My Wet And Soggy Sandarosa

This past week we had another little visitor that just hatched from the nest. 

This little snapping turtle was even smaller than the first one.

This is the first time, in living here over thirty years, that I have ever seen snappers.

I took him down to the old irrigation pond and released him.

I wonder if the two have met yet. 

It's been so wet and soggy here, we have been having an annoying issue with all the mosquitoes. We had to take down all the plants because they were hiding and breeding in there. Then when we would open the door to go into the house, they'd come right in with us. 

The caution tape is for the deer.

We put it up every night. So far it has worked like a charm.

The plants look a lot better hanging than on the ground.

We took all the hummingbird feeders down and sprayed the back of the house.

Several times.

Then we hung them back up 

for our frantic customers.

We still have hoards of hummers here in Hummer Land, but they won't be here much longer.

Anybody needing a hummingbird fix better get over here - El Pronto!!

Getting Back To Normal After Hurricane Irene

We really lucked out with Hurricane Irene. Many people in our area are still without power.

We only lost power and had to use the generator to run our sump pumps for about four hours the night before last, while they patched the electric lines on our road.

Jerry spent two days pumping water from across the street into our horse pasture to divert it from flowing further down the road and through our basement.

His efforts really paid off. The basement is starting to dry up. The sump pumps are running a little less frequently and we don't have to go down and wet-vac every hour anymore.

The bridge just up the road was flooded with about three feet of

"water over the bridge" on Sunday.

On Monday, Jerry put the plant stands back up.

We hung the flower baskets as Princess supervised.  

It took most of the morning, but we got almost everything

dug out, rearranged and hung up. 

All morning, the hummingbirds showed their delight

with loud vocalizations and synchronized, ariel displays.

Along with lots and lots of water, Hurricane Irene also brought

out a great deal of misquotes, flies, aphids and other insects.

She also brought me another unexpected visitor.

I felt a pair of teeny tiny eyes watching me from a large grey stepping stone.

It was an adorable baby Snapping Turtle coated with wood chips and debris.

He was all dried out, hot and exhausted.

Not much bigger than a silver dollar,

he must have gotten washed away from his nest far away in the storm.

I put him in a box and walked him down the road to an old irrigation pond.

He really perked up when I put him near the water and he enthusiastically jumped in.

He's a shot of his new home. I hope he likes it.