Leftovers

I really wasn't looking for a project today but the weather was just so beautiful I kind of just had to be out doing something.  January 12th and it's 73 degrees!  We'll probably have snow and an ice storm to rival January of 2011 next week. 

Last spring I put in 5 little knockout roses off the grass in the backyard.  I watered them and fertilized them and talked to them and they just tried and tried to grow.  Everytime there was an open flower the thing disappeared by next day.  New stem growth was gone as well.  I figured deer which come through the yard from time to time so I sprayed garlic and dropped some mothballs and for a while it looked like the little suckers would have a chance.  Last week while wandering around I noticed that again the new stem growth was all gone.  I figured I could fence them or put some chicken wire over them or something but all the ideas I was coming up with, or reading about, seemed kind of stupid.  Today I decided to get them out of the ground and into pots to at least stop them from being dinner.  While digging them out I noticed a nice little pile of animal poop inside the rock circle that surrounds one of the plants.  It was obvious that something was just sitting there eating and pooping and having a wonderful time.  I finished potting the plants and then did some web searching to see just what kind of poop it is.  Rabbit poop!  Stinkin' rabbit poop!  Potting them and putting them out behind the garage wasn't going to cut it because the rabbits just sit across the driveway and now I was moving the food closer.  I had to get them off the ground and that was project #2 for the day... a potted plant bench or whatever it should be called.  I had some leftover wood that I had already stained and then didn't use so I cut it up and made the bench.  I think it turned out rather nice :)

Ta da!  My nice new potted plant holding bench.

  

And from another angle, just so it's simplistic beauty can be appreciated.

And here it is in use.  I'm rather happy with it and considering I didn't have to go out to get any supplies and it only took a few hours to do, it's all the better :)

First Finds of 2013

Yesterday I went out geocaching with the specific intent of finding a couple of items known as 'trackables' in the geocaching world that I could move over to NC and put into the cache just hidden by my granddaughter.  I pulled that off without a lot of trouble at the first cache I went to and then headed out to a new park to wander in the boonies for a while to track down a couple more.  It's was a very nice location and one I've not been to before or even knew existed actually.  This geocaching is certainly getting me to identify a lot of interesting places to visit!  The place I went to was the Clinton Nature Preserve and it was very nice, and big.  Some photos and info about the place at:

http://www.celebratedouglascounty.com/view/departments/view_dept/&cdept=211&department=Clinton%20Nature%20Preserve

The park was empty on a 'winter' week day, of course, quite pretty and very quiet.  I took off and found the first cache pretty directly.  The coordinates for the second one, starting where I now was, had me off the trails and pretty much blazing a trail where none existed.  It was kind of fun and I came across some rock formations and the like that always intrigue me.  I'm always wondering just how these rocks came to be where they are.  Such as this one:

This thing is big, I'd say about 7 feet tall.  I found this particularly interesting because of the tree next to it.  The tree had to have started growing, and been pretty good size and strong, before this rock broke apart else the smaller piece would have fallen flat to the ground.  That means it broke apart not that long ago... much less than the age of the tree -- and then I just stood there wondering when and why it broke apart.  Wacky perhaps, but that's what I think about when I see things like this.   A long time ago, fall of 1970 I believe, I took a course in geology.  I remember that the course was most interesting and I enjoyed it but I can't remember anything I learned taking it.  Go figure.  Perhaps taking another geology class is in order so I can understand the things I am seeing.

These rocks are surrounding where the cache was. Again, I find it interesting that they're where they are in the first place!  I was walking down a pretty good hill to get to this location but it wasn't as though there was a massive mountain higher up where these would have come from.

 

Lastly, the walk took me across this stone 'face' or whatever the official description of something like this is.  This might have been the biggest section of this type of terrain I've ever seen although there is a smaller, although large, version of it walking out my front door and crossing the driveway.  It was obvious that water cascades over this from rain and such and I'm very glad I didn't have to walk on it when it was wet.  Thank God for small favors and another day of wandering in places I've never been to before :)