Kitty Jacket

Oh so OK when you have lots to do you sort of neglect other things but then what else is new. 
So anyways I have this thing I put together but, I really didn't design the kitty image so that's why its in here. After all I didn't airbrush and or design this thing. But what I did do is put several things together instead of just throwing it out. It was just too cute to throw out anyways. I have this old jacket I wear around the backyard when its cold, I saved this old image from a purse that got old and ripped. Plus saved a few other odds and ends from some old jeans I had to throw away as well since they were ripped beyond wearing them.  Then I put several things together and what do you have? A nice jacket and no garbage to fill a landfill. A worth while compromise and cause. Plus you get a real nice jacket. :)

Cabbage rolls arn't boring.

Well January and most of February was pretty boring. Good in some ways I guess but bad as in boring in other ways. So not much to say about that. But at least there is some light at the end of the bleak tunnel of winter. We do get to enjoy my dad's cabbage rolls made with homemade sour cabbage. He always likes to add in a few quince fruit for flavour in the batch of cabbage with brine to be soured. But he seems to think that the sour cabbage is really not up to pare this time. Me? I think the SC is great as always. So again this weekend we're having you guessed it his famous and tasty cabbage rolls. Included on the plate besides the Crolls will be some baked potatoes or boiled. Personally I think baked is best. Or you could have polenta with it. Not me. Also added to the tasty plate, some sausage pieces and some homemade smoked pork like ribs for example. Those are my favorite but not often served. Got ta take what you can get I guess. 
Oh we don't cover it in tomato sauce. Not part of our eastern European tradition I guess. Very similar to the Polish style.  Not missing it any how. 

 Hope I made you hungry. ;D

A Friday that was more like a Monday

A Friday that was more like a Monday is what it felt like. I knew I wasn't going to like that day and was pretty much spoiled for me. Well I don't like dental appointments or any other medical related appointments for that matter but it had to get over with. So I got my annoyance over with and like usual I treat my self with a special snack of some sort. I was going to have an ice cream from the new ice cream place on the corner near by, but my stomach was still upset from a few nights before when I tried out this new spicy chicken. I love spicy chicken or anything spicy for that matter but this was a bit too much for me I guess. But it could have been more severe had I not eaten yogurt afterwords. So instead of the ice cream treat to drown out the dental taste left in my mouth, I got a small box of 20 TimBits verity style. They're basically doughnut holes from a place called TimHortons. I'm sure you've heard about the famous Canadian icon. So I brought them home to share and I though that was the end of it. But guess not. Later that night and as usual, my kitty gets in the mood to go out for a stroll. But before that he likes his play time with me and a meal. As we played in my room on the floor near my bed, I started to smell something strange but somehow familiar. Something burning, like burning wire. I started to get a bit frantic and nervous when I first could not find the source of the noxious smell.  Looked at my outlets, nope. Looked at a power bar, nope. Eventually I looked up thinking it might be somehow the ceiling light. The reason why I thought that was earlier my dad was changing the light fixture in the kitchen that was not working properly. Somehow I thought it was connected. Maybe the wire was damaged by a electrical serge? I started to get scared thinking that maybe there was a smoldering wire in the ceiling that was eventually going to lead to fire. After all I did start to see smoke swirling around my light fixture. The smell was getting stronger and overwhelming to my nose. So I started to open windows despite the furnace being on. But that didn't matter at that point. I also wen to see if the smell was in any other room especially the kitchen. Sure enough it was there. Now really panicking, my dad and I went outside and inside pretty much all over that house inspecting and contemplating. But we really couldn't really find any smoldering wires est. 
Just as well the smells were at that point starting to dissipate after opening the windows but we still weren't sure what happened.  It was only about an half an hour later when my mom went to empty the dishwasher when we realized what had happened. Apparently the dishwasher caught on fire and filled my room and the kitchen with nasty toxic burnt plastic smoke. I spent several days getting rid of that nasty smell. But you can still smell it in the kitchen. But then it could have been worse. Luckily the dishwasher only short circuited when I guess a bit of water got in to the electrical components  and burnt the front panel. Yikes and Yuck! But this might have been avoided if my parents heeded the recall warning for that machine a few years earlier. I hope they learn their lesson. Just too bad they're prone to hard headiness and stubbornness. Oh well. 

