Please note:
The contents of this entry contain an email my neighbor sent me. I have no idea where it or the pictures came from or who they might belong to. I will take it down if I offend someone by showing it here.
It's just that after reading LadyApple's entry, I got to thinking the rest of you might like to see this email:

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ELECTRIC FENCE


Seems a sheep farmer in Alton Illinois was puzzled about the disappearance of some sheep on his farm. After a few weeks the farmer decided to put up an electric fence.
About a week later, this is what he found!




Now, I know we've all heard of people being eaten by
snakes & I bet most of us have said, 'If a snake tried to
eat me, I'd blah, blah, blah & get away.'

Well, this is a Python & they're extremely aggressive &
have a few teeth that they use to hold their prey while
they wrap around them & then constrict.

Could you get away if this one bit you & held on with it's
'few teeth?'

(Note: The wires are 10 inches apart.)




Please Note:
Alton, Illinois, is on the Mississippi River just above St. Louis, Missouri. This is not a tropical area of the USA, so somebody had to have turned this snake loose THIS SPRING.
Any snake big enough to catch a sheep could also catch a child out playing in the woods or fields.

Dagnab it. I can't get the pictures to upload.
Sorry.

After Hubby got through taking my lovely Sphinx Moth's picture, I took her back outside to turn her loose on the porch. Just before I did so, I noticed a second Sphinx Moth was also resting on the porch screen!
I eased over quietly and tickled him on the butt with my finger and then slid my fingers gently under him. So, I went back inside to get Hubby to take another couple of pictures.

I went out yesterday morning at dawn to water the plants on my back porch, when I spotted her resting on the screen wire. She was a very lovely and large member of Sphinx Moth family and I call her female because she lacked the fancy antennae most male moths have for finding lovely lady moths. I got Hubby up to take a couple pictures of her sitting on my hand. (I do hope my first attempt at uploading a picture works!)

Hubby found a website where the music for the new HP movie can be found. I cannot believe how beautiful it is! The music director should get an Oscar for it--if they don't, I will never again place in faith in the Oscars as being anything but Hollywood hogwash.

Sunday night was bathroom scrubbing night, Monday night was laundry night, and I also took a fan apart and cleaned it each night.
Tuesday night I had a little free time, so I went out and did some lawn mowing.
I mowed all around the curved flowerbed and I also got the entire low area just in front of that bed mowed too. I came in just after full dark and not two hours later, the bottom of a cloud ripped out and we got attacked by the bucket brigade!

I think I'll take another fan apart for cleaning and then go to bed.

Hubby and I were busy watching the new Agatha Christy show "Pocket Full of Rye" tonight. (PBS is showing 6 by Agatha, one each Sunday night for six weeks.) We were enjoying the show when Hubby spots the butler and his extremely bushy eyebrows.
Suddenly Hubby is all but drooling in pure lust for a pair of extra bushy eyebrows just like the butler's. Hubby is convinced that he needs a pair of extra bushy eyebrows to complete his college professor image!
I tried to tactfully persuade him not to do it--I certainly don't want to be married to a man who looks like he stapled a couple of baby hedgehogs to his eyebrows--when he up and decides he wants to complete his new look with a "nosetache"!
Hubby's actually talking about getting himself a couple of eyebrow toupees to wear until his own grow suitably long and lush.
Talk about being up a stump without a chainsaw....what in the world do I do now?

I went outside just after dawn yesterday to water my nursery plants on the front porch. The little tree frog I found clinging to the big window the other night has a buddy now. Neither of them are bigger than my thumbnail. I wonder if they are local frogs or if they arrived here with my nursery plants? I guess I'll never know for sure.
As I was finishing up with the watering, a slow soft rain started coming down. Since we are still in the midst of a cool wave, we had all the windows open and I was able to hear the individual plip-plop of rain drops all day long.
After dark we finally got a hard shower. It was almost midnight before it let up long enough for anybody around here to shoot any fireworks off.

Thanks to this week's cool-down, I was able to go out and really bust a cap on some nasty weeds!
Although the curved flowerbed (which shall be called CFB from here on) is still looking rather bare, what plants are there are LOOKING GOOD.

Three Augusts ago, I went on a daylily profusion gathering expedition and then rooted all the little profusions in water. I then put them out in the CFB. Well, they all lived and every one of them put up a bloom stalk this year. The first two opened yesterday and they were a pale cream--my favorite color in daylilies! Since I gathered all of this bunch in the same place, I figure they will all turn out to be this color. Talk about some good luck--and they were free!

