My Milkshake Brings All The Dogs To The Yard & My Citrus Brings All The Nature To The Yard.

On February 21, 2023February 20, 2023 By SuzIn As blogged by Suz44 Comments

Peanut has a trainer that comes once a week and we’ve been working on Sit (she’s got it!), Stay (she’s about 50%), and down (about 25%). My goal is for her to have good manners; like not jumping up on people, going to her ‘place’ when she needs to be out of our business, not eating our shoes or my plants and not yanking my arm out of the socket while on the leash. You know, just behave nicely like my other children.

Other than the above commands, I’ve been working feverishly on getting her house trained. She is very food motivated (same girl, same) so I reward her with tiny treats when she potties outside. I hate to admit this, but she does have the absolute worst habit of eating her own poop. I know. I can hardly stand to share that with the general public because it’s embarrassing…but this girl came from weird circumstances and this behavior is not unheard of, but it’s new for us. We have to be diligent to catch her when she has a number two or else. To quote Brittney & Katy: Oops, I did it again! I ate my poop and I liked it!

Gag. Bleh.

I always have a poop bag and some treats on me when we’re outside (which is a lot!) so I’m ready for number one or two. 😉 Occasionally, I’m wearing a skort or workout pants that don’t have pockets, so I tuck the poop bag in the waist of my daily uniform. To be perfectly clear, because I know you people, the poop bag that is tucked in the waistband of my pants IS clean and empty.

But, where does a diligent Dog Mom carry dog treats when she has no pockets? DUH, you simply tuck a few little kibbles in the top of your sports bra like a normal person.

C’mon. I’m sure some o you have kept worse things in your bra…

If My Milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, imagine if they knew I had cookies too!

*Peanut, exhausted from being alive on Monday.*

Fun fact: It was after our third training lesson that we realized that my dog trainer actually dated Lolo several years ago. My dog trainer pondered on this for a few minutes and then said: Is it weird that I dated your daughter?

Me thinking it wasn’t until he asked: Well, NOW IT IS!

Do you ever watch the CBS’s Sunday Morning News? It’s the only news I ever watch because it’s mostly Special Interest Pieces and they always end the program with a minute of Nature.

I’ll end this post (and maybe cleanse your brain) with a moment in Suz’s backyard. Our lime tree is full of blooms. The monarchs, bees and a few little birds are loving it all.

Now that the The Cookies In My Bra technique has come to light, are you embarrassed to know me?

XOXO

Georgia Updates: The Hydrangea, The Dead Trees, Look Who’s Still Hanging Around, A Wedding and a First For Me Butterfly.

On October 25, 2022October 25, 2022 By SuzIn As blogged by Suz31 Comments

When was the last time I shared some of my favorite’s from the house in Georgia? I figured after sharing hurricane news and the loss of Callie, it was time to ‘lighten up’ around here.

The Hydrangea

Our front door hydrangea is almost obscene. I’d asked our *landscape guy about moving it away from the house because it is crowded and he claimed that we had the best hydrangea in the ‘hood…probably because the deer can’t get to it. So, there it stays, crowded by the house.

*One of my favorite things about the GA house is that there is very little yard work. We have a service that comes by every other week and blows the driveway, decks and patios to remove leaves/fallen debris. When we need mulch, they will deliver and spread. No grass to mow. No trees to trim. Everything is au’natural.

The Hanging Chad. Still hanging in there.

Dead Trees.

This makes us very sad. There are ~~2, 3, 4, 5~~, 6 dead oak trees on our 1 acre property. In this hood, you have to get approval to remove trees as they are worshiped here. (as they should be) Apparently there is some sort of Asian Beetle that is making it’s way through North Georgia and hitting oak trees. One of the trees is at least 120 years old. (little video from our bedroom window of three of the trees marked that will be taken down)

Whoops. That wasn’t very uplifting, now was it?

