Garfield, Star Wars, and Hank the Cowdog

This past Friday at a Goodwill (thrift store) I found 12 Garfield comic books (4 of them have 3 books in one), 3 Star Wars books, and a Hank the Cowdog book. They were all $.39 each plus tax so the grand total was $6.65 - the original price for all (minus tax) would have been $118.36! Most of the books are in perfect brand new shape. It's amazing at the things you can find at a thrift store!

My goofy dog, part 2

My dog is smiling for the camera in the picture above.


Rolling his eyes and yawning because he's bored with the whole process!

A final happy pose.

The snakes in the garden

This past Saturday we discovered snakes in our garden! Two black racers have taken up residence in the parsley. I think they were probably in there when I took this photo! Actually we first saw one of them a couple of weeks ago. We were out looking at the garden. We have chicken wire up as fencing and the black racer had entangled itself in the wiring. We were about three inches away when we finally saw it! We rushed away but my dog was over near the snake. We were calling and yelling for him to come away, but he just gave us a silly look and trotted happily along taking his time right beside the snake. After we finally got our dog away we rushed back inside. Sometimes black racers will chase you and we have read that they have a nasty bite. Even though they are not venomous a bite from one doesn't sound like a pleasant thing. My dad wants all the parsley out of the garden now. It's a huge patch and looks so beautiful, but the snakes have made it look pretty ragged from going in and out.

The weird eyed bug

This is an eyed click beetle we found last week in our yard on a tree we'd had to cut down. We sat and watched it for a while. The eyes you see are actually false eyes. They are used to scare off predators. It seemed pretty shy about being watched because it kept trying to find places to hide and finally disappeared into a crack in the tree trunk.

My goofy dog

Here's my goofy dog! He likes to run around the yard at top speed. If he was a superhero, he would probably be named Lightning Dog. He loves to chew on sticks and tree bark. Today he even chewed on some concrete blocks! He's kind of crazy, but he is a very good dog. We rescued him almost seven years ago from the Australian Shepherd Rescue. We're his fifth and forever family. We don't know his exact date of birth, only that it is June 2001 so he will be eight years old next month. We chose a date at the end of June for celebrating his birthday.

Carrots

This is me pulling one of the carrots from our garden. Sadly they are at the end of their season because it's too hot for them now. I love homegrown carrots. They taste so much better than store bought ones. We can sow seeds again this fall. I'm looking forward to that!

My cat

I am enjoying taking photos outside. This is one of my cat while eating. He's pretty cute isn't he? If he gets too many kibbles at once, he shakes his head and slings the extras out. They don't usually land back in the bowl. Instead they fall onto the ground. He's a very good cat and we've had him for five years. We adopted him and think he is a little over six years old. Right off the bat he didn't like me. I don't really think his previous owner gave him a lot of love and attention so I don't really think he liked people. Now he gets lots of love and attention and he loves us! He's not very cooperative when I want to take his picture though. I'll have him in the perfect pose and he either walks off or comes over wanting to be petted. He's spoiled rotten with getting petted.

Growing watermelons

We have allsweet watermelons growing in our garden. Last year we grew moon and stars watermelons but this year my mom decided to give allsweet a try. Watermelon is one of my favorite things to have on a hot summer day. I helped my mom make a trellis for the vines. We did this because the garden is small and there isn't much room for the vines. This is one of the few things that hasn't died this spring because of the drought.

Another series

I'm still reading Eragon, but I am reading another series too. It's called Warriors and is about cats that live in the forest. There are four clans of them. Some are good and some are bad. It follows the story of a pet cat named Rusty. He decides to go look around in the forest because of strange dreams he was having and he meets a cat named Graypaw. He then meets the leader of the Thunderclan and is asked if he'd like to join. He returns home, thinks about the offer, and decides to say yes. I'm not going to say anything else so I don't spoil the series for anyone who hasn't read it yet. Right now I'm reading book #2.

Endangered Species Day!!!

Today is Endangered Species Day! I'm joining with the National Wildlife Federation to bring awareness to endangered species. My pick is the Florida Panther! There are 100 or fewer left in the wild. Pretty sad, isn't it? It seems they are going to go extinct and we will lose this beautiful cat forever. I don't know about you, but that makes me mad!!!

Because there are so few in the wild they sometimes inbreed. This has caused genetic problems and many health problems for the species. Another problem Florida Panthers face is habitat destruction. The state of Florida has a growing population so they have less and less area in which to live. This is causing them to move more and more into human populated areas and then these fantastic cats are often hit by cars.

I want everyone to join me in spreading the word about endangered species. A list for each state can be found by clicking here.