Timm

If you’ve been following the saga this summer of Jabba the Toad, you know that he lives on our deck and has adopted us as his host family.   

At night Jabba sleeps under a chair we have on the deck for the dogs.  It’s been getting chilly at night recently — quite cool for August.  [...]

Nearly every year we cut down all the thistle plants growing in our wildflower field.  It takes only about 10 minutes if you keep up with it every year, otherwise it can take hours.  Thistle is very invasive and will blanket a field in just a few years.  Thistle has pretty pink marshmallow-sized flowers that [...]

Some days we like to just sit and watch the birds have their breakfast.
 

A female hummingbird floats like magic while she drinks a little sugar water.  The males have bright red throats.
 
 

Not a bad shot on a second’s notice and with no tripod!  She’s an amazing little bird, so graceful and [...]

Check out this crazy insect.  It appears to be some type of fly, but I couldn’t find it in my insect book.  Please comment if you know what this is.

As you may know, my dad had a blog at Dead-Man-Walking.com before he passed away in April.  He only had a few months of decent health to write in his blog before his COPD made it impossible for him to use the computer. 
So I’ve decided to move his blog to a new memorial website [...]

As I reported earlier, we have a toad friend who has moved onto our porch.  At night he sits in front of the sliding glass door and feasts upon the endless supply of bugs trying to get to the light inside. 
This little toad certainly has it made.  He has the porch all to himself.  [...]

We have a new toad friend who lives on our porch, swims in our dogs’ water bowl, and sits in front of the patio door all night long eating bugs dancing in the light.  He has such an easy life that he has grown quite fat, which is why we call him “Jabba the Toad.”
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It’s one of the prettiest times of the year now with the yellow daisies and purple Ironweed blooming together.

Here is a view of the wildflower field from our porch.

I was stung by a wasp yesterday on the knuckle of my middle finger.  I’m allergic to stings in a “make your hand fat” kind of way, but fortunately not in a “plunge into anaphylactic shock and die” kind of way.  This is how my hand looked 24 hours later after plenty of ibuprofen and [...]