I also like how my hybrid Speedwells have turned out. The two I put out last year are a blue called Royal Candles and a pink called Rosea. Royal Candles is an electric blue which looks really good next to the pink spirea planted behind it. The pink one needs some encouragement but it still bloomed this year.

The three pink coneflowers I planted last year have also bloomed. I rated my day darn nigh-on perfect when I spotted a hummer working them over. I am a little perplexed though; the two coneflowers I bought this year have different leaves than the ones I planted last year. My best guest is that they are a different species from last year's.
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The plants I bought to put out in the CFB are doing well on the front porch for now. Several different colors of yarrows, 2 Snowcap shasta daisies, some herbs, and all the bushes.

Gotta go to MuleWart's this evening and pick up a prescription, diet Dr. Thunder (told Hubby he thundered enough without it!), apples, and a big load of cardboard boxes. I have a lot of mulching to do tomorrow AND Mr. Jolly called today to find out if I could stay with his elderly cousin. (I don't see why not--she's quite nice.)

Here it is midafternoon and the temp is only 83 degrees F. We turned the AC off for the day and we opened all of our windows to let the house air out.
The weather channel says that tomorrow will be even cooler--mid 70's!
Yay!
(Even if it is going to be spent mostly in the endodonist's office.)
Nothing's ever completely perfect is it?

I was determined to go outside and do some yardwork Friday evening in spite of the heat and humidity. I thought I'd go and clip the grass around the line of peonies I planted last year, but wound up having to pull the weeds instead thanks to the hand-held clippers I bought at Lowe's the other day. They are so close to worthless it's pitiful. They jam if you try to cut more than three blades of grass at a time with them. I finally gave it up and went and pulled a lot of tall weeds in the curved flowerbed Friday evening. I'm quite surprized those roots didn't come out of the ground fussing at me in Chinese considering how deep they went. Or maybe French. Those roots were definitely thinking about taking over just like Napolean.

I consider the cool front that's come to Indiana a gift from Heaven. Now if I can just get Maude the Tiller to crank up and run, I'll be all set to get the ground broke up and put my spirea's and perennials out in it. I plan on using that huge pile of wood chips Hubby's buddy gave me to mulch everything. I've found that if you lay flattened cardboard down and then lay the wood chips on top of that, you won't have a weed problem till sometime NEXT YEAR IF THEN. The flattened cardboard is free and does eventually rot into the soil while the landscaper's cloth is only good for a season before you need to take it up.
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I did see a really neat trick done with landscaper's cloth this spring. A pro gardener measured out the landscaper's cloth and precut the planting holes into it before he laid it down on top of the freshly prepared flowerbed. Saved a lot of workingtime and trouble.
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I went by the Rural King store Saturday and went wild in their June clearance sale.
I bought several spirea bushes for about $3 each. They were mostly 'little Princess' but I did find one 'Anthony Waterer'. I need some more of them for the backside of the far end of the curved flowerbed, so will check the hardware store tomorrow.
I also bought another forsythia bush to keep the Beast company and three little burning bushes to set out in-amongst them. I plan on alternating them so I'll have color up in that end of the yard spring and fall alike. Both are bushes that look best from a distance and neither one requires much care.

Rural King also has some little Shasta viburnums for about the same price as the spirea. I'm tempted to get a few to keep my two big Shasta bushes company. They bloomed beautifully this spring and now they have berries which should ripen sometime this fall. I like the Shasta's but I do prefer the Summer Snowflakes since they bloom all summer long. I think I need to prowl that place again to see what I missed last week. It's hard to shop carefully when the sweat is busy rolling into your eyes with every step you take.

Last night actually. It's so hot right now that Hubby and I are both staying up all night. We're computer nerds and book readers, the pair of us, so time of day doesn't mean much to us during summer. I do my gardening either first thing in the morning or just before dark in order to beat the heat.

I got my order of daylilies from the Gilbert H. Wild Nursery today. Everything was in good condition in spite of the heat. The daylilies they sent me were good-sized and a couple of them were HUGE! These are the ones I ordered (one each):
Mary's Gold
Nanuq
Omomuki
Sunday Gloves
And my bonus plants were Joan Senior!

I badly need to go outside and plant them this evening but the heat continues....92 degrees today and the heat index hit 96. Guess I better get going.

