who ate the grape?

Rickey did.......Rickey ate the grape!  Here are some pics of him waiting on a fence post for his morning grapes.  When I wake up in the morning and come downstairs, the first thing I do is start some coffee and get Rickey's grapes ready for the day!

the resident curmudgeon

This is Rickey.  He showed up last fall and stayed the winter with us.  We name any wild bird or animal that stays more than two weeks.  Once we had a ring-necked pheasant that hung out on our property for a couple of weeks......we named him (or maybe it was a her?) Buck Russell.  Anyway, we feed Rickey fruit......lots of fruit!  Grapes, apples, oranges and bananas.  He prefers grapes over any other food.  Red ones in particular.  He will munch out on green ones and, occasionally a purple one, but he really seems to like the red ones.  We stock up on grapes when they're on sale and I freeze them so we never run out.  Mostly I stick them on tree limbs in Rickey's favorite tree and he will nosh all day long.  Recently I've been able to toss them out the window and he'll fly up to retreive them getting as close as a couple of feet.

I also fixed up one of those cute little birds nest helpers using leftover pieces of yarn and embroidery floss.

old man winter

It doesn't seem like Winter is ready to leave anytime soon.  We had nearly 8 inches of snow over the last couple of days.  It's cold and blustery and, well, just downright yucky outside!  The birds need extra attention when the weather is bad so I made up a little orange bowl filled with chopped fruit.  When Ubie and I built our house nearly 15 years ago, there wasn't a single bird around here.  Not a one.  It was so quiet that it was kind of eerie.  We've been feeding them steady for years now and I am happy to say that we have lots of birds!  Hearing them sing all day puts a smile on my face!

About me

I've finally decided to join the 21st Century and start a blog!  I've wanted to for a long time, but, well, life just has a way of getting in the way if you know what I mean.  Anyway, I'm here now and I hope you'll come back often and see what I am up to!  What's my story?  Well, I am married to a kind and generous man, henceforth known as Ubie (pronounced Uh-bee).  It started out years ago as hubby, shortened to hubs, then went to hub, then to ub, and, finally I ended up settling on Ubie!  Ubie and I live in central Indiana on a small piece of land, about 5 and a half acres, where we like to grow things.  We always have a large garden in the summertime.  We grow sweet corn, green beans, tomatoes, lots of tomatoes, okra, peppers, herbs, cucumbers, peas, muskmelons, watermelons and pumpkins.  Last year I taught myself how to can.  I was able to "put up" one jar of pickles.  Yep, one jar.  Cost me $104.00.  They were the best $104.00 jar of pickles I ever tasted!  Ubie loved them too!  We had a really bad hail storm and lost most of our garden.  Four inches of hail, as a matter of fact.  Oh, and we had an extreme drought right after that.  We're keeping our fingers crossed for a bumper crop this year!  We have peach trees and plan to add blackberries, strawberries and blueberries this year.  We've also decided to go back to mostly raised bed gardening.  I'll be making my own and taking lots of pictures along the way.  We have 2 dogs, Breezy and Sammy, and one nutty mockingbird named Rickey.  More about him later!  I enjoy landscaping and am a Master Gardener.  I'm also a DIY'er and like to work with paper.  I like to cook and entertain.  I try to live a simple life.  Please come back and visit me anytime!