This Thursday will be my kitty's Monday since its vet day. He has to get his shots. He will be treated handsomely afterwords with his favorite treats. ;)

One sweet little dove gone too soon.

Well today a hawk decided to see one of my doves as a spaghetti meal. The hawk tried to spagettify one of my doves as tried to pull it though one of the small holes of the chicken wired aviary. Its head was pretty mingled. It didn't have a chance. :_(
The others were lucky to have escaped with their lives. One had its tail plucked all out and another had a bunch of feathers yanked out of its back. So today it was the last straw, after also being harassed by rats and mice earlier. I brought them indoors two weeks early. Hopefully I can get the aviary safety improved next season. :o

Purple Trinity Flower

Well-p its officially fall. Thank God that its still summer warm. For now. But don't fret, its only a few more months till spring. The lucky ones who don't have to wait till then can just migrate south or you can hibernate like a bear. But don't, were not bears. Our bodies will make us pay for that as some of us know too well. Best thing to do is when it gets too cold outside is do a bit of exercise indoors when of course you're finished shoving the snow.

Enough of that depressing news well maybe a bit of anxiety inducing news instead. For some of us anyways. Besides the busy summer of yard work and other personal stuff, it was a stressful summer for my poor kitty Meetso yet again. Apparently he was getting to much calcium in his diet. Um no I wasn't drowning him in cow's milk, but I did give a bit to him as a treat now again. But apparently I was giving him inferior cat food. Its a major brand but I won't mention it unless you ask me in privacy.

I'm guessing it had way too much bone meal and other crap but I figure it still had some redeeming qualities for the price I had to pay. Guess not. Who knew that a can of animal guts with some vitamins thrown in for good measure, at times costs more then a can of tuna. I always thought those things were over priced. But then I also gave him tuna on occasion too as a treat. Maybe a combination of that set him off as well. So now for his main food, he gets the vet office brand. A 50/50 combination of dry food and a very boring flavoured with chicken, wet cat food. Chicken btw is his least favourite food. He still manages. He's a good kitty.

Since the crazy July he recently had a small blip. He got sick from a rabbit he decided to catch for dinner and eat whole. He left nothing but a few dark coloured guts. Yes he even ate the head.

The rabbit on the other hand had its revenge going down. In Meetso's haste to eat his prize, the bones in the meat I guess scraped his throat or maybe a small piece logged in there. But I think not. None the less, he lost his meow and his appetite. Took him a few weeks to recover. Some of the recovery took place in my bed room a few times in the form of big dark coloured hair balls with bits of grass in the smelly mix. Thank God it looks like he's now back to his normal cuddly self. That is until next time. Oh boy.

Now for my find that 's the title for this posting is named after.

Ok so its another wild flower I found. I don't really remember planting it in the corner of the garden but there it is. I probably found it originally in the park and took the seeds home. Just forgot about it until some time in June when it started to bloom. My dad actually thought it was a stray corn plant that grew there from bird seed that was dropped there. Luckily he didn't just pull it out like he usually does. (killed a plant that I was trying to grow for the last 2 years cause he thought it was a weed) Yes its edible, but I think in limited fashion. Not sure what parts, so you are going to have to look it up. How ever it does go by many names but I prefer the one in the title. It makes the most sense to me. A purple flower with three petals. I hope that I can collect the seeds and spread it around to the appropriate areas. 

More moldy leftovers.

