The Kayak Has a New Home

So much for the high wire. First thing yesterday morning I looked out the windows to see what, if anything, was happening on the townhouse feeder. What to my wondering eyes should I see but a damn squirrel perched atop munching away. Grrrrr......is the sound I made while opening the door. The darn thing jumped, landing in my pot of thryallis, breaking branches along the way.

As if we needed more proof of what a nuisance they are, Bruce took his kayak off the stand to check for more damage and boy did he find it! Check this out.

Lord knows what they find appealing about hard plastic. A few weeks ago he bought a sonic device that alleged to ward off rodents. Thinking like others do that squirrels are little more than rats with fluffy tails he thought perhaps it might work. The evidence above shows it did not. Neither did the moth balls which he'd sprinkled liberally and for good measure left the nearly full box inside. Clearly, something had to be done.

If you don't know it by now, I'll reiterate that it is great to be married to an inventor. A problem occurs, Bruce looks for a solution. Because the garage is mostly overtaken with my business stuff it hardly seemed possible to use it to house the kayak but by golly, he's made it work with an ingenious holder he created the other evening while I was dying to eat dinner. Well, I could have eaten, but I'm only too happy to wait when I have the chance to not eat alone.

I took this before he unloaded my car, but after doing so, everything fit neatly underneath atop his saw table. Let's see the squirrels get to it now! There's only one small nuisance related to this move--the garage smells like mothballs big time which hopefully will diminish sooner rather than later!

Our neighborhood shopping plaza is getting a big makeover which I may have already mentioned. Yesterday morning I decided my bike ride would be to go up to the center and check on the progress which I discovered is coming along nicely. While still in the residential neighborhood section of my ride I saw this incredible mushroom?

Seriously, this thing was about the size of a large dinner plate beneath a tree. My goodness it looks otherworldly doesn't it?

Late Monday afternoon Baxter is sniffing out the rodent in the back yard. You probably already know that Yorkshire Terriers were bred to be ratters, although to date, our little Yorkie has yet to earn his keep.

Aren't those pots of flowers lovely? Your frugal blogger bought them in the reduced section of Lowes about a month ago for $6 each. Original price--$20! Only recently did I give them a good pruning, which we've discussed before, is good for the health of the plant and from the looks of these I think you'll agree. You see that red birdbath with the fake bird on the edge? I've had that now for nearly two years and only last night did I see a bird having a long bath, splashing like mad. Sadly, it was a crow. I'm not the biggest fan of crows because they scare the little birds away. Not that we haven't had a ton of birds lately, including a new one:

For those of you without a handy Audubon guide, and I suppose those who have no real interest in bird identification,  it is a downy woodpecker. The finch you already know. Mr. Downy Woodpecker seems pretty tame as he was comfortable pecking away on the trunk of our new oak tree while I gardened nearby. I am thrilled to report that last years dahlias have made an encore visit.

While planting the supertenias around the oak tree, which didn't turn out so super after all, I discovered some bulb like things in the soil. Never one to let something go to waste, I decided to plant them and see what happened. Ta da!

Speaking of not wasting, there were several pots of snapdragons that by the time I was ready to plant them looked pretty rough indeed. What the heck, let's see what will happen. And happen it did--a lovely shade of orange contrasts with white petunias which are still blooming like mad.

As are my geraniums, which typically by this time of the year, have pretty much petered out due to heat stress. Truthfully, it has not been that hot so far, however, having lived in Florida my whole life, I know it is coming!

Mr. Bruce has gone to Lakeland today for the inspection of the Olive Garden he's been in charge of these last four or five months. The superintendent, that makes it all happen, is one he's worked with on many occasions so I'm predicting everything will go swimmingly, or at least as close as is humanly possible given that it's a construction project!

Generally for breakfast I eat a toasted English muffin. slathered with peanut butter. along with some fresh fruit if we have anything good around the house. I'm off to do so now, and in fact, we do have something good around the house--the Georgia freestone peaches are in season much to everyone's delight. Especially without the peel which has easily come off.

Finally, at least we're not plagued by swarms of bees  like they have been in New York City! There's always a silver lining isn't there?