Just heard the news on the BBC World News--Michael Jackson died today of a heart attack. Damned shame that. I guess the news will have nothing on it for the next week but stories about the funeral and then stories for the next month about who gets custody of his children. I pity the poor kids most of all.

I figured that as long as I was buying gas, I might as well stop by the hardware store and buy some bargain plants. I got several yarrows, purple basil, peppermint, and a couple others whose names I don't remember right now, for fifty cents apiece. I need to go back tomorrow and buy the hollyhocks they had left too. I like them.

I then stopped at the Rural King store and bought more deer repellent and I got three discounted perennials: two huge pink coneflowers and a white flowering thingie (no label) whose white flowers look a bit thistle-like. Perhaps it's an aster? All three were half price and should thrive. I also looked at the spirea's but decided to try waiting till their next reduction in price. Spirea's are such a good small shrub for a perennial garden. I don't know why more people don't buy them. The spirea's I bought and put out in the circular flowerbed are blooming beautifully this year! I hope to get enough spirea plants to finish out the other side of the curved flowerbed. (I plan on planting them along the back of the bed.)

There are other deeply discounted shrubs hanging around at Rural King that I'd like to find a use for out in the yard somewhere. For one thing, there are several small burning bushes that I wouldn't mind buying if I could get them for about 2-3 dollars each. I could put them either side of the forsythia beast up at the far front of the yard. Both bushes look their best at a distance and they do it at different times of the year. Who knows? I might scare up another forsythia beast or two around town somewhere to keep them company.

I guess I better tell you how my previous bargain shrubs are doing.

The LimeLight, PinkieWinkie, and QuickFire hydrangea's that I planted in front of the privacy fence are all putting on flowers right now. I think they are going to look pretty good during late summer this year. (I bought all of them for less than three dollars each a couple years ago now.) The redtwig dogwood across from the hydrangea's bloomed this spring and its red twigs looked good all winter long (Two dollars at the clearance table.) It's also rooted a branch that I want to transplant sometime soon.

The blueberry bush I thought had died has sent up a new sprout--I sure didn't think it was still alive. The other blueberry bush is full of blueberries and new growth and the black currant bush around the corner from it is full of ripe berries right now! (I got the black currant as a rooted cutting for $5.) I have three cheap blueberry cuttings I bought early this spring that I want to put out beside the other two.

The one crepe myrtle that I had left last year has returned this year as well. I didn't think it would make it through another winter here, but here it is coming up again. Oh well, shows you how much I know.

I started Monday out bright and early with a bath like I usually do. I knew I was going to be heading into town to see my endodonist about my cracked molar, so I rounded up a big bunch of errands to run at the same time. I wasn't planning on killing two birds with the same rock so much as I was planning on taking out the ENTIRE FLOCK, so there I was, making notes and performing a last minute wander-round to make sure I hadn't missed anything when here comes Hubby.
That man, my darling Hubby, who I love dearly, has the ears of an eagle on him and state of the art radar for figuring out the best (worst!) possible moment for getting underfoot. I tried to get into the kitchen to make a mug of cold iced tea to take with me and he insists on beginning a sandwich rather than let me finish and clear out! I needed to unload and then reload the dishwasher and he managed to s*p*r*e*a*d his sandwich production to cover that area too! And then here come the questions! Why, why, WHY!!! He can drive me to distraction with his incessant questions and yet he doesn't do it to be mean. Sometimes I simply can't put my reasons into words fast enough or well enough for him to understand it. I finally just gave up and left the house to him this morning. (AND HE WONDERS WHY I NEVER GO TO BED AT NIGHT WITHOUT EITHER THE WASHER, THE DISHWASHER, OR THE DRYER GOING FULL TILT OR EVEN ALL THREE AT ONCE!)

I finally escaped the house with my drycleaning to be dropped off, with my library books to be returned, with my mail to be mailed off, and etc. bound for the endodonist. Well, I get there, and her office is in chaos. Her office computer system is not only down, it looked like it was down for the count and the computer wizard had been summoned to come and exorcise whatever dental daemons infest the computers of doctors of the oral persuasion. She nicely took a few minutes to investigate my tooth, decided it COULD make it a few more days, and then she sent me packing. I was glad to find out today's visit was free considering how little actually got done. Problem is, any doctor is bound hand and foot to their computer. It's where all of their records are kept and their billing statements are generated and without THAT they are lost. So...I left gracefully with an appointment for next week.

I ran my errands and bought gas for the Panzer too. By then it was melt-your-underwear hot, so I went home for an afternoon nap. I do like an early afternoon siesta during the heat of summer.

