Record breaking foxtail

I was telling one of my blog buddies that I had grown the biggest foxtail grass I had ever seen in our garden this year, but was embarrassed to post a picture. I was out taking pictures of some of the gourds from the garden and I just could not resist taking a picture of this foxtail. I just wish I had had Roger come outside and stand beside it. You need to enlarge it for a better view.

I have seen foxtail all my life, but I have never seen it grow this tall. I am 5'3" tall, and it is more than a foot taller than I am. I wonder if I should save some of the seed???? Just kidding. I do need to break off a stem of it and see what the cats think about it....when I was a kid, I was always using it to play with cats.
And below are some of the gourds from my vines...I pulled them from the vines today. One or two are almost all the way dry. Roger counted and there are thirty of them. I just hope they all dry. I am not sure where I will store them once they are dry...if they dry.
This site seems to have a lot of good information about gourds. I want to make some birdhouses, and I honestly just like to look at them.

What is this?

Roger and I recently joined a local sportsman's club....there are strip pits to fish....a shooting range and deer hunting is allowed. We have been out there a couple of times checking out the place. Two or three previous photos are from there. The strip pits are really old, and around them is grown over with bushes and trees, etc.

Up on top of this little knoll, is a grassy area. it would be perfect for a house. But that's beside the point. I saw this bush up there and have no idea what it is and was hoping someone on here would know. I hope we can go back sometime this week to see if it has changed any.

And there are other things to keep a watch for. There is a family of young coons...I will post a picture of one of them in a day or two. And tell about how I got it. We have also seen turkeys, and I seen a kingfisher one day. But I was not close enough to take its picture. Roger seen mallards...so we are hoping to see more.

I really feel like our fall is not going to be pretty or last long...today is really windy and one needs long sleeves on to be outside. I still love it, but was really hoping for another pretty fall like the past couple of years have been.

Lorelei is coming after while...I need to get some things done around here before she gets here. I should not have taken off for that drive Saturday but it was just too tempting to resist. Yesterday had obligations elsewhere so nothing in my house got done. So, I am off to clean the bathroom good, and do a few other things before Bright Eyes gets here.

Time...

We went for a drive this morn...went up through part of Parke County, Indiana...it is the county next to us.  I love driving through it...several Amish families moved there a few years ago because they were running out of farmland where they were.  This is NOT an Amish barn, though.  I don't want to give the wrong impression.  I just liked it.

We did go by an Amish bulk store...mainly to buy popcorn...ended up buying a few other things as well.  I also bought some lentils...I have always heard of lentil soup so would like to find a recipe to try.  If anyone has made it before and knows a good recipe, I would be happy to hear it.  I plan to google it when I get some extra time.
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Time for the Lorelei report.  We had her all week...and we had a blast.  I don't know where to begin...I would tell it in chronilogical order but can't remember in what order the highlights of the days happened.  She started out the week really fighting taking a nap, but the last 3 or 4 days she took good naps, and 3 of those she took on me from beginning to end. 

And of those, I took two with her.  LOL  I would sit with her and get her to sleep, then move over to the couch.  She will raise up and look around about half an hour into the nap, then lay her head back down.  And 2 of those naps were for about one and a half hours.  I think Monday was a day of just one half hour nap.

Last week was a week full of giggles...about all Shelby had to do was look at her and she would giggle.  She was giggling so hard one evening that she got strangled on her own saliva.  Shelby was just walking down the sidewalk and something about it was so funny to her.  And she was laughing at Puss Puss one evening and all she was doing was wanting out the door.

When we first started babysitting her, there was some commercial on TV that had some of the song Every Morning by Sugar Ray--just a tiny bit of it as background music.  I thought there was a reaction from her then, and even went and hunted it on you tube.  Still thought it was a reaction, but wondered was it me just wanting one to be there.  I totally forgot about it till the other day.  I took her and looked it up, and the first time she heard it start, she giggled a little bit and then danced with this huge smile on her face almost all the way through it.

So I wondered was it just a fluke...so played a few other things.  No reaction.  I went back to Every Morning and got the same big smile and the dancing.  I did think and look up Lorelei by Styx....her daddy sings that to her.  She didn't pay much attention to it until this one place where the singer says LORELEI in a real strong voice and she whirled around and looked...I know looking for her daddy.

Now to the last thing I am going to tell.  At least about her...on one of the days she had a shorter nap, by the time Sarah got here, she was really needing a nap but fighting it all the way.  Her mom had held her a minute and went to get her bottles ready, and I decided she needed her diaper changed.  She did not like getting out of Sarah's sight and was just mad.  I took her in there to the bed, and even though changing her diaper almost always puts her in a better mood.  Not this time.

She started blowing raspberries and she was mad...if her mommy and daddy cursed, she would have been cussing me out. Just a totally different tone to the raspberries and the look on her face... And she was blowing spit everywhere....but she ended up getting tickled at herself and got in a better mood.  I laughed so hard that I cried...

I guess that is enough about her.  I hope you found some  of it enjoyable...we sure had fun with her.