Yup you guessed it. More leftovers (pics) from last year. Just as well. I’ve been really busy with stuff that has to get done. Yard work, house work, putting things in jars and my own personal work. Pretty much boring stuff and not worth talking about. But some work is still worth showing off and I'll be showing them very soon at my creative site.

As usual I took a walk. One fall day last year I decided to take a walk in the park. All around the park and I mean the whole circumference of it and its pretty amazing the beautiful things you can find if you just look in the right places in an otherwise uninteresting, abused and neglected park. Normally all you would find are tread marks left over from bone heads that like to drive though and joy ride with their cars and park where you really shouldn't. Then there are people with their dogs again as I said before do not pick up after their dogs. You can tell the park has seen better days, cause I found an old capped off water fountain. Its just a cement spot with a few pipes sticking out of it now. Shame.

Anyhow look at what I found near a fence. Some lovely daisy like flowers. Not sure what they're called but they're still pretty even if they're just weeds.

Ok the next set of pics were not taken in a park but also in the fall. I thought thought it looked cool with a few summer flowers (mostly morning glory) just trying to survive the last bit of nice days that are left with fall leaves in the backdrop. Plus the colours are really attractive.

 

Hopefully I'll have something a bit more cheery and recent to show very soon. 

If not, I'm sure they'll be interesting and maybe fun? Maybe. ;)

 

Not Taking Crap

Saw this sign last August on one of my walks. Pretty sure the sign was made by a lady. So I'm assuming it was. So lets just say this lady, was apparently tired of taking the crap from irresponsible owners and their dogs. I guess people kind of bagged the little steaming piles of stinky treasure after little darling dogs finished with their duties and then indiscriminately flung the little poo bags any which way. Kind of rude? Yep!

So the sign lady, again I don't know who this person is, even went as far as stapling some of the brown booty on the sign as to make a disgusting embellishment. I sure wouldn't touch those but then being cheesed off can make people do crazy things.

I'm pretty sure she'll put up the sign again like she did 2 years in a row. Hummm...

None the less this is some pretty funny crap.  :D

A summer mantis

Spring is pretty much here. Soon you'll hear the little pitter-patter of little insect feet. In fact you might have already noticed some have coming out already. Like ants and little spiders. But then many of you can care less, let alone like insects and other bugs. But I like them, well except for things like mosquitoes, fleas and ticks. I find those annoying.

Anyways here are some pics from last summer of a little cannibalistic insect called the praying mantis. Well it wasn't that little so I'm pretty sure it was an immature female, since they are much bigger then their smaller and taster male partner. I think she was a stage off from being a full fledged flier.

I originally found her crawling up the outside wall near the bathroom of our house so she was obviously easy to see. That green colour of hers really stood out from the orange brick wall.

So after I was finished looking at her natural insect beauty I left her in our garden on some lettuces. She does make a really great guard insect against those potential pests who would easily take over the garden if not controlled. If you're wondering I didn't take pics of her right away until I found her again on a little citrus plant in a pot a few days later. I'm pretty sure it was the same one since this one could not fly either. Guess she liked it here in our back yard cause she stayed there pretty long.

Again I don't have a great camera so I use what ever I have. I only use these pics for reference any how for my art work and what not. 

Wild Geraniums?

Just like to share a little something of things to come in the spring and or summer. Its actually more pics I took last year but its better then looking at more snow. Am I right? Who wants to look at more snow, feel more of the misery of below zero temps any how. But don't worry spring is just a few weeks away. 

Now I'm really not sure as to what flowers these are but to me they look like geraniums. They sort of smell like them too. But non the less they come up every year by themselves. No one in this household has ever planted them so I assume that they somehow got here via animal poop shoot or the wind. How ever they got here, I just love them.

My favorite image^

2015

Well its 2015 and already we have all kind of crazy calamities mostly by people. What a non-surprise.  When are people as a society going to grow up from our childish ways? Childish as in being such as still exhibiting primitive behavior only one-up from acting like animals who by the way, live mostly by impulse. When are we going to stop living by the sword, dieing by the sword?
Don't you realize that two wrongs don't make a right? Harsh words and actions are like a sword but kind words are like a useful kind gift to soothe the heart. Really tired of stupid. 