After 6pm I decided I better go try and mow the grass in spite of us having had a major pre-dawn downpour. I did manage to get some of the higher parts of the south forty mowed but then ran out of gas nearly at the front! I had to walk nearly the length of our two acre spread to get to Panzer which I'd parked at the garage and then, after I'd gotten more gas, I had to walk back to Molasses. It's at times like this that I can really tell what a difference the thyroid med is making--I couldn't have walked that far without stopping back in January and my back would have been killing me! I feel so much better these days that it makes me wonder why thyroid meds aren't as abused as painkillers are! I also have a lot more heat tolerance than I've had since I was a teenager. It was 86 degrees F plus high humidity, and although I was hot, I could still manage to mow. I couldn't have done that last summer.

When I finally got back to the house, I followed long-standing southern tradition and undressed at the washing machine! After that, I got my second bath of the day. It was as heavenly as it was necessary!

I think I'm going to kick back and read some of CJ Cherryh's book "Regenesis" that I borrowed from the library today. I'm due some R&R this evening I think.

If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

My LJ is now my neighborhood!

Hubby and I joined some friends to eat spaghetti and play the Harry Potter version of Clue. It's a better and more challenging version of Clue. Each room has entrances that come and go and secret passages to other rooms and not just the four corner rooms like the original Clue.
Hubbie and I also watched a couple of good movies: "Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "Wanted". We both enjoyed seeing these movies. They were fun and free for the borrowing at our library.
One thing I will say is that Angelina Jolie was looking a bit gaunt in Wanted. Five pounds was about all that stood between her and that heroin-chic look made so popular by Whitney Houston. Those puffy lips of hers didn't help matters particularly since I read that comment in Eqfe's journal entry about puffy lips being padded out by fat from the "nether region"! My curiosity is going to torment me until I go back and rewatch a certain scene--so I can figure out exactly which "nether region" donated for those lips!
(Poor Brad....kissing THAT?)

I enjoy reading. It doesn't really matter what as long as it's interesting fiction or non-fiction.
[Just finished reading Steven Brust's 'Jhegaala' and am eyeing Hubby's historical non-fiction 'Going Dutch'.]
I enjoy learning new things--I'd still be taking college classes if I could afford it.
I also enjoy making things. (Messes are a specialty!)
Hubby almost fainted when I started watching 'American Chopper'--I enjoyed seeing the metal-working processes they featured on the show. That water jet machine rocks!

I just found a website that I like very much.
It is

There's a TV show called "Rate My Space". They just had an episode called 'Lackluster Kitchen'. In this episode, they designed and built a very high fashion kitchen for a man. The predominant color was a metallic gray. It looked fairly nice and quite usable but they made a hideous mistake! They used white carrera marble for the countertop instead of a white granite or another hard stone. You never want to use a soft stone like marble for a countertop. It stains easily, it chips easily, and it loses its shine with almost the first scouring. I shudder to think will happen the first time someone spills red wine or beet juice or even catsup on it! I guess that if the guy was rich enough to afford marble countertops once, he aught to be rich enough to afford them twice.

Every catalpa tree in this area is in full bloom. The white flowers occur in bunches that are usually held right above a bunch of fuzzy gray green skinny heart-shaped leaves. The catalpa tree can get rather large down south--approaching the size of an oak--and down there, it's better known for producing catalpa fishing worms than flowers. We had neighbors who kept a small orchard of pollarded catalpas simply for the fishing worms that grew on them every year. Big mouth bass were supposed to love them.
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Hubby and I bought another recliner today. This one is headed for the bedroom where it will be used for reading. Neutrals be d**ned; I hunted through the fabric rack till I found a solid burgundy red material. Unfortunately for me, it's a special order which will take 5-7 weeks to deliver. Makes me wonder if they're having to raise the cotton before they weave the material...!
while we were out and on the prowl, I noticed a spot where they are removing trees and brush to make way for a new highway exit ramp. They have one of those big shredders at work there and they have made a HUGE pile of wood shreds. I'm going over there tomorrow and ask them if I may have some. Who knows? I may get lucky and get a few loads for free.
Hubby will be "overjoyed" to have a few more piles of mulch in the backyard, I'm sure, but that's his problem. The stuff's expensive and if I can get it for free, I will, and I'll keep it till I can use it.

We also picked up my new glasses today and my eyes are already used to the new lenses. Now if the glasses could be fixed so that they stay up on my nose everything will be fine.