The Most Exciting Morning!

The weathermen have been telling us for a few days that it's going to get cold. This is very exciting to me - I've always loved cold weather for some reason. You know what I like even more than cold weather? Snow! So I woke up this morning and turned on the morning news. The weatherman was on there telling us all about how it was snowing in Denton. The radar only had green (rain) showing in our area, though. I got out of bed and came into the living room where my hubby was working. He works from home on Wednesdays. I started complaining about how it was snowing in Denton, and why can't is just snow here? Then I went to the back door and pulled the blinds back to let the dog out and said "It's snowing!!!" That's right, it's snowing in Texas, and here's the proof!





It's even sticking, but it's supposed to get into the 40s later today, so it won't last long. We'll enjoy it while we can, though!

Construction

Boy, when that guy said they would be sending a construction crew to fix the main phone line, he wasn't kidding! I was sitting on the couch when I heard "beep beep beep". I thought "Is that on TV or is there a big truck backing up outside?" Here is what I saw out the back window.

I'd say a backhoe qualified the group that was out working in the alley as a construction crew! There were 5 trucks and a bunch of workers out there. They got their work done, so we are crossing our fingers that we're permanently fixed up now. That is, unless the neighbor decides to build another new fence.

Bunny Buddies

I grew up in a neighborhood full of squirrels. They were kind of cute, but they were also a nuisance. Fortunately, we now live in a neighborhood where there aren't many squirrels. Every so often, we will see a squirrel and one of us will say "Oh look, there's the neighborhood squirrel!" Sometimes it will be weeks between squirrel sightings. What we do have here is bunnies - Cute little cottontail bunnies. It was the weirdest thing to me the first time I spotted a bunny hopping around outside. A wild bunny was something I had never seen before. To this day, the bunnies outside are kind of a novelty to me, and I love to watch them.

We have a pair of bunnies that likes to hang out in our back yard. They're usually out there for a good part of the day, eating weeds and hopping around. We call one of them "Bunny" and the other one we call "Skittish Bunny". We can get pretty close to Bunny before he hops away, but Skittish Bunny darts away at the first sign of movement. This is Skittish Bunny. He's a little skinnier than Bunny.

This is Bunny. Bunny is the fatter of the pair. Hopefully that doesn't mean we will have more baby bunnies in the yard soon.

Aren't they cute? Despite the gardening challenges (don't plant pansies and petunias!), we are fond of our little friends. They try really hard to help us keep the yard mowed (haha) and they're much cuter than squirrels!

Counting our Chickens

Hello there, little chicken! You're awfully cute! Would you like to come live at our house? Oh wait - you can't. Here in our city, they have a silly ordinance that prevents us from having chickens. They aren't banned completely, but chicken owners are required to keep them at least 150 feet from property lines. Since our property is not near 300 feet wide and long, we are without chickens. That's sad! Since we are without chickens, my husband's friend from work said I could use pictures of his chickens for my blog.

The person who owns these chickens said that this little brown one is his favorite. It follows him around the yard like a little pet whenever he goes out there. It is a bantam chicken, as are all of his chickens. Bantams are smaller than standard sized chickens. Their eggs are smaller as well, but they are just as tasty! We would like some little bantam chickens of our own, to cavort around the back yard and amuse us and give us tasty fresh eggs. I don't think that's too much to ask! It's not like we want to fill up the back yard - We just want a few little chickens.

And look at the little baby chickens! Aren't they cute? Mama chicken is like "What you lookin' at?" Of course, we wouldn't be having any baby chickens, because we just want hens. No roosters here, since they're so noisy and all. I don't think the neighbors would appreciate a new and unrequested early morning rooster alarm. I wouldn't appreciate that either. My husband asked his friend what he was going to do with the baby chickens and he said "Those are your chickens." But we aren't allowed to have them! No fair!

Some of the chickens have funny heads. They have these big puffs of feathers on the tops of their heads. I don't know what they're called, but I'd love for some of them to live in our back yard. Check them out, and check out the feathers on the feet of the white one here.

We've been wanting some chickens for a while now. We talk about it all the time. We have big dreams of building a chicken tractor and bringing in some fun little hens to live in it. We'd call them "The Girls". What? You don't know what a chicken tractor is? Well, I'll tell you! It's a movable chicken enclosure. You can put it in a different place in the yard every day if you want to. It has mesh sides and tops to keep the chickens inside, but the chickens are still able to enjoy the benefits of playing around in the yard. It also keeps the chickens safe from predators while they are frolicking around in the yard. Some chicken tractors even have the coop attached, so if the chickens get tired of the yard during the day, they can go inside and hang out. That is the kind of chicken tractor we would have if we could have chickens. With the coop attached. It would be the ultimate chicken mansion! Unfortunately, we aren't allowed to have chickens, so I have no chicken tractor to show you. However, I do have some more pictures of chickens for you to enjoy!

