Family Pride plus a Variety of Photos

Before I launch into a series of posts regarding our recent mini-trip to Georgia and North Carolina, I’m going to post more recent activities and photos…some positive, some negative and some weird.

Let’s start with not only positive but proud!  As I’ve previously mentioned, our youngest grandson, Emmett, is about to graduate from High School out in Omaha.  Better yet, he was sought out by the University of Nebraska’s Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management, where annual enrollment is limited to only 45 students…and he was offered a full scholarship to sweeten the offer.  He hadn’t even applied to this special school within the University!

His mom, Amy, and dad David II, were very proud indeed as were Laurie and yours truly!  Congratulations Emmett! 

Laurie captured this photo of an Eastern Towhee rummaging around in the mulch in our yard.  They seem to be living in our bushes.  Eastern Towhees are fairly solitary, they are quite aggressive when warning off other towhees who violate their territory.  They aren’t seen as often as many other birds because they tend to look around for their food under bushes and in overgrown thickets.  They do live year around here in Tennessee but will breed as far north as southern Canada. 

This is one view of Laurie’s plant room.  The previous owners apparently decided to close in the breezeway between the house and the garage.  With both heating and air conditioning plus extensive windows facing both east and west, the room gets plenty of light and it has truly become a green space in our house.

Eureka!  For the first time ever, Laurie’s Hoyas have bloomed.  The first photo shows the budding blooms before they opened up.  They were like little packages ready to open!  These delicate and sweet smelling flowers now permeate the room.  It appears that all 4 of the Hoyas may bloom, with 2 out of 4 already showing off their flowers.  Hoya is a genus of over 500 tropical plants that are native to several Asian countries ranging from India to New Guinea.  They are also found in Australia.  Recent studies have shown that Hoya are an excellent remover of pollutants in an indoor environment. 

Laurie’s Christmas cactus obviously doesn’t have a calendar handy!  Officially called Schlumbergera, these plants naturally occur only in the coastal mountains of south-east Brazil.  Cultivation in Europe began in 1818 and by 1852 a successful hybrid from 2 separate types of this plant was created.  By the 1950’s the popularity of this houseplant had spread around the world.  

Actually, these plants can bloom at different times of the year depending on their environment.  The name, “Christmas cactus” came about in Europe where the plants were largely produced for sale in the period before Christmas.  It remains the most common name for the plant in many languages no matter what variety of the type that it is…or when it blooms.

Out for a drive in the neighborhood…and another lot and its trees bites the dust!  In this instance, it was just about a block down the street from our home.  At the end of March, 349 homes were under construction in our development with the ‘village’ being about 80% built out.  

Everywhere we drive in our neighborhood, we’re dodging contractor’s vehicles and heavy equipment parked along the edge of the roads.  It is a bit depressing… It would be nice if a couple of trees could be spared rather than doing a 'clear cut'.

We continued to cruise through our community, stunned at the number of new homes just completed, under construction or evidenced by newly cleared lots.  What the HECK!  It isn’t Halloween but some homeowner either has a sense of humor or they’re trying to make a statement of some kind… That is the biggest skeleton that I’ve ever seen and she’s quite fashion forward too!

Home ownership does bring issues that need to be dealt with.  As evidenced by the photo above, after several years of use, the straps used to support the cushions and folks using 2 of the chairs and a couch on our screened in porch had stretched to the point that we were sitting on the base of the furniture with only bad protecting our backsides.  Ouch!  Plus the seats were so low that it was hard for older folks like myself to get up out of them. 

Laurie found a local company that exists for one reason and one reason only…strap replacement for outdoor furniture.  The owner told us that he and his wife are the only employees but that they make a living just replacing straps like these… That’s quite a business niche.  The good news is that replacing the seats, 5 in total, is a heck of a lot less expensive than buying even one replacement piece of furniture.

I’ll end this post with photos of these attractive flowering plants that Laurie purchased to brighten up the front porch and entrance to our home.  Lantana is a genus of about 150 species of perennial flowering plants in the verbena family.  They are native to tropical regions of the Americas and Africa.  Lantana’s are ‘naturalized in the southeastern USA, especially in the coastal regions from the Carolinas and along the Gulf Coast.  Bees and butterflies benefit from these flowering plants…

However, some species of Lantana are invasive and they are considered to be noxious weeds in South Asia, Southern Africa and Australia.  The spread of this plant in nature is aided by the fact that their leaves are poisonous to most grazing animals while their fruit is a delicacy for many birds.  Then of course, the birds spread the seeds and more Lantana is ‘planted’.

That’s about it for now!  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave