Tag Archives: spring

It’s Spring! Puppies, Fruit Tree Blossoms, and More Animals to come

It’s been busy here this week. We started the week ordering chicks that are due to arrive in a few weeks. Things need to be shaped up and spruced up a bit for their arrival.

We’ve looked into getting some lawn mowers goats; they’re not quite ready to leave their mamas. We have a lot of food for them and eagerly await their arrival. Of course, that means we have to have their lodging ready as well.

Tiffany and Sean have been wanting Australian Shepherds or Aussies, as they are also known, for quite some time. Tiffany found some decent deals on a tri-color male and a blue merle. She was hoping for a red merle but that was not to be. They are looking forward to breeding them in the future.

We’ve settled on Finn for the tri-color male. We’re not sure if it is Finnegan, Phineas, Finnley, or what yet but Finn it is. He is eight weeks old.

This blue merle is Heidi. She got her name because the first night she kept getting back in Michael’s gaming corner, hiding from Finn and Shiloh. She is a couple weeks younger than Finn and you can definitely tell it in her size. I’m expecting to see her really grow in the next couple of weeks. Although, she may surprise me and be a bit smaller. We shall see. Part of the reason these pups were added to our family is because Shiloh is 10 years old. She doesn’t act it a lot of the time but she is definitely getting older. Sasha is about 14 years old. She’s our watchdog outside and is a blue tick heeler. She is definitely in her twilight years. (Here’s a picture of Shiloh.)

Interestingly my sister had a littermate of Shiloh’s and they had to put her down last year due to health problems. My parents had a littermate of Sasha’s and they went out to feed her one morning a couple of years and she had passed away. Sooooo, Sasha and Shiloh have already outlived their littermates. It will be good to have some puppies here that will ease the loss when these eventually pass . . . but we’re not thinking on that right now. ;)

I showed pictures last week of the Bradford Pear trees. Tiffany took some pictures of our other blooms around the front of the property. The daffodils look bright and cheery. :)

Here are some pictures of the fruit trees in bloom. This peach tree has some nice pink blossoms.

I don’t have a picture that shows how small this tree is but it isn’t as big as this plum tree.

It’s got a decent amount of blooms. :) But this poor plum tree is quite puny. I’m hoping now that it has had some fertilizer and mulch, it will do a bit better. Even so, it still has some blooms.

Then there’s our volunteer peach tree out in the chicken coop. It is much bigger than any of the others. I guess that is a testament to good fertilizer. ;)

I hope these turn out better than they did last year. Most of the fruit last year did not ripen or mature properly. Very sad. But we have hope renewed this year. :)

Spring is so pretty! Tiffany has planted a lot of seeds–started them indoors and going to move them out as soon as they are big enough and we’re pretty certain we won’t get another freeze. We got some flower seeds from Dollar Tree and looking forward to blooms all summer long. :)

Well, that’s what’s going on here. I hope to share some cute puppy pictures in the weeks to come. I hope you have a great weekend.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Books, Deals, and Spring

At the library last week I was in the science fiction section and saw that there is a sequel to Saucer, one of the books that I read last week. I read the summary and decided I was not interested, at least this time around. ;)

We did get the next 4 or 5 sequels to The Invisible Library. I’m looking forward to reading them. But I waited until I finished The Codex; I checked it back in and then rechecked it out of the library because I was interested in how it was going to end.

Book: The Codex

I’ve finished The Codex now and it has some s* words and maybe a few others and there is a two-paragraph scene that needed to be skipped. I liked how it ended and ended up really liking some parts that at first were mildly offensive but in retrospect really made me laugh and I ended up laughing over them with Tiffany. I do have to admit that there were several points where I wasn’t sure I wanted to finish it. I guess that means it had slow bits. The slow bits were important to build the story though. It had some fun twists and some good character development. Overall, a decent book (if you can overlook some cursing).

Shopping: WinCo Deals

This week WinCo had big pork butt roasts for 98¢ a pound. These are big packages! I told Tiffany to get a small one and it was 20 pounds! I asked if they could cut it for me. I wasn’t sure if it was two huge pieces or just one. The employee took it back to the butcher and they cut each roast into three pieces for me. They re-wrapped them and labelled it so that the cashier would know that it was two packages for one price.

They also had some nice thick pork loin chops (I think that is what they were labelled) at $1.78 a pound. I like a nice thick pork chop from time to time. Michael will have a chicken breast when we eat these.

