Summer in Kentucky

Musings from the back of my head

I woke this morning at 6 o'clock. Whats wrong with that you ask. It's Sunday. I tried to go back to sleep but was unable to comply. So I made my coffee, took a shower, turned on CNN, and read the newspaper. Same crap, different day. I had a 11:30 appointment with the blood bank so i decided to go in early to see if I could get it over with. Driving over there I was cut off by some idiot who doesn't know how to turn out of a double turn lane. This had me driving more aggressively until I started to think about it. I am early to my appointment and have plenty of time. I asked my self why am I giving that much control to that idiot. I made it to the blood bank and they were able to get me in early. While I was filling out my paperwork I checked out the number of donations that I have for lifetime. I am at 156 units of blood and blood products. Thats pretty amazing considering the human body has about 1 1/2 gallons. 156 units is approximately 156 pints which is over 19 gallons! I happen to be CMV negative, so my blood and blood products are used in infants. If that doesn't make for a great day I don't know what will.

The beach

A day at the beach

Day trip to the beach

This was our second day trip to the beach this summer. The first trip was to Corpus Christi by the Texas State Aquarium. We left San Antonio early and went to a Mexican food restaurant that had awful food and the bathrooms were horrid. That last comment came from me. I had to hold my breath while I was in there. The beach was just around the block from the diner. We found good parking and staked a claim on the beach. I could not find the chairs with umbrella so needless to say it was a bit warm. Actually, it was damn hot! The wind was blowing and the surf was rough. The kids did not play in the water at all. Ashley and her friend walked the beach and Christopher just stayed hanging with Mom and Dad. Needless to say we did not stay very long. We left the beach by 2 o'clock. This time we found a different beach to go to, Rockport Beach Park. We got up early and packed the Fit and were on the road by 7 o'clock. It was a nice drive down. We arrived at about 10 o'clock. Mary, my TomTom , put us right at the park entrance. It was 10 dollars for an annual pass and we proceeded to the first big pavilion and carted the chairs out to a HUGE umbrella that we had all to ourselves. Then I took the ice chest and food to a pic-nic table and we made sandwiches. That was so much better than the food last trip. We even had guests join us for lunch. The kids and I played in the water and walked the area. This is by far the best Texas beach that I have been to. It was very clean and it had everything I wanted at a beach. The bathrooms are very clean and they had showers. there is also a foot wash station by the parking lot. The water is still only knee deep three hundred feet from the shore. While we were out there, Christopher let out a blood-curdling scream. Everyone on the beach stopped what he or she was doing to see what was going on. Christopher managed to find a jellyfish. The jellyfish stung both legs. I walked him out of the water, Melanie cleaned his leg and put on caladryl lotion, it helped very little. I ended giving him a painkiller and he got very drowsy after thirty minutes. We stayed for about an hour longer and then packed up the Fit and headed to the fishing pier. We saw some hermit crabs that had gathered. Christopher wanted to bring some home but I put a stop to that idea. We saw lots of fish from the pier, and a crab that was as big as a dinner plate. That picture didn't come out . On our way out of the park we passed the fish cleaning station. there were several pelicans that had set up camp waiting for the catch of the day.

This may take awhile

Every now and then you see something that justs makes you smile. And every now and then you just might have you camera in your pocket so you can help others smile. This was one of those times. I am sure that I could have come up with a number of captions for this picture, some of which may not be appropriate for all audiences. I try to keep my camera with me for just those moments when a picture is truly worth a thousand words. Take time to slow down and observe the little things that are around you. Smile often, it will be contagious, if not then people will just wonder what your up to.

The house zoo is getting smaller. I still have the four dogs in the house but that is all. The hermit crab that Christopher won at the Halloween carnival three years ago finally died. Crusty wasn't too much trouble. I gave him his weekly bath, changed out his food every other week and took him for walks around the kitchen. We would watch TV together and we liked the same shows. I miss him terribly and cry myself to sleep at night. Well, not really. But I do miss the little guy.
The second critter that is no longer in the house is Teddy the Toad. This is another acquisition of Christopher. While we had one of the dogs at the vet, Chris asked if he could go look around the pet store. We finish up and as we are walking out Chris comes running up with a little box. I believe it was actually a Chinese take out box. Chris stated that he had 5 dollars and he really wanted it. Well, IT turned out to be a fire belly toad. That 5 dollar toad was eating 5 dollars a week in crickets. We had Teddy for almost 2 years. Thats a lot of crickets. Nothing bad happened to Teddy. I just decided that Teddy could catch his own crickets outside and it would not cost me 20 bucks a month. I moved his house out by the pond and put Teddy in it. The next morning I looked in the house and he was gone. I'm not sure what happened to him. I like to think that he is living it up at night and moved in with a girl friend. Who knows, in the spring I may see some sort of hybrid toad hanging out by the pond. Then I'll know that he survived being out in the wild.

Well, this is my first attempt at a blog. I saw Donnie's pond on Brenda's blog and I got pond envy. My pond was an experiment to see if I liked having a pond and how muck work was involved in taking care of it. As it turns out it is not much work and the water sounds right outside the window is very relaxing. I had three koi in my pond but the raccoons have it down to just one. What you do not see in the picture is the electric fence that runs around the pond to keep unwanted fishermen out. I also have several rescue fish in the pond. Last year with all the rain we had the low water areas in the park had small fish in them. As the water started to evaporate the fish were in danger of being mud puppies. Christopher and I went out to those low water areas armed with a small net and a Bill Miller tea bucket and gathered up as many as we could and now they keep my lone koi company. I also have a perch in the pond. I can only assume that one of the small minnows that we rescued was actually a small perch. He is now as big as my hand and he is trained to come up for food. I still haven't trained the koi to come up for food. He is probably traumatized the the raccoon attacks.