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?

I Want To Be Taken Seriously

This weekend I tried to get a new video clip of Mooky to post but he just wasn’t having any it. He’s turned into quite the little temperamental Star. Nope… there was no performing from him this weekend. Oh he was up to his usual Mooky tricks but purely for his own entertainment. Maybe he wants to be taken serious. You know like when Julia Robert’s cut all of her hair off and Johnny Depp didn’t want to be cute anymore.

I think this photo portrays Mooky's serious side... what do you think?

A Small View of my Garden

Cone flowers, French Lavendar, Butterfly Tree, & Sage.

Newly planted Cone Flowers.

I like to plant vegetables & herbs anywhere I can find room... here you can see some Swiss Chard & Basil.

Saturday I spent time planting and cleaning up this planter and the planter on the opposite side of it which has 2 huge Mexican Sage plants & a Rosemary bush. (I'll post pictures of them another time when they're in bloom.) It was a beautiful day, a little warm but tolerable.

Eventually I hope to have a completely drought tolerant garden. This area is just the start... it's filled with French Lavendar, Yarrow, Cone Flowers & a couple of other plants I can't remember the names of but are also drought tolerant.

Dinosaur Roar

I recently got a SVP Digital Comcorder for my birthday which turned out wasn’t very Mac compatible. So after doing some research online I found this very easy to use, inexpensive, compact replacement and best of all Mac compatible called the Flip Video Camcorder. So far I’m very pleased with it but I can’t say the same for Mooky. He seems to be a little leery of this new device which doesn’t make sense to me since he’s such a ham when I take his picture with my digital camera.

But luckily he seems to be warming up to it and I was able to get this small sample of his Dinosaur Roar to post. Hope you enjoy it and who knows what video clips the future may bring!

Mooky's Wingys

This weekend Mooky was very cooperative. He must have sensed I was desperately in need for a photo to post. While I was watching some silly movie on the Lifetime Movie Network (Please tell me I’m not the only one who watches LMN movies!) he was whistling (The Bridge Over the River Kwai theme song), singing & flapping his wings. So I thought let me pull myself away from this movie that I have probably already seen 3 times or more & see if I can get a photo of his antics. I went over to him with my camera and just simply said “Wingys” and to my surprise he started flapping his wings for me.

I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them because I got so many good shots I will have to do a Mooky's Wingys Part II.

Company Dog

We found this little fellow in an Industrial Sewing Machine shop in Chinatown. He looked so adorable I asked Bill to take his picture for my blog. He appeared friendly enough, that is until Bill started to take his picture... the closer Bill got to him with the camera this cute little dog would silently growl causing his body to jerk. After experiencing his reaction to Bill we understood why the owner(s) of the shop feel confidant to leave the door wide open when they’re not around!

Is this fuzzy little dog a Pomeranian?

Crazy Bathing Bird

This is our crazy bathing Mooky machine. He just goes wild when he decides he’s going to take a bath in his water dish. Depending on my mood I may remove his dish just because I don’t feel like cleaning up the aftermath. Oh and he gets water everywhere… on the floor, on the shutters & completely soaks the newspapers on his perch. Yes, fun for him and work for me or at least that’s how I see it sometimes.

He looks soaked or somewhat soaked here because I gave him a shower and let him finish in his dish. By the way he hates going in the shower but he’s a good sport and tolerates it… although I may leave the shower with a couple of war wounds.

Samson

This is Samson our neighbor's dog.

Everyday around 5 or 6pm he comes around and waits for his daily dog biscuit… he prefers the bacon & cheese ones but who wouldn’t. He’ll wait patiently never barking or whining but I have found him looking into our bedroom and/or bathroom windows to see where I am.

This really isn't the best picture of Samson but I love the reddish orange sky & his white eyes that make him look a little scary. But he’s actually far from scary he’s just a big & gentle Samoyed.

The Blair Mooky Project

Each night we are confronted with shrieking and sounds so haunting that we are convinced someone is following us, and we quickly begin to fear for our lives.

Not really! I stole that sentence off of Blockbuster.com from the synopsis for "The Blair Witch Project" because this shot of Mooky reminded me of the well known scene of that sniveling girl who has her face all up in the camera. Mooky can be evil at times but not shrieking or haunting... well maybe shrieking!