The Wedding We drove from our place in North GA with Don and Kelly to attend a wedding two weekends ago. We stayed at a nice hotel in Chattanooga, but the wedding venue was located at the top of a mountain at the crux of GA, TN and AL. Talk about views!! The wedding was for two of our Nashville songwriter friends; they are a lovely couple and it was of fun to see their relationship blossom from the beginning to the end.

I mean, to their wedding day!

They are smitten kittens and it’s lovely to see people in love, right? They have a lot of connections and the groom is very close friends with one of my favorite musical talents and I was expecting him to be there and let him meet Coach and I, but apparently he had an event of some sort. I won’t mention his name, but it rhymes with Rarius Ducker.

The Butterfly Whisperer

We spent the afternoon in Chattanooga prior to the wedding. Kelly and I were walking down a busy city street in search of some Retail Therapy when I spotted a butterfly, on the ground, flitting around. I could tell it was having issues and after a few tries I was able to get it to hop onto my finger, then I carried it over to a bushy/flowery area away from the road. I’d realized after I set it down that it was a Viceroy; which almost looks like a Monarch.

Ya’ll, I’d never seen one in real life and here I just had a personal interaction with one! Ok, maybe that is more exciting to me, but this is my blog!!

We’re back home in hot, humid Florida and back to reality.

Has anyone else experienced an obscene hydrangea or rescued a butterfly from a city street?

I Like Big Checks And I Cannot Lie, Twinning, and A Spidey Upside Down Smacker.

On July 29, 2022July 29, 2022 By SuzIn As blogged by Suz29 Comments

We had a quick jaunt to the East Coast this past weekend; a mere 20 hours that included giving away some big checks, visiting with our amazing friends and driving through our old stomping grounds.

Boy have things changed. The high school the Coach and I both attended used to be in the middle of Crack Town. Since we’ve left, it’s all cleaned up and seems to be such an affluent area now. We were all: Man, I remember seeing drug deals going down right where the Cheesecake Factory now resides.

GIVE IT AWAY, GIVE IT AWAY NOW

Remember our Songwriters for Vets event we had in June? Well, I say ‘we’, but I’m a teeny, tiny cog in the machine that my husband is driving. Anyhoo, the money was counted and we were able to give a good amount to two different Veteran charities.

I’m getting gas and groceries tomorrow, so I’m gonna need another one of those checks.

Doppelgänger

Linds was assisting a friend in looking for a rescue pup earlier this week and sent this pic (left) to me stating this dog was at Domestic Animal Services and it’s Lillie’s twin.

I mean, it kind of looks like her, but it’s weird seeing ‘her’ with two ears. I knew the dog looked familiar and not just because of Lillie. The day before I saw this dog on our local lost/found dogs FB group.

*Don’t you hate it when dogs just ‘wonder’?*

I.do.not.need.another.dog.

That being said…

I could.not.stop.thinking.about.this.dog.

But Thank you Baby Jesus because when I looked today, he’s been picked up by his owners.

*phew* *wipes beads of sweat off forehead* *bullet dodged*

Upside Down Nature Porn

I’m so happy I threw that butterfly post together on Monday; you seemed to like it.

You like me, You really, really like me!

I was out perusing the yard yesterday when I saw two Monarchs fighting.

Then it dawned on me, they’re not mad, they’re fighting like a couple in love. ❤️

I know it’s not polite to watch, but I was mesmerized and this reminded me of something.

No, not my honeymoon.

Something else…

And then it dawned on me!

Raise your hand if you felt this was a was a cringy moment then AND now.

So, have you seen any nature porn lately? Goodness, I wonder how many weirdos who will find my blog now that I typed porn twice.

Wait, now I wrote it THREE times!

Someone, help me stop the madness.

XOXO

In Which I Share My Butterfly-ing Method With You. AKA: Welcome To Monarchs 101

On July 25, 2022July 24, 2022 By SuzIn As blogged by Suz, In the land of butterflies30 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve graced your presence with butterflies. Did you miss them?

