Unknown bloomer

Isn't this thing gorgeous?   I have no idea what it is.  This picture and the one at the end of the post are close-ups of the plant / vine / whatever that's blooming out by my fence.  I spent a couple hours yesterday trying to identify it online.  Just a warning - don't search using "pink flowers" unless you want to spend a LOT of time looking at cherry blossoms.  

Anyway, I still don't know what it is, maybe some sort of primrose?, but it's really pretty.  I also have a couple of small pink hyacinths blooming out front.  Those were easier to identify because I thought I knew what they might be, and they were.

It's another gorgeous weekend, perfectly sunny and a little cool.  It's supposed to be very windy today but the wind hasn't picked up yet.   We had rain last week so more things are starting to come up and leaf out.  One thing that isn't though is my oldest peach seedling.  Is it still called a seedling when it's a couple of feet tall?  Sapling?  Small tree?  Anyway, the two smaller ones aren't leafing out yet, but they are showing some signs of life.  The oldest one still looks very dead.  I hope it isn't very dead.  I'm seriously going to try planting those seedlings in the yard this year.   

Zoe spent almost all day outside yesterday.  She's back out there again today.  The birds now use the feeder whether she'd there or not.  This picture is of her in the doorway, stalking the birds and reflected in the fireplace glass.    Yesterday she wasn't feeling so well, but still wanted to be outside.  She vomited both her breakfast and her supper.  She did drink a bunch from the nasty birdbath yesterday so maybe that was the cause.  I put clean water in it this morning and she seems fine today.  Addy spends most of her time sleeping these days, with occasional demands for attention.  I give it to her.  They're both old lady cats now, but Addy's two years older.  

I still haven't tried doing my taxes.  I'm waiting for one specific form, a 1099 from a company the reimburses me for a bunch of travel, and it hasn't arrived yet.  If I recall it was kinda late arriving last year.  Although . . . come to think of it, I may not have filed for reimbursement from them for those trips.   Huh!  I'm waiting for nothing.  Guess I'll go ahead and work on those taxes.  I must have subconsciously not wanted to do them.

Addy's outside!  It's really a perfect day for her.  Cool enough that she can lay in the full sunlight and it's warm on her rather than baking her in her black fur.   Both cats are drinking a lot of water these days and using the boxes a lot.  Old cat kidneys not working as efficiently as they should.  Addy often looks somewhat dehydrated despite all the water she drinks.  Her lab results from her last vet visit didn't show cause for concern though so I just keep an eye on her. 

The roses in front and back are starting to leaf out.  I trimmed them up a bit this morning in the back yard, but didn't cut them all the way back since they're already growing.  They're thinner and taller than I like but I'll let them grow this year and cut them back next year.

Well, I guess that's about all my trivia for today.  Later.   

Little pine trees

Check out these guys.  I know it's crazy to post about tiny pine trees, but I'm always so excited when I get something to grow, especially from seeds.   And these little trees are just thriving.

The taller of the two trees is about 8 inches tall now.  And it's longest limb extends out 6 inches from the trunk.  I'm so delighted to see them growing so well.  They're supposed to be a little bonsai tree set-up, but I wonder if I put them in bigger pots, whether they would grow into full sized trees.  I do like to watch them grow on my windowsill though.  Decisions, decisions.  They seem to be thriving right now though so I imagine I'll leave them where they are for the time being. 

As you can see, the moss is still growing gangbusters too.  I've taken to trimming the moss back with a scissors when it gets too tall. 

I'm thinking about trying to do my taxes myself with Turbotax.  I've always done my own taxes, but I have several new things to deal with this year besides my usual royalties.  For one thing I have two mortgages, but also I have rent on one of them, etc.  So probably I should find a CPA and have my taxes done for me.   I'm thinking I'm going to try it myself with Turbotax first though, and if I have trouble or it doesn't seem right, I'll take it to a CPA.  Like if I try to do it myself and I end up having to pay more taxes.  I won't e-file the Turbotax version, I'll take it to a professional.  I figure it can't hurt to try it.  I'm not quite ready to try it though.  Still waiting on forms to arrive.

It doesn't look like any birds are touching the thistle seed feeder yet, but then it took them 6 months to start using the other feeder so hopefully they'll eventually use it.  You can see from the picture that I've hung the feeders on the old satellite dishes left on the house.  Might as well make them useful, right?  

