Nice day

I will definitely post about Zoe again, as I work through my grief over her, but I thought I'd do a random post today.  It's a lovely day outside and that always raises my spirits.  Yesterday it rained all day.  I was happy for the 1.5 inches of rain, but gloomy days still depress me - right now more than usual.  So I'm happy with the sun and cool temperatures.

This first picture is Addy chilling outside.  I'm using this picture not only because I almost always post pictures of the cat-kids, but because I also wanted to show that the little pine tree was once again doing pretty well.  Because the next picture down is that little tree this morning!  I don't think it's the type of pine that normally loses all it's pine needles in the winter, although all pines shed some needles in the winter.  But it looks like it's going to lose them all this year.  I'm guessing that's because I tortured it this year.  It has nice buds covering it, at the branch tips and all the nodes along each one, so I think it will winter over and grow again in the Spring.  That last week of below freezing temps we've had has made it decide to shed it's needles for this year though.  

The peach trees' leaves are finally beginning to turn color also.  The freezing temps caused a massive color change this last week to all the leaves that normally change, including the Bradford pears and the maples in the area. A few good storms will probably take most of those leaves down.  The peaches have been hanging on to their green leaves though.  This morning finally I'm seeing some change beginning in them too. 

I also wanted to post a picture of the plant that my work colleagues sent me when Zoe died.  It's so cool that they understood what she meant to me and sent me a plant.  This is a peace lily I believe.  It has really unusual blooms, as you can see.  I hope I can keep it alive since my track record with plants isn't the greatest.  I brought in the spider plant, so it's doing okay.  The wandering Jew, I just took three cuttings from and put in water and left the rest outside.  It was really too big to bring in - and I say "was" because that big plant is DEAD.  The multiple days of freeze did it in.  

Most of my birds have left the area also.  I'm only filling the bird feeders about every 5-6 days rather than daily.  I see mostly doves out there, with a few sparrows now and then. I hear cardinals occasionally too.   

Every month or so, especially in the winter, I grow grass for the girls to chew on.  Zoe really loved it, but Addy likes it too.  This last batch I noticed that the grass was respiring and producing water!  I don't know how well the picture shows it, but there is a droplet of water at the tip of each blade of grass.  Kind of cool.  Maybe that's one of the reasons the cats like to chew on it.  

I found an album of pictures of Zoe and Addy when Zoe was a tiny kitten.  I'm working on scanning those into the computer, so I when I do the next post on Zoe I'll have kitten pictures for it.  16 years ago I didn't have a digital camera, so I have many pictures that need scanning.  So I probably won't do my next Zoe post until I get a good portion of those in.

Anyway, that's it for today.  See ya next time.