San Gabriel River Bike Path

This beautiful & friendly horse we saw along the bike path loved having her picture taken. There was also a colt that looked just like the horse in the pic... same color and same white spot on her head. The colt wasn't quite as cooperative though. She was very friendly too but she would come so close the to camera I couldn't get a good shot of her... Oh well maybe next time.

The goats on the other hand tried to get as far as they could away from me but that's okay because I like how they look all huddled together.

And finally me walking down a hill that we thought would lead us out into the neighborhood but "Not" and I'm glad it didn't because it forced us to follow the bike path to the end. This turned out to be one of our better & longer adventures (6+ hours) the weather was great & we got to explore areas we were never in before.

There You Are

Once in a while Mooky gets lucky and we forget to put up the barricade that prevents him from sneaking off into other areas of the house causing damage. (The barricade is a bamboo room divider with a fake crow perched on top… One of these days I’ll post a picture of it.) This day I caught him in our walk-in closet snooping around my shoes for what reason I’m not exactly sure. Though I have to admit he can be cute when he’s caught… sometimes he says “Eh!” & other times he just puffs up like he did in this photo.

Grasshoppers... Help!

As a kid I used to love Grasshoppers. I would catch one hold it's mouth against my finger and sing "Spit Tobacco, Spit Tobacco, Spit on my hand & if you do I'll let you go!" They would spit something that looked like tobacco on my finger and I would keep my promise and let them go.

Can’t say I love them so much anymore. Actually I consider them one of the biggest pests in my yard & garden. They will chew on almost any type of plant. I found this Grasshopper hidden on a branch of my Princess Tree. I also noticed an abundance of the little green baby Grasshoppers on my tomato plants this weekend. The babies are cute but very destructive.

Mooky & Our Stuffed Army

Mooky with Mr. Golden Retriever, Mr. German Shepherd & Mr. Gorilla. This is our army of stuffed animals that we place around the house to prevent/frighten Mooky from venturing off & chewing on things he's not supposed to... like baseboards, bathroom closet doors and anything else he finds tempting. (One of these days I will post pictures of the damage he has done around the house.) First we started out with the Gorilla and it worked well for awhile but then its effectiveness wore off so we added the 2 dogs to our army of stuffed deterrents. But after catching Mooky chewing on the Golden Retriever’s eye I’m thinking we need to grow our army... any ideas?

Mooky's Buddy

This is Mooky’s “Birdy Buddy.” Or maybe he considers it his little soft cuddly purple pal or maybe his teddy bear… who knows. What I do know is that he loves it! As you can see it's a fuzzy piece of material that ties to the bars of his cage just above his perch. When he goes in his cage for the evening he snuggles up against it to stay warm or maybe for comfort.

Isn't he just too cute... sorry I couldn't help myself!

Lizard Rock & Crazy Angel Trumpet Tree

Growing up in New Jersey I didn’t encounter lizards. When I first moved to California and saw one of these little Fence Lizards I nearly broke my neck trying to get away from it. Since then I have come to accept their presence and I'm ashamed to admit they still frighten me on occasion especially when I find one in the house. They love sunning on this rock in my garden... they'll lounge on it until they almost turn black in color.

Here's an interesting fact: Researchers have found out that the protein in these lizard's blood kills Lyme Disease bacteria. (For more info click on the Link)

This is my crazy Angel Trumpet tree. The flowers are beautiful but it grows like a weed & blooms more times then I can count in a season. This year it has more blooms than ever which I think is a good thing but I'll soon have to get my clippers to keep it under control! By the way the flowers are very fragrant also.

Travel Time

I thought I'd post a couple photos of Mooky in the car on our way to Sonora. He loves to go on road trips, although judging from the first photo you might not have guessed that. He’ll whistle, kiss, sing & sometime if we’re lucky he'll do his dinosaur growl.

This is a new travel cage that made loading & unloading him in the car much easier. I'm sure he would have preferred to have his bigger cage but it can't always be about Mooky. Despite the size of his cage he seemed to enjoy himself and so did we.

Walk The Walk

I am aware this is just Mooky walking but I find it so funny. I guess because of his clumsy body type. Actually I crack up every time I see it. I think it also looks like a screen test for a movie, commercial etc.

I will be out of town until Monday. Bill is having a paint out in Sonora, California.

Please check out his site California Painter for some amazing paintings.

Hope I don't miss much while I'm gone.