We got rain last night, which is good.  My lawn is starting to come up, which seems a little early to me.  We've often had freezes in February and March, so winter isn't over.  I have some sort of vine thing blooming pink out by my fence already though.  I guess I'll have to see if I can figure out what the perennials are that bloom around here this year.  The people who lived here before me loved flowers and blooming things, and I have to admit, I like the bright blooming colors also.  If the vine by the fence wasn't a vine I'd wonder about it.  The color of the blossoms is very similar to peach tree blossoms.  My little peach trees aren't starting to leaf out yet thankfully.   It's too early. It'll freeze again this year.  My poor aloe vera have already taken multiple hits.  There will be some serious limb die-back, but I think the plants will all survive despite that.

There are a pair of doves that hang out around here as well as the pair of cardinals.  I wonder where they're nesting.  Doves and mockingbirds seem to like nesting relatively low, so I'm trying to locate their nests.  There's a nest left over from last year in my crepe myrtle but I haven't seen any birds around it yet this year.  I wish I had swallows nesting here like I did at the old house.  Actually, I just looked out and there are five doves perched along my fence top.  Once they start using it, word of the bird feeder spreads fast I guess.   

 I guess that's about all today.  More later. 

Puzzle

I may have mentioned before that I'm . . . a little goal-oriented.  Or more than a little.  Or a lot.  I've known that about myself for a long time, but I had it illustrated nicely a couple weeks ago. I  got a 3 foot long cat puzzle for Christmas from my sister and brother-in-law and it's been sitting in it's box on the dining room table since I got it.  A couple of Saturday's ago, late in the afternoon I decided I'd start the puzzle, and then just work on it randomly as I had time.  

I finished it just after noon on Sunday.

I don't know how long I worked on it Saturday night.  As soon as I got up on Sunday I picked it up again, only stopping long enough to put laundry in the washer or take it out of the dryer.  The pictures in this post are the various phases of completion.  The first picture is where I was when I went to bed Saturday night.   The third picture is right before being done when I hadn't put in the little cat-shaped pieces that were hidden in the puzzle, and then the last one is the whole thing finished.  Just a little goal oriented, huh?

I caught a bad cold two weeks ago.  I suppose I picked it up in Florida at my board of directors meeting.  The week I caught it, it was bad enough that I actually missed a day and a half of work.  Really miserable.  I'm basically over it now, but I have this damn nagging cough that catches me up at times.  Cold weather and exercise will trigger it, but randomly I'll just start coughing and won't be able to stop for awhile.  Luckily I'm no longer coughing at night, so at least I'm getting my sleep.  Still, I wish I could stop coughing all together.  

I bought a Wii Fit system the other day, figuring when I can breath without coughing again, it'll help me get back on my exercise program.  I've used my sister's at her house in Colorado, and the system does really get you to exercise in a fun way.  It also has this function where you can put your pets into the system.  If you do, then your pets will jog along with you or run along as you're biking, etc.  It's just kinda fun.  The trouble is, you also put the pet's weight in by holding the pet and standing on the Wii board.  The system subtracts the total weight from your weight to get the pet's weight.  So I took my life in my hands and picked up my fat cat to do this.  I'm not sure I've ever said, but my fat cat goes spastic when her feet leave the ground.  I think she may have an inner ear imbalance, and I know she has razor claws.   But I managed without too much bodily harm to myself.  She's 18 pounds.  My smaller cat is 10.5 pounds.  It's too bad I can't really get them to run along with me.

Things at work have been BUSY.  Besides being goal-oriented, I'm a procrastinator.  How's that for a combination?  Well it's not my fault that I missed days due to illness, but I suppose I could have started earlier.  I had five powerpoint presentations due last Friday.  I actually did start them right after the new year, but the rest of my job kept interfering with getting much done on them.  So I was scrambling to get them in on Friday, but I did it.  

The birds have found my bird feeder.  I have a flock of junkos that hang out in the backyard.  Randomly, a pair of cardinals shows up and a couple blue jays, some house finches and sparrows and a bunch of doves.  Yesterday I hung a thistle seed feeder out there to see if I can attract any goldfinches.  Zoe LOVES the birds.  She'll sit in the back door watching them for hours with her tail twitching.  Or if it's warm enough to let her out, she hides under the shrubs and watches them.  Like at the old house, the birds totally dis her.  They were wary at first, but now they pretty much ignore her.  She really enjoys being out there and acting like she's hunting, so I'm happy to let her.  Occasionally she'll even try a charge.  Totally useless, because she's so fat and old that the birds are so long gone by the time she reaches where they were.  It gets her up and moving though and she's happy, so it's all good.

I guess that's about it for today.  In the future I'll try to do better than one post a month.