snuggle up thursday

The kitties are snuggling again. This morning's snuggle found The King on the left with his best bud, Biggum. These two like to get together on the people couch and hold each other tight since they are both heat mongers.

This afternoon's snuggle found Biggum and silly girl, Angel-la together on the kitty couch. Biggum will take any opportunity to snuggle with any cat that will let him. He's a tramp. Angel-la is not much of a snuggler so it was kind of surprising to find her feet snuggling Biggum's belly.

Weetie is NOT a snuggler at all, except for snuggling herself on my red slippers.

treasures by the roadside

My husband calls me a freak of nature...its so true. I'm not as 'bad' as I used to be. Everywhere we went I would have a pair of binoculars around my neck just in case an awesome bird would come into view. Or the time I got lost in the woods exploring...just a few more feet and I'll turn around, I said to myself. A few feet turned into miles. I did eventually find my way back~in the meantime I found so many lovely things since the woods here are so full of diversity. Getting lost was so well worth it.

For today's exploration I didn't stray far off the beaten path. All of these beauties were found alongside the road within walking distance of my house. Zoom, zoom, zoom, everyone drives by way over the speed limit not noticing the beauty that there is to behold.

Soon, the county will come through with their power mowers knocking all of these down to ground level. To them these are all weeds. To me they are treasures.

Blue Monday revisisted

New for Monday in my Etsy shop is this geometric panel design in 2 shades of aqua blue. I love this design and I never get tired of creating it. It came to me one night a few years ago while I was doing some drawing and I knew right away that it was something special. Within a few days I created the very first one, shown below in various shades of purple. The purple piece was purchased off ebay by a couple from France that actually built their front door around it. In 2006, I was contacted by a designer from Leesburg, Virginia that saw this piece on ebay and absolutely loved it. She was involved with the restoration of the Rust Manor Home, a historic mansion in Leesburg and was looking for a stained glass piece for the room that she was in charge of decorating. She sent me the color scheme of the room's planned decor along with the dimensions I was to build the panel to and I got busy choosing matching colors for her project. By July of 2006, the piece was complete and shipped. I recently contacted the Rust Manor Home to inquire if my piece was still installed and it is. It was really such an honor to have my design included in such an important project since I had only been working in stained glass for about a year and a half at that time and this was one of the first designs that I came up with on my own.

















First ever design in purples

Rust Manor Home door

a little backyard exploration

I spent a little bit of time this morning exploring the living world in my backyard.

Virginia Creeper reaching for the sky via a cedar tree

Big White Oak-such a majestic tree. I'm so happy to have this in my backyard

Salomon Seal, or maybe its False Salomon's Seal, I've misplaced my field guide

Blackcap berries-yum, I probably won't get to these before another creature does.

White Mulberry, the leaves are like little mittens

Virginia Creeper makes a lush carpet on the forest floor

Mr. Earthworm churning fallen leaves into nourishing soil

Sassafras, one of my favorites, so happy to find this

Hickory and Oak will be competing for nourishment and sunlight

A snail doing what snails do

Tennessee River Flood 2009

Today, the sun finally come out and we've gotten a break from the daily rains we've been receiving for the past week although more rain is forecast for the next few days. I decided to take a look around and see how high the water has risen. All of these pictures of the Tennessee River were taken locally, just around the corner from my home near Perryville, Tennessee. Since the Tennessee River is managed by a system of dams, water levels at the Perryville gauging station is usually maintained to around 359 feet above sea level during summer pool. The last time I checked we were at 367 feet above sea level and expected to rise in the next day to 368 feet. Flood stage is 370 feet, so everyone is crossing their fingers that we won't get much more rain. The next dam further downriver is releasing water to lower the river level, but this needs to be done slowly as to not inundate the lands on the other side. The party cabana above sits on a low lying area, most likely it'll start floating downstream. There's a ton of debris both natural and man made that is currently loose on the river, creating a hazard for navigation.


This gangway leads to one of the floating houses I wrote about in my post dated April 7. The house itself has risen with the river's level as it was constructed to do but now it takes a boat to get to it.

Another of the floating houses.
The houses on this side of the floating house colony appear to be suffering some damage.

Under normal conditions, there is some water between the bank at the bottom left corner and the house. Since the river has risen 8 feet the gangways are underwater with the only access being by boat.

The cluster of trees in the center are found on a little island, now underwater.

There's usually a walking path in this area.

And normally, water does not cover the road.

The planks in the center of the photo are actually picnic tables.

Appears to be a strange place for a bridge.

Before the river started rising, there was a camper under this roof over. They have left their front deck and barbque grill behind for now and have moved the camper to higher ground.

The sign on the right marks the entrance to Perryville Marina. Under normal conditions, the water's level would be 8 feet lower.

It might not be a bad idea to move these campers out now. The ground is pretty saturated already and if the river rises higher they might have trouble getting these out. Most of these are summer/weekend getaway places.

This is usually a parking area with the river normally being on the other side of the stand of trees.

Forever and ever

Just a reminder for those in the U.S. that cost of stamps are going up again, from 42 cents to 44 cents each starting May 11. Yesterday, when I was at the post office I invested in 2 books of Forever stamps. I love this idea. No need of purchasing additional 1 or 2 cent stamps to make up the difference. Since I don't use stamps much these should last me well into next year.

The winner of the sun suncatcher giveaway is CelticCat. Thanks to everyone that participated in this giveaway.

Do you recharge your batteries?

Besides my computer, the power tools I use in my shop and the coffee maker, the battery charger I use for my camera batteries is my most used device.

I can't imagine buying disposible batteries, especially with all the pictures I take (and retake) of my work, flowers, creatures, the world around me, etc.

It really bummed me out last year when my sister in law came to visit and actually bought batteries for her camera, she says she doesn't bother to use rechargable batteries they are too much of a PITA. I was so surprised and shocked at the amount of batteries she must go through. More hazardous crap in the landfill. Even when we travel, which hasn't happened in awhile, I would always bring my recharger with me. I'd like to get an additional set of 4 soon. Too many times the lighting would be right for a reshoot but the batteries needed rejuicing. Or, a bird would be close enough to have its picture taken, but I just didn't have the power.