BACK!

I am back from vacation - it went by way too fast! We spent every day either in the boat or kayaking. Of course we has plenty of time to relax too, it was wonderful! We have 30 acres of land, mostly woods, with a mobile home and a couple barns right near Lake Norfork in South Central Missouri. This was my father's home until he passed away a couple years ago, then we bought it for vacation/retirement. So beautiful there!


(Note - YOU CAN CLICK ON ANY OF THE PICTURES TO SEE THEM A BIT LARGER)

Here's a shot of Bryant Creek. We went kayaking here twice. We only had the one vehicle, so we had to paddle upstream - not so easy! In the shallow spots where the creek was running fast, we would get out and pull the kayaks upstream with a leash. It took over an hour to get "up the creek" (LOL) as far as we went, and only about 15 minutes to float back down the stream.

I like downstream.

Next year, our friends across the road said if we bring the kayaks again, they might join us in their canoe That way we can use both vehicles, parking one at either end and have a longer trip, all downstream.


Here's my DH, Hank, with one of the bass he caught. This one's pretty small, but he caught a LOT of fish and some pretty good ones, too! He lets them all go after he catches them.

Here's a (rare - since I'm always the one with the camera) picture of me near Hodgson Mill.


Then there was the wild life! I love Missouri because there are always lots of opportunities for photographing wildlife, especially the deer. This time of year there were plenty of sweet fawns running around, but SO hard to get a clear picture of! They were so young and still kind of shy, and boy can they move fast!

These are the best shots I could get! This shy one kept running off and peeking back at me through the tall sage grass.


These shots are blurry since I took them with my zoom lens through the kitchen window one morning. I kind of like the soft dreamy look to them though.



And this is as close as I could get one time when we were out in the boat. You can barely see the brown spotted backside near the top left, LOL!



I did get a few shots of some adult deer though, they are not quite so shy!






This doe was so funny - she was looking right at me, blowing and stamping her foot, then she ran off, I managed to get 3 quick shots - the last one is just her tail sticking up!







A shot of the bridge near Hodgson Mill. The water under the mill comes out of a cave, and is so cold, you can see the fog rising under the bridge.

A random shot of our tractor - it's a 1947 Farmall Cub, that my father bought and restored a few years before he passed away. I couldn't part with it, and it runs great. We still use it to mow the fields!



One day we went to the farm store to look for parts for the water heater which was broken when we arrived. I picked up some red, white and blue petunias that were on sale to put in some of the planter pots around the yard. When I grabbed the watering can, from the shelf out on the back porch, I noticed some grass and weeds in it. Then I looked closer and saw there were baby birds nesting it there! They are Carolina Wrens and SO cute!!

When we sat out on the back porch, we watched Momma and Daddy Wren sneak into the watering can at least 50 times a day to feed them. Each time we could hear the babies...cheep cheep cheep! Boy did they keep their parents busy!






Then one day the following week, Hank came in and said "The baby birds are out of the can" and I thought the wind had blown it off the shelf. But no, they had hopped out by themselves and were learning to fly! It took a few tries, but one by one, they flew down to the porch floor and then over into a lilac bush. Later on, they were all disappeared, and I couldn't help but wonder if they were all OK. I missed them! We did have another nest over the porch light, though, with a phoebe going in and out, but it was too high up to see the baby birds.





Here's another visitor, a groundhog (or woodchuck if you prefer) He's more like a tenant since he has a tunnel and lives under the mobile home. DH wanted to shoot him, saying he'd chew the wires, but I wouldn't let him. Look at that cute face!

If the wires do get chewed, I'll never hear the end of it, LOL!

I wasn't sure what kind of birds these were. Then I showed the picture to a friend at work who is an avid bird-watcher and he said they are some type of Merganser. They are probably females and maybe sitting on eggs? They were on the rocks on the side of the lake as I paddled by in my kayak.

This is a type of warbler down by the water, also shot from my kayak.




Turtles (Sliders) in our pond - notice the pond scum - yuck!

Some type of dragon fly - I like how the sun is caught by the wings!

Another backyard visitor - an opposum. Not quite as cute as the groundhog!

A Kingfisher - shot at Bryant Creek.


A damsel fly - there were 20-30 of these all flying and fluttering around these plants - so beautiful! Taken near the North Fork of the White River when we out scouting places to go kayaking one day.



A handome pair of blue birds in front of one of the birdhouses.

Another one.
Blue Heron on the lake.

A Five-lined Skink. This picture doesn't do this guy justice - the colors were incredible. He was on a log near the back porch. If you grab the blue tail, it will fall off so the lizard can escape! (I didn't touch him!)

There are three bee hives out on the back hill behind the garden. This is the second time I have seen them swarm. After reading on the 'net about bee swarms, I found out it's not really a good thing, because this means the queen bee is leaving and taking the strongest worker bees along with her to build a new nest. This leaves the bees in the hive without a queen until they produce a new one, and the hive is weakened without all the workers to produce honey. So if you are a beekeeper you would want to discourage swarming, in order to have a strong hive and harvest the honey.

I don't want to get stung by bees, so I let them do whatever they want and I get my honey at the market. :-)


I just liked this...
Scenic Vista.
Roses and Pink Honeysuckle.

I picked some and mixed it with fragrant rosemary for my friends, Evelyn and June.

Some twilight shots of the lake.





Oh I have more pictures, but these are my favorites and I am too tireed to type any more LOL!

I hope to have some new scrapstuff in my shop for next week, but I still have lots of stuff to catch up on - my poor garden is full of WEEDS, and we are out of FOOD!

Later!
Hugs,
Donna