Flowers and Water Fowl

It's Saturday and I'm off preparing for out of town guests.  But I photographed some of the flowers in my perennial garden and thought I'd share them as a quick post, today.

This is a view of my perennial garden.  I should have taken more shots, today, because I think it's even more in bloom.  Perhaps I'll have time later in the day.

I love these yellow lilies.  Their color is just so sunny...you can't help feeling sunny, yourself!

These are mostly Gallardia with a few daisies scatterd throughout.  They're a long lasting flower which makes for a nice addition to a perennial bed.  There is a bee on the second blossom from the left in the upper left corner.  If you enlarge the photo (by clicking on it)  you will have a better view.

These are probably  my favorites.  The color is so intense and everything else looks better because of them.

A wood duck family swimming by our property.  Took this one through the window and then cropped it to get a closer view.  It's not very good but it's still better than no picture at all!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  I've lots to post about...stay tuned!

Fear of Failure and a Few Good Quotes

 

This is a re-post of a post (does that make sense?) that I wrote back in 2007 when I was just starting to blog.  Here we are three years later and I'm marginally better in this struggle. The quotes are favorites of mine...I think you'll enjoy them and maybe even relate to them.

Here's a confession. Fear of failure has haunted me a lot during my life. I don't know why. Every time I learn a new skill that I think will be just the thing I want to do the rest of my life, I am stopped in my tracks by "uncertainty".

It's no big deal, really, because I've had/am having a very good life. Great kids. Great husband. Warm home. Good friends. Loving family. It's not keeping me awake at night (that's something else entirely-ha!) and the world isn't going to come to an end because I don't have a niche. But there it is...

Anyway, I've found a treasure trove of quotes that really illustrate that I'm not the only person in the world who feels just a little unfulfilled but lacks the gumption to do something about it. Here are some quotes that I find inspiring, empowering and comforting.

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals. (Zig Ziglar)

I will not let past failures haunt me. Even though my life is scarred with mistakes, I refuse to rummage through my trash heap of failures. I will admit them. I will correct them. I will press on. Victoriously. No failure is fatal. It’s OK to stumble . . . I will get up. It’s OK to fail . . . I will rise again. Today I will make a difference. (Max Lucado)

The cautious seldom err. (Confucious)

I -think-I-can, I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can... (The Little Engine That Could)

And my favorite (because it's fun) is:

Even Noah got no salary for the first six months partly on account of the weather and partly because he was learning navigation. (Mark Twain)

Gotta keep navigating!

What do you think?  How has blogging changed your life if at all?  Do you have any favorite inspirational quotes?

Oh, Jack just got up and said, "Happy Birthday".  And I said, "Thanks...I completely forgot!"  Which I did.  We don't make a big deal out of birthdays in our house which suits me just fine...not getting any younger and I certainly don't need to be reminded of that!  But I might just get a birthday dinner out of him.  Will let you know.

The photo is through Creative Commons and courtesy of   Cheon Fong Liew .

A Baltimore Oriole is not a Hummingbird

Well, that does it...we've got to get a new hummingbird feeder.  Possibly one without perches.

I like this feeder because the container is glass and it's easy to clean.  And it gives the little hummingbirds a spot to rest for just a minute while they gather their nectar.  But it dropped one day.  Several of the little white feeding slots broke and one of the perches.  Up until then just the hummingbirds could fit their tiny little (but very long) beaks into the slots.  But now they're large enough to accommodate a fatter beak...well, just like the one on this Baltimore Oriole.
 
I think this makes an appropriate but unusual Camera Critters post (#115) for this week, don't you?

A Great Blue Heron on Lake Mary

This morning Jack spotted this Blue Heron from the porch window.  It was walking very, very slowly and deliberately along the shallow edge of the lake.  It was most likely scanning the shallow water for fish or frogs.

It ducked it's head and slid underneath our dock and then up on our neighbor's dock still looking for possible delectable morsels to snatch from the water.