We were talking about the chickens one day last week and my husband decided to write a letter to the mayor and the city council and request a change to what we are now calling the "Chicken Ordinance". Really, the worst they could do is say no, so it's worth a try, right? So he sent the letter and we waited. Then he said "Hey, there's a city council meeting coming up!" There is a part at the beginning of each meeting where citizens can address the council about any issue they would like. If their issue is not on the agenda for the night, they can't actually discuss making changes, but they can set a date to discuss it in the future. So we decided to go to the meeting. My husband got all his notes together and we set out on our adventure. Here he is filling out the card before the meeting so they would know he wanted to address them.

After my husband said his piece and sat back down, the mayor said that they had gotten several emails about the chickens and that it seems to be a hot topic. He said he thinks it's something that needs to be looked at, and the council set a time to discuss it. After the meeting, one of the council members motioned to talk to my husband. He chatted about chickens for a few minutes and told my husband that he grew up on a farm. We are hoping that he will push a revision to the chicken ordinance. All in all, the vibe we got from the meeting was positive. We're crossing our fingers that we will soon have chickens of our own!

Our Little Boarders

We have some little rooms out back that we rent out. All we ask in return for providing them with a happy home is to just be able to enjoy having them here. Can you see one of our boarders peeking out?

I think there were two or three babies in there at the time I took these pictures. We could only see one or maybe two little heads peeking out at one time, but I'm pretty sure I heard another little guy cheeping from the inside. The babies would peek out and say "cheep cheep" until their parents showed up with a snack. I happened to have my camera handy when the daddy bird showed up.

When one of the parents would show up with a snack, the babies went crazy with their cheeping! The parents fed them, then headed off to find more snacks. In the meantime, the babies would just stick their heads out of the hole and wait. The day I took this last picture, it was over 100 degrees outside, and I felt so bad for them! They would stick their heads out as far as they could and they had their little beaks hanging open. I'm surprised they didn't cook!

This little family has actually moved out since I took these pictures. They are the third sparrow family we have had so far this summer, and we already have another pair of birds moving twigs and scraps into the other house. I'm sure the behavior and antics of this new family will be the same as the other families we have provided homes for, but I will be no less fascinated by them than the birds who have lived here in the past. They are so simple and I have already spent many hours watching them, but they still never fail to entertain me!

We Have a New Friend

I am excited to introduce you to our new friend! We first discovered him when my hubby was out back mowing and he hopped out of some tall grass. We suspect that this little guy is hanging out under the A/C compressor, and he comes out at night to eat bugs with his gecko friends. He come up to the patio when it gets dark and the lights from the house attract lots of bugs. When we scare him, he hops over and hides under the A/C. I figure he probably likes it under there with all the condensation and whatnot. So, here he is for your viewing pleasure - Mr. Toad!

Darn Bird!

Hello there! We love birds here at our house. We have lots of bird feeders and we put out tasty seeds for them and watch them eat it. We even have binoculars so we can get a closer look at our feathered friends and enjoy their presence to the fullest extent possible. We have houses for them out back and every spring, we enjoy keeping tabs on the new little baby birds.

One particular bird has me a little annoyed, though. Well, I suspect it was a bird, but there is no actual proof. You know how sometimes the birds fly into the windows? Well, last Friday, I was all excited because I didn't have to leave for work until 10:00. I was having a nice, relaxing lazy morning. I was just relaxing in the tub when I heard a really loud "THUD". I thought "Oh goodness, that bird hit the window hard!" You see, birds have hit our windows so many times that I have gotten pretty good at identifying that sound as opposed to other sounds. Well, this ruined the relaxing bath, so I hurried to check on the poor bird that hit the window. Sometimes they end up sitting around on the ground below the window for a little while before they fly away. And then there are the poor little birds that don't recover from their collision, but we don't want to think about that, now, do we?

Anyway, back to my story. I went around the house, looking out the windows for a sad little bird. When I went into what we call the "Fun Room" (where we have the computers), I saw glass on the ledge outside the window. That's right, the bird broke the window. I was sure that if it broke the window, it would be on the ground outside looking all sad, but there was no sign of it. There also wasn't anything else out there that didn't belong. The only evidence was a broken window. Fortunately, we have those double paned windows and it only broke the outside glass, so it's not like there is a hole there that is exposing us to the elements. Still, I am not too excited about having a broken window.

Here are some pictures of the fun for your enjoyment.