On a lighter note I'd like to share this wonderful calendar I got one time on a Friday just before the holidays finished. It came with my Chinese take out. Thought it was chocolates at first but as you know well they're not big on chocolates. Opened it up and out came this really cool and colourful looking calendar with of course the characters of the Chinese zodiac. Although there is one character image that's a bit of a brow riser. You'll know what I mean. Not sure what they were thinking there.

 Enlarged so you can see your Chinese zodiac character^

Um yeah LOL^

More Burdock ?

Yep more Burdock. Guess I just had to take a few more eh. Of course they were taken earlier in the season but mid summer. I have a few more pics to show in better weather times but just have been busy with other things just never got around to doing that. For one thing I had to move my whole web site to another more stable place and wouldn't you know it they got bought out by another company and never so much as a simple notification. Guess I moved out just in time. Just never got a chance to use that special “site moved” page. Bummer and it was a neat one too. Then today one of the clip art places decided to sell exclusively only 3D models products thus kicking us 2D makers out. But not a total bummer, I never sold an image there any how. Meh! :p None the less I'm still keeping my account there maybe I'll make and sell those models in the future when I can get some software. I did work with Maya software at one time after all. But I may have to go with a cheaper alternative. 

Oops!

Never realized that I still had some old links to my previous places for hosters.

I have now updated the links to the new homes of my personal website.

Sorry about that.

Happy ThanksGiving!

Happy ThanksGiving!

Just want to wish every one a peaceful, a bountiful, a full of love and Happy ThanksGiving.

As many of you know its Canadian ThanksGiving. The Americans have it a month behind us but that's Ok. All that matters is that we celebrate the bounty we do have and be thankful even though some of us don't have much. In which case some of you are nice enough and generous enough to share that extra bounty of the harvest with others who maybe have a hard time to make ends meat to put food on the table. I say Thanks a bunch to all the good hearted even if you can't give a whole lot. But there are other ways you can share the bounty how about the stuff from your own body? I don't mean blood and organs although yeah those are good things to share as well, but there's something else that’s just as precious that comes from you that you can share. How about time and a listening ear? There are many people out there who for what ever circumstances, are needy in terms of a little friendship. They have no family, no friends and no other love ones and they dread days such as these. Many time or every day they feel excluded. So consider inviting them to your nice Thank'sGiving feast or at least some coffee time or a movie. You could make their month. Come on, you have so much friendship, some of you are rich with it. Consider sharing a bit with someone who's lonely and has a lack of.

Speaking of sharing, here are some nice pics of some wild red currents I found growing near my mulberry tree during the summer.

This just in. Another reason to be thankful for. A children's book that I illustrated a few years ago is finally out.

Its apparently called The AdventurousSunshine. 

Check it out. :)

Wild flowers and Evil Squirrels

Sorry for the long post.

Time for an update on my summer since I didn't do a whole lot of blogging cause of the craziness of it all. Yup it was crazy and its the end of summer. Boooooooo Hissssssss. But on the upside there are only a few more months till spring. I would rather avoid thinking about the misery months to some. That's what I like to call them.

Lets see, there was my poor kitty Meetso. He got really sick. So sick I thought he was going to kick the bucket. The poor guy got so sick he stopped eating all together. So I brought the poor guy to the vet. He hated it of course but at least he's not a mean cat. He does have great manners after all. So he had a blood test to make sure he didn't have any major diseases. He did not thank goodness. He ended up getting a shot and some antibiotics that I had to orally give him every day twice a day. Also not fun especially when you need two people and the person does not follow instructions well making the situation worse. But then finally he was all better. All up to snuff and a terror of his domain. 