Aha!  It seems to have found something suitable and here it's ready to silently slip back into the water to have it's snack!

I have to hand it to our Minnesota Department of Resources (DNR) website.  There's information on just about any subject having to do with...well, natural resources in Minnesota, of course.  I checked to see if there would be any interesting info on herons and sure enough...a plethora of information is available.  Information about herons, cranes, egrets...all sorts of birds of Minnesota. 

This particular link is Minnesota DNR Young Naturalists with resources available for teachers and students.  It's good stuff.

If you're the least bit interested in how we humans can disrupt the natural habitats of our native plants, animals and waterfowl, you might enjoy this article titled Rookery Blues from the Minnesota DNR publication.   It isn't long and it's well written.  It chronicles the demise of an established blue heron breeding place, or rookery, that had been in existance since 1945 and how the local government solved the problem. 

You've heard the phrase "Minnesota Nice"?  Just another example.  We love our native habitats.

A Rant about Blogger or Why you need to read the fine print.

Update - June 16:   I have come to terms with the new Blogger template issue and have found and modified one of the new templates.  I'm fairly pleased with it but "the jury's still out".  This could go on for quite some time, actually.  I'm not known for my decisiveness.

I'm very frustrated with Blogger.   My new blog template is terrible.  I have serious "new template remorse."

Last week there was a "sticky note" on my blog dashboard heralding new design templates.

Template Designer - New!!   

Being the curious person that I am, I clicked the link to see what this was all about.  Now I know why curiosity killed the cat.

Five templates appear which are just large enough to tweak your curiosity.  I chose the design Simple and Lake Mary Musings's new look instantly appeared below the template dashboard.   Hmmm.  Interesting but I need to see it full size.  Aha...I'll click on Apply to Blog.  Didn't like it at all.   And that's when I realized that there was no way to reverse my decision.  My old template was gone forever.

I made two errors...I neglected to notice that there is a teeny tiny bar (in black) that says in teeny tiny print Expand View.  Also did not notice the option View Blog.   Nope...I just went ahead and chose Apply to Blog.   In my defense, it's the only option in large print and it's RED. 

I spent the next hour or so desperately trying to find at least another template that looked similar to the old template.  Okay...there's nothing that even remotely resembles my old template.  Spent a great deal of time trying to customize the stupid new template. 

Only after becoming so frustrated that I abandoned my efforts did I notice a post on Blogger Buzz (the Blogger blog) about the wonderful new design possibilities.   At the very end of the post....the very end...there is a note that reads:

[1] Note: Selecting a new template will erase all of your customizations on the existing template, so if you have customized your template be sure to first save the current template at Design > Edit HTML.

Arrghhh!!

That note should be the very first thing that you see when you open the new template menu.

I'm not going to expand on the murderous thoughts that I have about Blogger.  I'm just going to alert everyone out there in blogland whose blogs are powered by Blogger.  Proceed with caution.

Me?  I will be switching to WordPress as soon as I have time to learn the WordPress ropes.  In the meantime be prepared...Lake Mary Musings will very likely be playing musical chairs with these design choices.

Photo credit through Ashley Sturgis and Creative Commons

World Oceans Day

This is a photograph I took of the Manhattan Beach Pier in Manhattan Beach, California.  It was a stormy day about a year ago.  I can't tell you how high the pier is but it's high!  Probably 20 feet...maybe more...from the pier to the shore.  The surf was actually reaching the boardwalk.

I cannot imagine what this would be like if the surf was spewing tons of gallons of oil onto this pretty beach.   My heart breaks for the people in the gulf.

It's World Oceans Day.  I think a moment of silence is in order.

Red Sky in the Morning

This is the sunrise I awoke to this morning.   It's an "all's well with the world" sunrise.  I quickly pulled on my clothes, grabbed my camera and dashed outside.  Sunrises and sunsets last just a very few minutes so if you can capture them at their peak...well, there's just nothing prettier.  I captured this one at its peak. 

