The neighbor's peacock came to visit

The neighbor down the road has Peacocks. When we first bought our property I did not know what that 'thing' was that kept on screaming. About 6 months later (2 years before we built the house) we did finally find out it was a Peacock. Now the sound does not bother me at all. Saturday morning we woke to find one on our deck. Jen, you think songbirds are messing on your deck, you should have one of these there. It looked like they had been out there for a month. Jimmy had to wash the deck.

Later that day while mowing Jimmy stopped and told me to grab the camera.

That is a sure sign of something interesting.

The Peacocks were back....all four of them.
I learned they are real camera shy.

Never did capture all four at one time.

But I did succeed in chasing them back to their own field.

Hopefully for good.

Don't want them on my deck anymore.

Little Brown Jug Wildflower

When my mother gave me this she told me the name was Wild Ginger.Thought that was the name until I went to the Wildflower Pilgrimage in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, April 2008. Wild Ginger is a totally different plant, but the Little Brown Jug is sometimes called Wild Ginger (like my mother did), according to the Great Smoky Mountains Wildflowers book. You can see why it is called Little Brown Jug. This first photo of the brown jugs was taken April 4, 2009.

The funniest part of this is that I never even knew those 'jugs' were underneath the leaves until I started learning about wildflowers. This plant had been in my yard at least 5 years, moved twice. This photo was taken April 18, 2009.

A closer look at the brown jugs, taken April 26, 2009.

The jugs are under these pretty green leaves.

Happy Mother's Day

We found this old plaque in one of the out sheds at Rockwood.

It is one of those old ones that looks like wood, but is not wood.

I took the photo while it was still hanging in the shed.

Happy Mother's Day to all!!!

Hope everybody is having a good day.

Noah Daniel Young - born May 7, 2009

Noah Daniel Young, born May 7 at 7:53pm.

Noah weighed 10 lbs 4 ozs, and is 22 1/4 inches long.

These photos were taken 2 hours later.

And Granny (me) holding Noah the following day.

Even though Noah is definitely full term he still wants to sleep right now.

Wendy got her wish that Noah would be born before Mother's Day.

New Grandson....Noah Daniel Young

I can't post a photo at this time, because I have not been home since Noah Daniel Young was born last night. Noah came into this world weighing 10 lbs, 4 ozs, and 22 1/4 inches long. He is healthy and he and Wendy are doing fine. I will post a photograph as soon as I can get back to my computer.

Small Iris found in GSMNP and in East Tennessee

Several times during April I visited the Great Smoky Mountain National Park to photograph the wildflowers. Although my timing was very close to the wildflower peak in the park there were still lots of evidence of blooms to come in a week or two. I would have liked to returned again, but just did not have time. These first 2 photos are from the park.

The bottom four photographs were from my own yard, 7 days later.

I am no expert and tried to compare the two, and not sure if they are the same or not.

The "Great Smoky Mountains Wildflowers" . The title was Crested Dwarf Iris (Iris cristata), it said....Widely distributed at lower elevations of the Smokies, this beautiful iris does much to brighten the roadsides during April and May. The flower is usually a rich blue, but occasionally a light purple or even white. It is 4 to 6 inches tall and is found mostly on open slopes. Spring dwarf iris (I.verna var. smalliana) and southern blue flag (I. virginica) are the only other native species of this genius within the Park and neither are common here. They can separated on the basis that southern blue flag is the only one with a flowering stem more than 6 inches tall and crested dwarf iris has crested sepals whereas spring dwarf iris does not. Iris is the Tennessee State Flower. Look for the crested dward iris in Little River Gorge, Bud Ogle Nature Trail, and Porter Creek Trail.


Reading that and looking at my photos compared to the 2 top ones, taken in the park, I don't have a clue if mine are the same. Nor do I now know which of the iris in the park I photographed, I assume the Crested Dwarf Iris, since it is the more common. I do know I saw evidence in all 3 of the locations they mentioned and only saw actual blooms on the last day I was at the park.

Ladybird Beetles

We always called these Ladybugs, but have found out the correct name is Ladybird Beetles. There are 350 species in the United States.

I went outside during a break in the rain yesterday (no photos today, it is pouring the rain) and was trying to get photos of my iris blooms. Not sure how they are blooming in all the rain, but they are gorgeous this year. Looked down and saw the Ladybug on the ground, so I picked it up and placed it on the iris.

The wind was blowing (bringing in more rain) and the first photo is not quite as sharp as I would have liked. Snapped the 2 photo, and then the Ladybug was blown to the ground. Didn't even see where it went, photo session over.

