stubbed toes and mud pies

[flowerbug]

had a last minute request to go out and pick about a bucket of tomatoes to give away right before Mom wanted to leave. um, give me some heads up there Momma! well, luckily there were enough tomatoes to pick that were not too dirty as the rains we had were gentle and didn't splash much dirt around. got them picked and brought in and washed and dried on time. there's still some out there that might be ok, but a lot of the ones that are left are split or marked and starting to spoil.

we also had some already inside on the counter getting ripe and being MREs (meals ready to eat). a few were also starting to spoil so i had parts of those for dinner - turned them into an approximation of lasagna flavors without any meat involved and then put cottage cheese on them.

 

[flowerbug]

recent good things... i saw a nice sized toad in the bean patch as i was finishing up picking Thursday. we've not seen too many toads around so i'm glad that there was at least one. i've also seen several frogs which also we don't see too many around.

and then also the Blue Jays have returned for their usual haunts and they will be around until next spring. their squeaky wheel calls are always amusing to me as the other calls of our regular birds decline as some migrate further south for the winter.

between Jays and Cardinals it is colorful out there.

just a few minutes ago i took pictures of the window above the kitchen sink where both a Praying Mantis and a Tree Frog were crawling around eating bugs. one of the pictures has both of them in it and it is good enough to post, but in the past i'd never seen a Praying Mantis active at night in any way at all. i've also not seen as many Praying Mantis or Tree Frogs around either so it lifts my spirits to see them any way they are to be found.

 

[flowerbug]

the next morning (yesterday) the praying mantis was still on the window so i got some better pictures and then a bit later went outside to take another picture or two. also saw the tree frog trying to blend in a corner (not very successfully i might add, p.s. i probably spelled that wrong - i just doubled up letters hoping they were right but you know what i meant)... got a few pictures of the frog too then. so now i'm facing the quandary of putting pictures in which place (maybe both will be required?) because i have a page for bugs and another page for critters but not the combination... the good thing though about doing a web page of your own design is that you can put the picture in one place and reference it from as many places as you'd like. so... eventually... both it will be... but not tonight.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Can’t wait to see some mantis and frog pics. They are both my fav lil critters .