grew so fast I never got a chance to stake them properly as you can see in the first photo.

After getting such a bountiful harvest from these messy looking unsupported plants I’m considering never taking the time to stake again!

Blue Bathroom Ducky

That's one Big Blue Ducky...

But I'm going in anyway!

What, did you think a Blue Duck would stop me?

And I made it!

Shredding toilet paper and protecting the bathroom linen closet with his life is just another one of Mooky’s favorite past times. With luck on his side he’ll sneak past the The Stuffed Army , slip through the living room blockade and waddle down the hallway to the linen closet hoping not to be intercepted by either Bill or me. Once he’s made it through this obstacle course and into the bathroom he may find the linen closet door closed… drats his plans are foiled. And if it’s open he still has the Blue Bathroom Ducky to deal with!

It depends on his mood because on this day he wasn’t about to let the Bathroom Ducky stop him… let’s face it he went through a lot to chew on some toilet paper.

Garden Visitors

So I spent another Saturday working in the garden. You know the usual stuff pulling weeds, trimming things and planting some new plants I got at the Farmer's Market. I originally intended to post photos of my progress in the garden and the new plants I planted but since I had the opportunity to take these pictures I decided to post them instead.

The Praying Mantis has been on the Cone Flower since Saturday and was still there as of this Wednesday morning. I keep hoping that I'll have the good fortune to photograph him devouring another creature but so far nothing.

Not that this has anything to do with these lovely creatures I posted but I wanted to share one frustration I have and that is the supposed kink-free hose that always kinks! I even invested in one of those coil hoses and guess what it kinked more than the regular hose.

Does anyone else share this frustration?