*Do you see the second monarch? twinning!*

It’s been a challenge to save the ~~world~~ butterflies while traveling so much. I became busy. Life got in the way. I became distracted.

What was I talking about?

Oh, yeah! Last week I was checking on the irrigation near one of my Giant Milkweed plants when I noticed my biggest nemesis: an effing wasp who was trying to eat monarch caterpillars. It’s what they do.

At that moment, I could not recall where my electric swatter was, so I did the next best thing: I took off my flip flop and proceeded to chase the bastard away from the caterpillars. He got away and I knew he would be back as soon as I was out of sight.

*raises fists in dispair*

I gathered as many caterpillars as I could save and brought them in for safe keeping. Apparently if I don’t control nature, bad things happen. I’ve not been collecting them since we’ve been gone so much. I can ask my house/dog sitter to do a lot of things for me, but feeding and cleaning up after caterpillars might be over the top.

I easily fell back into my old routine: delivering fresh food to them daily; Uber eats without the extra fees.

BABIES

Do you see those little tiny black spots? Those are eggs that are close to hatching. When the egg is first laid, it’s whitish-yellow and get’s darker as it progresses.

**Fun fact:** When the baby hatches, its first meal is its shell. Which is the equivalent of a human baby eating its amnionic sac. Which is probably better than your toddler eating processed chicken nuggets.

SPEAKING OF POOP

Caterpillars poop A LOT. It’s generally dark green from the milkweed leaves; their poop is little blobs that are small for the tiniest of cats, but get larger as they grow. I was feeding them some purple flowers from my Giant Milkweed and I noticed the cats eating the flowers had purply poop. Science ya’ll.

I knew that telling you this would enhance your life greatly.

SKIN YA’LL

Did you know that monarch caterpillars molt five times in their life cycle? They’re so efficient that when they shed their old skin, they EAT it. The molting process takes about 18-20 hours.

*This guy and his old skin. He’s contemplating on which end to start eating first. Choices elude me too buddy. .* .

When they grow out of their skin, they also grow out of their FACE (cap).

I often find old face caps laying around. You too?

Just like humans, caterpillars have personalities. Sometimes when I pick one up, they’ll crawl all over the place (while leaving a silk trail on my skin in case they fall) and some will just shut down, curl into a ball and wait for me to put them down.

Another Fun Fact: Here in hawt Florida, we have butterflies all.year.round. There is no migrating for My Monarchs, as they love the weather.

The other day I went to add in some fresh food after someone contacted me via my Milkweed Eats app and I noticed this guy was getting ready to create his chrysalis. Please admire this sped-up video because I thought I might need an arm transplant from holding the damn phone for so long.

Ok. Sorry. That was a lot of movement. If you now have debilitating vertigo, please do not contact a lawyer. I swear, I thought I was moving in SLOW MOTION while using Time-Lapse.

Here is the shed skin that I often find after they create their chrysalis.

Now that I think about it, these guys are slobs. They poop everywhere and leave their skin and faces for me to clean up as if I have nothing else to do.

Once the chrysalis has hardened, (at least 24 hours later) I’ll spritz it with some water to loosen up the silk and move the chrysalis to a more convenient-for-me-to-release spot. (I use an old styrofoam cooler; I pin the chrysalis by their silk into the side of the cooler and cover with cheese cloth)

*Monarch chrysalis on left, Queen chrysalis on the right*

{BTW: Moths create cocoons, butterflies create chrysalis. When I hear someone refer to a butterfly coming out of a cocoon, I want to gently poke them in the eye with a spoon.}

In 9- 10 days, they will eclose; generally in the morning and I’ll release them in the afternoon IF it is dry and sunny. If it’s a stormy day, I’ll keep them contained as they don’t eat for the the first 24 hours anyway.

This is a Queen Butterfly, before and after. They are very similar to monarchs; they eat the same food, create the same chrysalis and have the same lifecycle, but for some reason there isn’t the same amount of hoopla over them.