Now that I think about it, isn't there a proverb about red skies?   Red sky at night, sailor's delight; red sky at morning, sailor's take warning.   Or something similar.

This would be a perfect example of an old wives' tale.  No warning in this sky...It was a gorgeous day, today...not a storm cloud in sight.

Or so it would seem.

I've got a clever little book called Old Wives' Tales - Fact or Folklore?  I just remembered that book and plucked it off the bookshelf to search for this particular tale.  Yup, it's there!

The page about this proverb says that it's quite true, actually.  It has to do with the the way in which the rising or setting sun illuminates the clouds.   If the weather is moving in its usual west-to-east pattern, that is.

If the weather is traveling from south to north (as it often does in the upper midwest) the red sky rule doesn't apply.

I guess the weather was moving from south to north, this morning!

Monarch Butterfly in Our Cranberry Bush

I actually took this photograph through our dining room window!  And the window, I'm embarrassed to say, is not exactly sparkling clean...so it's not the best photo but I like the way the butterfly perched on the blossom.   It stayed there for a very long time, too. 

I did crop the photo to get this close up ... hope it translates well in your browser. 

This is my photograph for Camera Critters this week!

Writer's Cramp

Well, there you go...that's what the problem has been all along!  The words are in the wrong order!

This was in our Sunday newspaper magazine...

A Guest Post on "Eat at Home"

Another blog that I follow is "Eat at Home".  It's a food blog nicely organized with menus and recipes.  On the "Menus" tab you will find a week's worth of menus including recipes and a shopping list all ready to print out in pdf form.   It's especially great for families but even though there are just the two of us here at Lake Mary (okay, okay, we're a family...but you know what I mean...families with kids included),  I have found it to be a handy reference.  Tiffany is the genius behind the blog.

Some time ago, she asked if any of her followers would be willing to do a guest post on her blog while she's on vacation and I thought it might be fun so I volunteered!


 My post - a recipe for Raspberry Sherbet - is today's post.  It's an easy recipe that looks and tastes gourmet.   It's a perfect ending to a company dinner...very light and refreshing.

So head on over to Eat at Home and check it out!

Mighty Oaks From Little Acorns Grow

 It's "Show and Tell" time...

Jack came in yesterday with this little beauty.  He was gardening and pulled out this baby oak tree!  The acorn and root were beneath the soil and the leaves (or beginnings of the trunk) were reaching out of the earth.

What I love is how you can actually see how the leaf/trunk grows up and the roots grow down.  Of course, I tried every way imaginable to take a photo of it as it would look upright but they all were silly.  So I just placed it on the porch rail and this is the result.

You get the idea.

I tried to find an appropriate short profound quote or poem to reflect the importance of this wonderful tree species and was just amazed that there's not much to choose from that isn't long and ungainly or just plain silly.  So the title will just have to do.

If you've got a little gem about acorns or oak trees that you'd be willing to share I'd be most grateful!

My Mystery Prize

I won a prize!  It was one prize in a giveaway that Jenny Matlock had following her famous Garage Sale.    She had a drawing from hundreds of comments on her blog  and offered two prizes...a lovely casserole dish and a "mystery" prize.   You should visit her blog...it's called Jenny Matlock...off on my tangent.

Well, I'm happy to report that I won the mystery prize which was.......drum roll....the "out of balance" money from the end of her garage sale!!   Isn't that just rich?  That is one creative mind at work.  Brilliant.  This is the photo that I took after opening it.

I cannot thank just Jenny, though...Nope.  "Mr. Jenny" (as she affectionately calls him) did the random drawing.

So thank you...I think I'll buy something to donate to our Lakes Area Humane Society.    Cat food or Dog food or something else that they need.  And it'll be from both all three of us...Jenny, Mr. Jenny and me!

The problem will be getting out of there without a new pet...I do not need a pet...I do not need a pet...I do not need a pet...