Also did I mention my doves, my sneaky doves pulled another fast one and made two more babies. Didn't expect them and neither did I expect them to be speckled again. One white with peach colouring and the other white with regular colouring. I'll have to take some pics when I can. Probably when they're indoors for the winter. Bright little fellas. Btw they are boy and girl. They always come that way with doves. Also they learned all kinds of things really fast too.

A few weeks later if I remember correctly one night when I when to feed Meetso after taking my bath. About 3am I noised water on the floor in the basement. Not too unusual when its warm outside and cool inside especially downstairs. But then it was coming from underneath a door to the water heater room/ small storage. I go and open the door and there was water spitting out of a pipe onto the ceiling if you would call it that on to the water heater. I was a little worried that it might damage the tank. But I guess it didn't after my dad repaired it the next day. Luckily every thing worked find and the pipe hasn't leaked since.

Then we ended up find out we had a huge wasp colony in our fruit cellar. I first noised something odd when I went in there to get a pop. At first I thought it was another water leak of some kind. So went outside to see if there was a leak outside since we do have a water faucet there. But then I noised lots of yellow jackets coming in and out of a little hole in the wall. Hummmmm Then went back inside and I went closer in a corner of the room to take a so called closer look. I made some noise by knocking on the wall and sure enough realized that we have a very large and angry colony. I also noised that there was a certain spot on the ceiling where the drywall was very thin. I was very concerned about the whole thing but nothing was done about it till it was too late.

A few days latter mom was the unfortunate one to go there and take care of some business but didn't get too far. The wasps apparently finally broke thru that spot of concern and were now flying around the cellar. Luckily she didn't get stung. But unfortunately one family member got stung indirectly and unintentionally. Eventually every thing was brought under control and the whole colony was killed off as a result of a nasty and expensive insecticide spray. It was then after leaving the room to its self for a few days and pulled out a sample of the hive when we realized how large the mass yellow jackets were.

I think they were there for at least 2 years.

But of course as a result we had another problem.

Poor Meetso came home one night, the same night we took care of the big wasp problem. So he came home from one of his kitty adventures only to be licking his tail area profusely and acting strange. He ran straight inside like a cartoon kitty. He wasn't acting any better the next day and then after that stopped going out all together. Forcing him to go out and get some fresh air wasn't any better since I noised he would go nuts when any mosquito or other flying insect would land on his butt. No one believed me and I think no one believes me still that he can act so strange and all of a sudden. Of course I knew that it might be a possibility that a left over angry wasp had stung him at night when he when to explore the bushes at the front as he brushed by. So there fore any flying insect especially mosquitoes would send him in to a tizzy. He would even try to bite them in mid air. It was just crazy.

Well none the less this summer fiasco lasted several weeks. I think it was a month's worth of trouble for Meetso but just a few days ago he finally got out of it. He seems now back to his king of the jungle self. In fact he landed him self a tasty tidbit with wings the other morning. A morning dove. Unfortunately I found the evidence of his messy dinner all over his favorite dinning spot.

Speaking of things to eat did I mention the squirrel invasion? No I don't eat squirrels but I do or rather we as in the family like to eat tomatoes. In recent years they managed to eat all of our peaches but this year there was none. It was the bad winter we had but my dad mentioned that it also might be the age of the tree. So anyways the squirrels decided that they would help them selves to every beef steak tomato growing our vine, ripe or not whether it was too big to carry or not. When it was too big or behind a fence they would just take a bite out of it to claim it as their own. That was the last straw! That and the fact they then tried to eat all the seeds in my doves cage. Some how they little thieves got their little stick paws in there and snatched out every seed. By morning my poor doves had nothing to eat. Oh yeah did I mention they mooched all the wild bird seed I put out for the wild birds too.

