♫♫PINK SATURDAY☺PINK SATURDAY♫♫

   HERE WE ARE AGAIN!  IT IS LOVELY PINK SATURDAY HOSTED BY BEVERLY AT http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com .  Be sure to visit her to see the list of participants for today and click on their thumbnails to see their contributions!  Such a fun way to meet new bloggers!
  Today I am featuring my good Friend, RANDA'S PINK DIANTHUS.  Randa is married to my childhood friend David whom I met in kindergarten and went all through school with.  They are the most lovely Christian couple who live near our hometown of Auburn, NY, in a neighboring town.  I am so thankful for such wonderful friends!!  I am also featuring my "Pink Southern Belle".

Aren't these just gorgeous??  Randa says that that they come up a few years in a row before dying out.  These look so healthy and full, I have never, ever seen Dianthus so prolific!  Thank you so much Randa for allowing me to share your beautiful Dianthus!  These beautiful flowers are in the same family as Sweet Williams.

And here is my Pink Southern Belle.  I feature her now and then and she travels around my house where I can enjoy her in different settings.  Right now she is in my bedroom.  She was a gift from my hubby as he bought her for me in an antique shop in Charleston, SC many years ago.  I added the pearls and Crocheted hat.  One little toe of her slipper is peaking out from under the dress and she is holding up her ruffled skirt with her right hand.

She is such a dear little girl with stove pipe ringlets in her hair.  I really love her as you can tell!

Thank you so much for visiting me today and I hope you will come back soon!  And if you are a blogger, do join the group for Pink Saturday Posts and join in the fun!!

Almost Adult Canadian Geese....

The Juvenile geese came yesterday with the parents and about 8 other adults!  The juveniles had changed so much in just the few days since their last visit, I could hardly distinguish between them and their parents!!  The have gotten much more of their darker wing and tail feathers and were much larger than before!

These 3 are the babies!

Here is detail of their feathers and colors that have deepened.  The wings are still not extended to their potential full span but my goodness, they have grown!  What a treat to be able to follow this life cycle so closely from our own back yard!

This was our other visitor for the morning, a hornet on the Crown of Thorns bush blossoms!  They seem to be attracted to these blossoms particularly and I have photographed them previously last year.

   I could not capture his yellow bands on his body with my camera but it was a bright yellow.  I have identified him as a Bald-faced Hornet from his markings.  They are native to all land areas from Canada to Mexico except for the deep southwest area of the USA.

   I hope you enjoyed your visit today with our backyard critters and please comment!  We love reading your comments!  Do come back again soon!  Blessings to you!

This is a mother squirrel who has befriended our daughter that currently lives with us.  She works on computer at home in the den that looks out over our backyard and lake.  This little mama climbs the trellis outside the window and stares in at my daughter at the computer until she gives her a peanut. She comes when called and is very dear.

My heart to yours...

It's A Swan's Life!

It's a Swan Morning!

The Mute Swan family paid us a visit this morning after a long time away.  There are larger lakes and several of them in our community and the swans have their own routine of visiting the different lakes.  They always seem to remember our hospitality however and come right up to us when we go out to greet them.

There are four babies surviving from he original 6 that were born and I am surmising the turtles claimed the missing ones while they were still little and vulnerable.

  

   The parents are very proud and the young signets are quite bold now and unafraid to approach us.  I have not been able to find description of any sort regarding the plumage of distinction between male and female young.  But it is my observation that one of these youngsters has a gray bill instead of yellow and his feathers are gray, more so than that of the other siblings.  He also hissed at us and we are thinking this is a young male displaying his manly assertion-ha!

   It is interesting to note that Mute Swans are not mute, but can trumpet, hiss and make low grunting sounds when posturing and warning others.  Also, the Mute swans are not native to America but were introduced to our shores from European settlers over a century ago.

I love this photo showing the regal youngster who is eyeing us up...

   A youngster eating a piece of wheat bread from my hand. I do not recommend feeding swans from your hand unless you have been experienced with feeding large swans and they are familiar with you as they can really do damage to finger and hands when aggressive.  As in all things, you must remember that they are WILD.

