Hurricane Ike

The storm was extremely scary and the aftermath without power for 5 days.

Purple Passion

Eggplant from life on canvas panel

Waiting for Ike

We are hunkered down, awaiting the storm. It is pretty windy, but the rain has not started yet. I don't think we are going to get the force of things until around 5 am. I am trying to decide if I should sleep on the floor in the closet (as the weather service suggests) or just go to bed and wait to be awakened by the storm and it heads into our area. I suspect we are going to get a lot of wind and tree's down. I sure hope we don't lose power. I did down load Curb your Enthusiasm to my Iphone to watch in case of power loss. Everyone took time today to do their preparation. It is so strange and such a long waiting period.

Anderson Cooper from CNN is reporting live from downtown Houston tonight. This storm is big news, and will be really bad when we see tomorrow.

Here We Go Again - Ike is Approaching

This one seems to be heading closer to our neck of the woods. Time to get ready, and hunker down.

Gus the Snake Killer

Gus the little terrier that is is, killed one of these guys that had managed to slither into our yard from the reserve behind the house. With only an iron fence between us and the great outdoors, we have various wildlife visiting from time to time.

It is a Diamondback Water Snake. Non poisonous, thank goodness for all of us. We heard a big commotion in the yard in the afternoon, with very strange sounds coming from beneath a tree. More than the usual barking at something in the woods. Tom rushed out to find Gus going at it with the snake.

I managed to get Gus and Greta(who had come out to investigate) back inside. The many dollars of dog training -"drop it" did pay off. I corralled the dogs inside, while Tom got his long reach pick up tongs to pick it up and out of the yard. We worried that it might be a poisonous snake, and that Gus could have been bitten. We quickly pulled out the Texas Snakes Field Guide. Pretty useless book, to find a quick ID or indexing for identification, especially when Tom had quickly gotten rid of the snake into the woods behind the house. I did see the "yellow underbelly" so we continued to try and figure it out. It was quite long.

Tom finally figured it out and we were releaved to learn that it was harmless although quite an adventure.

We still have not seen the armadillo that is visiting the back yard at night, turning over the soil. It probably knows not to cross over the fence until late at night. I would prefer not to run into it myself.