Fog

I would have never guessed we would have so much fog here. Ziva and I went out for an early morning walk recently while it was still foggy. Everything looked so different. And it was really quiet. without a breath of wind. It was so still it was almost spooky or like a fantasy world. But it wasn't as foggy when we got back under some of the bigger trees away from the fields. 

Bill Board

One morning last week we noticed a lot of big trucks and equipment out in the soy bean field next to us right up against the freeway. We had no idea what they were doing. That day they raised the big black pipe in the center of the first photo and set it with 3 truck loads of concrete. And left it overnight. I didn't get any photos of that. By the time we realized they were at it again the next day they already had the huge metal cage around the big pipe. 

I didn't get any photos of them when they first pulled it up, but here is a photo of the crane still holding it in place. By now we had decided it had to be a billboard.

The next day there was a sign on it. They must have done it very early in the morning as we didn't see that either. It says rent me with a phone number

We went to the store and could see if from the freeway. Will be interesting how long it is before some one rents it for an advertisement. It has made a different in our view out that way but not as bad as I expected.

Yucca Blossoms and Others

Going to Bed?

                           So you think it is time to go to bed. You worked al day, came home, ate supper, and watched a TV show or two. Your sitting in a chair or laying on the sofa almost dozing off. You feel so tired you are sure you will go right to sleep as soon as your head hits your pillow.
                          Guess again.
                  You get up and head for the bedroom. Ops! Got to make a stop in the bathroom. Got to brush your teeth. Ops! You forgot to take the pills you take each night before going to bed. Back to the kitchen (or bathroom, depending on where you keep the pills).
                    Another big sigh.
                    Guess you should put the dog out for one more chance to do her business or she will wake you in an hour or so to go out. And now that your waiting for the dog to come back in you notice the cats are staring at you while they sit by an empty food bowl. Add some food to the bowl. Oh, well. Add some to the dog's bowl, too.
                    Go to let the dog back in. You can't see her in the light from the back porch light. You call her. You whistle. No dog. Okay. Go get some slippers. (Of course your barefoot) and go out to find her. Finally find her in the back corner. She really doesn't want to come in. (mind you, it's summer time and warm. A quick thought that at least she comes in better in the winter.) So do you leave her out or make her come in the house. With memories of her waiting until you are just drifting off to sleep and she starts barking so you have to get up and go get her in, you insist she go in the house.
              Finally! You get into bed. You close your eyes. And your cell phone rings. You try to ignore it, thinking you should have turned it off and put it on charge. Well- it could be an emergency. So get up. Find the phone where you left it on the sofa. Of course by now it has quite ringing. Not a number you recognize. But they left a voice mail. Why does it take so long to work though the process of retrieving voice mails? You listen to the message. Hard to understand. You listen to it again. Someone who sounds drunk, wants to talk to Ralf. You are not Ralf and don't know anyone named Ralf. Delete voice mail. Set phone to vibrate, and put it on charge.
                  Go back to bed. Now everything is quite. To quite. And you are now wide awake.
                  Going to be another sleepless night.

Toady Frog

I have become very fond of these little frogs. I wasn't sure if they were frogs or toads when we first started finding them under the cushion on our swing out on the front porch. I don't know why we looked under the cushion to start with - maybe it was to get the leaves and spiders out from under it that always seemed to accumulate there. But we found a small frog there a few months ago. So now we always check to see if there is a frog or not. I don't remember ever finding one there last summer. And I am sure I cleaned out the leaves a few times. But we kept finding a frog under the cushion. Now why would a little frog want to hide there? At first I worried that it didn't have enough since to leave and find water and food because we always seemed to find it there. And it looked to be the same frog. And how did it get from the floor of the porch into the swing. The swing is about two feet off the floor and hung by chains from the celling. I know these little tree frogs have long toes with pads that act like succion cups and let them climb almost anything but there was nothing to climb to get to the swing. They had to jump. That is a long jump for a little two inch frog. So when we wanted to sit on our swing we removed the little frog and put it in the bushes that grow around the porch. Next time we would check froggie would be back under the cushion. Hummmm. I started checking more frequently. I descovered the froggie was usually there during daylight hours but gone after dark. I was glad it had enough since to leave and go insect hunting when it got hungrey. I looked up frogs and toads native to Kentucy  and found this is the Copes Tree Frog. They can come in all shades of very light grey to a shade of green like the one that had decided our swing made a good home for it. I had seen some of the actually grey frogs in the summers before since we lived here but they kept to the flowers that I had growing in pots on the porch. In fact the first one I ever saw looked so much like a clump of mud on the porch I almost swept it off until it moved and hopped away. It was one of the grey ones with dark grey splotches on it. I even tried putting out the trail camera to try and get a video of it getting into the swing or even leaving it. But I didn't get any thing of a frog on the camera. Just the chipmunks and squirrels that visited our porch looking for some of the seeds we put out for the birds. Then we didn't see anything of our new pet for about a week. Had something happened to it? We would never know. But yesterday I checked under the cushion before sitting down and found another frog there. I knew this one was different because it was about half the size of the other one. Maybe a hair over an inch long or so. So small I almost missed seeing it. Well now I know that more than one of the little frogs find that a cushion on a swing is a nice place to hide out during the day.

In this photo you can see how small the frog is when I put a pencil next to it. This is the larger of the two frogs that we have seen.

What the swing looks like. Is there a frog under the cushion? You have to raise it up to see. 

How the swing looks with someone sitting in it. This is hubby and our dog.

Walk Along the River

We took a walk in Point Park along the Ohio River

Don't know what this rusty red plant is. Maybe some kind of wild millet.

You can see one of the electric power plants in the distance.

This is looking east.

Found what looks like a patch of Shasta daisies.

This is looking west.

Spring Flowers