My 15 month old grandson is here today, while his mother goes to Bible study, and he is suppose to be taking a nap right now. Know how hard it is for a Granny to let him sleep while he is here? Specially when he doesn't want to. I decided to get this post ready so I could TRY to ignore him for a few minutes. It hasn't worked very well, and I am going to get him to play for a while. When Mason is here I don't even care that it is raining, yet again!

We have babies

Not the grandson....he seems to be perfectly happy where he is,

and does not want to come out and see us yet.

March 30, 2009 I opened the bluebird house, and this is what I found.

The second photo is worth clicking to enlarge just to see the feathers.

Today when I went outside to see if I could capture an open bloom for the "What is it?" post, this is what I saw as I stepped off the back deck. (Please scan down to the next post for "What is it?")

As I approached Daddy Bluebird flew, but the baby stayed there, but not for long. Even after this one flew Daddy was diving at me, so there might have been another one in the grass. I wanted to keep my head so I decided it was best to move to the front yard and leave the bluebirds to their flying lessons.

They went from the first 2 photos to flying in 5 short days.

What is it? ---- Part 3

Guess by now, even though this 'thing' refuses to open up, that everybody knows it is a Red Hot Poker. Teresa made a comment on the first post that it couldn't be a Red Hot Poker because Jimmy does not like them. She was correct that Jimmy does not like them, and I am fastly coming to the same conclusion. Not a pretty bloom up close. Will probably be moving them to a different location. Think they look better from a distance, and we planted them in the front flower bed just beyond the front door.

Sun is still refusing to shine, went out to capture this photo and decided to walk down to the bed of iris blooms, the rain started and I had to run for the house so I wouldn't ruin my camera. I did get back outside later and will share some of those photos soon.

Old Fashioned Snowball Bush

There was a little break in the rain on Sunday afternoon,

and I went out and took advantage of it.

No sunshine, but at least I could get the camera out without damage to it.

The insects are loving all the moisture from the rain we have been having.

This Old Fashioned Snowball Bush has been transplanted to 3 different houses since I met Jimmy. When we married and he sold his house we got a start of the bush by a cutting, since he could not dig it from the yard. Then we have built 2 houses since then. This is one of those items that was moved to the new property before we sold the old house, and before we even started building the new house. When we moved it this time, we divided it into 4 bushes. Three of them survived, not sure why the 4th did not. They are all 3 about waist high, but the Old Fashioned Snowball will get much taller, in time.

The top 3 photos are from the bush at the back of our property.

The bottom photo is from the front of our property,

think the snowballs are smaller on it.

What is it? ---- Part 2

The sun refuses to shine....the bud just will not open.

The rain did stop long enough for me take the camera outside,

but the bud still is not open.

As you can see the insects like all the moisture on the flower buds too.

Think everybody will know what it is now.

I do promise to post a fully open bud when/if it ever happens.

This is like waiting for the grandson to be born,

the wait is a little longer than anticipated.

Pair of House Finch at Rockwood

This past Sunday after we delivered the baby cradle to Wendy and Lukas we went onto Rockwood so Jimmy wouldn't have to get up at 4AM on Monday.

I decided it was time to sit in my photographer's blind,

since I had not used it in a month.

The Mrs. noticed me as soon as they landed,

and Mr House Finch just turned his back on me.

She went down to the cage perch next to the feeder.

Now that the owner of the house (me) doesn't seem to want to fill the cage

they use it to hop over to the feeder.

And she did as all the others, right after I got this photo.

With her eye glint I was quite pleased with it, even if she is sitting on a cage.

Update: I originally posted these as Purple Finch,

but they are House Finch.

Old fence at Panther's Creek State Park

I know you all came to visit today because you are just DYING to find out "What is it?", but it is raining outside and the thing won't open on up for a finished product photo shoot. And on top of that I am going to Rockwood tonight, so I won't be here tomorrow morning. And on top of that we are still on baby watch, and getting closer and closer to the actual due date. So who knows when I will be home again.

Just some info about the baby watch, since I have been acting like anyday now forever. Wendy started having contractions that appeared like the real thing about a month ago. Once they even got to 1 full minute in duration, consistently every 3 minutes. The hospital said, "Nope, not the real thing", you are going home. I was like "WHAT?" But that was 10 days ago now, so I guess they knew what they were talking about. I can relate. Two weeks before she was born I had false labor too. She had a new unltrasound about a month ago and they said if they were in the business of changing due dates they would change it to April 24. That 'if' saved their face, didn't it? Her original due date was set at May 6, so we are 5 days from it. Wendy has figured out how to make the contractions stop, so guess when it is the real thing and they won't stop she will go to the hospital again. By the way, Wendy was born 1 day after her due date. So we are still on baby watch.

Hope you like the fence post even though it does not answer the question "WHAT IS IT??"