Here we are watering the suckers again ... 

Feminine resoning ...

I am helping in the garden and at G’s request am removing the plants growing in the cracks on the concrete stairs to the barbeque patio.  After nicely cleaning ALL the miserable little weeds from the cracks, G comes over and says “Oh, you didn’t leave some of the weeds.  You went and took them ALL out. It is so much nicer if you leave a few because then it looks like nature is fighting back and not completely losing.”  Can anyone explain how in the world I would know that this is the philosophy … allow nature to win a little?

The G spends hours removing the Suckers that grow from the tree roots all over the lawn.  However, and you will see the picture, right after removing the growths, she waters the lawn to entice the Suckers back again.  They must be really confused.  “Drink, get wacked, dring agina, get wacked again, …)

G getting rid of the Suckers 

Here's a blow-up of one. 

Military helicopter formation flying overhead. 

The garage-sale sales staff. (try saying this 3 times fast) 

Military helis in formation

N and C had a garage sale today and so G and I went to take some of our stuff along as well. They werre really organized in packing everything in organised little groups and had a ton of stuff. Spanish came in handy because there were some latinos that came along and the lady did not speak english, so N gave his sales-pitch in Spanish. I used Fanagolo-Spanish and it worked pretty well.

While we were there, a lovely formation of military helicopters flew over and I could not resist taking a picture.

My helicopter is not flying as well as the quail family. This is where it spends most of its time. 

It needs some explaining

S was planning on borrowing a tent-like cover that can be used in the garden to make some nice cool shade. yesterday, G comes to me and says that S has decided that she is not going to borrow the shade-maker and that G will have to explain this to me because I will most probably not get it. She says, "S thinks that the shade-maker will jsut not work in their garden and the way the garden looks is more important than the shade". Yes,k this is too difficult for me to understand. Hot is hot, shade is cool. The shade-maker is even GREEN for goodness sake, just like the lawn.

I can't even go and have a smoke on the front stoop either with the humming birds ... 

Seeds in the sky ... The bluebirds mess this up because they are too big. 

Family outing in the backyard 

The proud daddy 

The pellet gun at the house 

Right to bear arms ...

When I was a kid, I remember a pellet gun similar to this one. It was a much older model and belonged to my brother. I was really jealous of the gun but could use it now and again, especially on the bushveld farm when he had control of the .22 or 303 rifle. The mechaism for loading is so simple and seems to last forever. So when I saw this pellet gun in the shop, I imediately bought it. Of course, this model has a high-powered scope as well, but otherwise it is the SAME gun as the one I used as a kid ... and that was a LONG TIME AGO.
Now I have to hide the pellet gun in a cupboard because G does not really like it and I do not want it standing around when people come to visit because they will definitely think I am some sort of gun freak.

Morbid picture

That last picture was pretty terrible.  In fact. It is the picture from a previous shooting in my backyard.  So I am going to post some pictures of the quail families themselves which are much more interesting.

RIP 

Rats

I have put a nice littel trail of seeds from the back of the lawn right up to the house in an attempt to lure the quail chicks to come right up to the house so that I can see them. I belive there is some sense of parenthood if they are really close. Last year when I put out seed, some rats came out of the garden and started eating the seeds.

Lo and behold! This afternoon I saw a cheeky rat sitting right in the center of the lawn eating the seeds I so nicely put out for the quail. Meanwhile, the little quails were looking on with longing but too scared to come over.

I found my trusty pellet gun, quietly opened the kitchen window, took aim, and shot the rat. It was a reasonable shot but the rat was twitching a bit. G said to me that I should go and pick it up because it is not dead yet. Right!

I loaded the gun with another pellet and shot again. That took care of it. Then I had to find a plastic bag, pick up the dirty rat and discard it.

I hope those quail appreciate all this effort.

Feed the animals

Decided the two quaail families in the backyard need some extra food. I went off to Home Depot to buy some tools and found that they have bird food too. They have everything else of course.

There was a nice old gentleman moving the barbeques away from the birdseed obviously also wanting to buy some. So I said to him, "Do you also have some birds in your yard that need food?".
"Yes", He said. "I want to get a big packet of this kind of bird seed but they only have these smaller packets. I have a bunch of quail in my backyard."
"Yes, I also have some quail and I want to give them something to eat because they have babies", I said.

The old guy with hsi nice gray hair turned to me and said, "I feed them each summer, and then I shoot them."
I was completely shocked. While I was standing there thinking of a response, he said, "I have one of those pump-action air-guns, and I like to shoot them, see. I feed them, and then I shoot them."

Wel the old man wandered off with his packet of wild bird seed, and left me there selecting my bird seed and thinking that those quail of ours are damn lucky that this old man doesn't also want to shoot them.