Cheese was also marked down. Colby Jack was less than $3 a pound. Oh! the ten pound rolls of 73% ground beef were marked down too, under $16. It was about a dollar cheaper than any week yet. Sooo, of course, I had to get some. :) Sean and I are usually the ones to eat this, so we’re set for a while. I cut up the roll into 8 pieces, so each one was a little over a pound. I then bagged each one into a freezer bag and now our freezer is full.

Their chicken breast was up to $1.78 a pound this week. I’ll be watching for it to go back down and stock back up again. ;) I still have about 10 pounds or so in the freezer but that won’t last real long because Michael will eat chicken when we eat pork. The frozen ground turkey chubs are $1.38 a pound, so that is nice for Michael when we have a ground beef meal.

There are a few meals in which I prefer ground beef: meatloaf, hamburgers, and tacos. Tiffany usually eats the ground turkey with Michael and Sean eats the ground beef with me. :)

It looks like spring has sprung here. The Bradford Pear trees have bloomed and our daffodils have blossomed. The peach tree and the plum trees have blossomed as well. :)

(Thanks to Sean for sharing his pictures with me. :) )

Well, I’ve rambled enough for today and will run for now.

Until next time, I hope you have a great weekend,
Michele ºÜº

Liam, Bradford Pear Trees, and Flowers

Wow! Another week has passed, March has arrived, and the weekend is quickly approaching. The only big plans I have for the weekend is time with my grandson. :) I didn’t see him last week and I hear he managed to crawl a few ‘steps’ since last I saw him.
Liam Crawls a Little ~ Lifeofjoy.meMy sweet daughter-in-love sends me pictures on occasion, unsolicited. :) It brings a smile to my face to see this cutie.

On the other hand, Michael will request pictures from Brian from time to time. Here are two that he got last week sometime. Of course, I have them now because I asked him not to hoard them. :D

My son with his son ~ Lifeofjoy.meNow that is adorable. :) <3

Liam in the Hood ~ Lifeofjoy.me


My peach blossoms survived the freeze we had last weekend. I was concerned about it but prayed and it seems fine. Thank you God!

The Bradford Pear tree was in full bloom this week. Tiffany was outside the other day and took some really good pictures of it.

Full Bradford Pear Tree in Bloom ~ Lifeofjoy.meBPT ~ Lifeofjoy.me

Bradford Pear Tree Blossoms ~ Lifeofjoy.me
I love how she captured the sun in this one.

Nice picture of the blossoms in the shade with sunlight kissing them.

Bradford Pear Tree Blossoms ~ Lifeofjoy.meThese bring me joy. :)

Bradford Pear Tree Blossoms ~ Lifeofjoy.me
Look how close these are to the trunk.

You could see the stamen pretty well in that last picture but look here.

Bradford Pear Tree Blossoms ~ Lifeofjoy.meI read an article this week blasting the Bradford Pear Trees and their relative the Cleveland Select. I’ve never seen that one but I like the Bradford Pear Trees. I don’t know what thorny ‘ornamental pears’ he’s talking about because I don’t have any in my yard.

I have a few wild bradford pear trees on our property. Unfortunately the old one up here in the front part of the property must’ve gotten hit by lightening recently because its top if broken off–or it might’ve happened during that bad storm that came through last July. Sadly, we’ll have to chop it down now. But I love these trees because they signal that spring is here (or at least on the way, some years).

I like the Redbud trees for the same reason. We have several tiny wild ones on the property too. I’ve tied strings on them, so I know which ones they are when we clear paths and such. I don’t like to chop those down. I will request those be relocated if they are in the way. They haven’t bloomed when last I checked but with the Bradfords in full bloom, they’re surely not far behind.

Look what else popped up.

Narcissus ~ Lifeofjoy.meRecognize it?

Narcissus ~ Lifeofjoy.meNarcissus ~ Lifeofjoy.meA lovely spring flower. :) I like the bright yellow trumpets but really prefer the full yellow flowers. I’m not sure which are daffodils and which are jonquils but I prefer the yellower ones, which I don’t have any of any more. Don’t know what happened to them but these are all I have left.

I did notice that my irises are starting to grow their stems now too. They are in the back in a shadier spot. The narcissus are up front in full sun.

Well, I’ve rambled enough for one day. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

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