So yeah, I decided that it was time to do something about the most annoying creatures ever besides mosquitoes and do something about it. I when to the store and bought a small trap. A nice little humane trap to trap the little buggers. So then I set up the trap which was fairly easy and filled it with extremely tasty things like peanut buttered bread, some peanuts, some acorns, sunflower seeds and a trail of bird seed leading to the trap. I set the trap in a small area next to our garage and under a pile of wood, piled up near a wall and then waited. I didn't wait long till it caught one of the little buggers.

My dad then helped me oust the guy leaving him at a nice wooded area with sparsely populated with people and farms. A really nice place for a bunch of little bushy tailed jerks. Too good for them really but what ever. So far I caught 4 of the little jerks. I'm still aiming for two young trouble makers still hanging around. So you heard me little bushy tailed thieves, I'm coming for you.

Oh and actually I do have one thing that wasn't so crazy that I found. It was another interesting weed that's edible. So I took a few pics of it. It looks a lot like rhubarb only its not.

Apparently its another European import called the Common Burdock.

You can eat the boiled roots in its first year and in the second you can boil and eat the stocks and flowers with some salt and butter. Neat stuff! Sounds way better then rhubarb any day. Yuck!

Oh yeah I heard you can candy the flowers or something. I guess for more uses go look for the info online of course. 

Burdock's just about to bloom. ^

Burdock's blooming. ^

Mud pie in the sky

This is a mud pie you can actually eat, minus the worms and other nasty surprises you find in soil. Unless you're one of those fat-a phoebes or a little sugar sends you in a tizzy. You only live once people. Remember that. 

Anyways its based on a traditional mud pie called Mississippi mud pie.

You can get the traditional recipe here. Its great for parties but a bit much for small families but well worth it if you still decide to make it. 

So I made my own mini version with slight differences. Here's how I made my own version in case you're curious.

You need half a softened or room temperature cream cheese.

One shortbread cookie ready made pie crust. Like the Keebler elf brand pie crusts.

Two packets of Ready whip cream or other brand.

Vanilla extract which will go in to the Ready whip

One package of chocolate pudding.

Nuttella or some other brand of choco-hazelnut spread.

Some walnut meat about ¼ chopped if desired

Some walnut meat for decoration if desired.

Some chocolate syrup or powder or what ever else chocolate you can use for decoration on top if desired.

Prepare one whipped cream packet to the instructions. Whip the product till it has peeks.

Place half of the whip cream in with the half cream cheese and whip until blended.

Place in pie.

Prepare the chocolate pudding. Place the dry mix in to a bowl with a generous tablespoon full of that hazelnut spread. Add some milk. But instead of using the traditional two cups of milk, use only 1 and ½ cup milk. Its going in to a pie after all.

Place the pudding in to the fridge and in the mean time prepare the other whipped topping to the instructions. At this point you can mix that one with the other whipped topping you made earlier. Again till peaks form. Place aside till you are ready for it.

Take those chopped nuts and first sprinkle on top of the cream cheese/ whipped topping mixture. Normally the nuts go in to the pie crust but since this is obviously a pre-made crust, you make a compromise.

On top of that add the chocolate pudding mixture.

On top of that add the whipped topping.

Decorate if desired with walnuts and some kind of chocolate.

Here I used chocolate syrup stripes but traditionally people just sprinkle a bit of powdered chocolate on top normally used for making hot chocolate.

Place the pie in the fridge so it as time to set or wait and serve it after supper.

I made another just a few weeks ago. 

Yum! :D

Figment

Its pretty amazing how such a scrawny little tree in a pot can produce such a giant fruit. In this case a fig. I would trim the poor little neglected tree if I could but its my dads plant and well you know? He still see me as a small child. Sigh.... And yet when I was a little kid growing up playing outside on a lonely hot summers day by my self and looking for something to do, he let me play with things like blow torches and an ax on occasion. Go fig. Makes your head shake sometimes.

As for the fig tree, I wonder if, although scrawny, small and in a pot, my doves might have contributed in some way during the winter in the garage? They were in and out of the pots and you know doves they always like to leave a little gift where ever they go. Who knows......