Here a clumsy youngster slips on the muddy bank and falls on his back.  Not to worry, Mom just went right over to him making grunting sounds, took her big webbed foot and with one flip righted her baby!  Amazing!

   This is the youngster that I feel is a male.  As you can see, his bill is gray, almost black while all of his siblings have yellow bills. 

I hope you enjoy learning about the wildlife that frequent our back yard.  Please leave a comment and do come back to visit often as we never know what the day will bring in our little backyard sanctuary and lake.

♥KERRIE♥

My heart to yours...



Survival continues....

GOOD MORNING MY LOVELY FOLLOWERS AND NEW VISITORS!  WELCOME!

MY LOVELY LITTLE GOSLINGS AND PARENTS PAY US VISITS EVERY FEW DAYS AND I AM SO HAPPY TO SEE THAT THE LITTLE ONE WHO IS NOW VERY LARGE, THAT I SAVED LITERALLY FROM THE JAWS OF DEATH IS ALIVE AND WELL ☺
   Of course I now cannot be sure which of the 3 goslings was "the one" but as you can see all 3 are very healthy and none are limping-hurray!

Here are the little ones napping near the water.

   Thank you so much for visiting today and do come back again soon!  Do not forget to stop at http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com Beverly's to see all the Pink Saturday entries including mine!

NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN!

♥KERRIE♥

My heart to yours...

My wonderful gifts...

I was thrilled to learn I had won the give-a way from Sarah at HOPE IN EVERY SEASON.  And I was even more thrilled when I received the beautiful hand made gifts that arrived in yesterday's mail!  Inside the box was beautiful pink tissue paper with all these lovely things!

1. There was the sweetest tag with ribbon and fawn with a bluebird, a vintage bottle with tag, ribbon and beads which I loved and a lovely Lacy tag with vintage print of a little girl and bird that I can hang on a door knob or any place in the house that I would like to brighten my day!  Also, a wonderful note holder with a flower on it and 2 magnets on the back side so I can keep it on the frig or dishwasher!   

I just loved everything and so appreciate other bloggers who are so generous of their talents and time!

Thank you Sarah, I will think of you each time I see one of your lovely creations in my home!

RX: Camping-take for 2 days

HI all my lovely blog friends!  We finally got away for a couple of days in the little camper that still needs a name-ha!

Getting ready for our journey to NC, we parked the camper in the driveway.  I backed it in-ha!

All set up at KOA in Sunset Beach in NC, so now hubby is chilling out!

The lake is not large but full of fish and hubby wasted no time in throwing in his line.

And the fish were cooperating nicely even if they were not too large..  The RX is working, look at that smile!

This one was pretty good size, they put up a good fight anyhow.

Next morning he was right back over on that lake-ha!

The sunsets were gorgeous as was the weather.  We slept well with windows open and enjoyed the quiet except for large pine cones dropping on the camper every now and then-ha!

The tree canopy overhead was beautiful.

All the trees were telling a story, this one I dubbed, "Octo-root"

And here is a Red Headed Woodpecker Junk Food Junkie!  He is eating a pile of Frito's that someone did not pick up from the tenting area, tsk, tsk!

There were two large clusters of Purple Martin Gourd Houses, one at each end of the lake.  I always love to see these, I think they are so pretty...Purple Martins dine almost entirely on insects and keep the mosquito population down and we see them a lot in all the campgrounds we have visited.

This great old tree was standing there like two long legs and you could see right through it, what fun! 

And we have lived in the South for 22 yrs. now but I still get a thrill out of seeing cotton and Tobacco fields.  There was a tobacco field right next to the campground!

Yes and even wildflowers of orange in many clusters all along the lake bank.

The night before we left, a huge bus camper pulled up next to us and it was pulling an enclosed trailer behind it.  We assumed wrongly that it held motorcycles.  There were 3 men and one cooked 8 breasts of chicken on the grill.  They made toss salad and all came outside to eat.  I thought maybe they were hiding the women inside when I saw all those chicken breasts-LOL!  But no, they ate it all themselves.  Well, mystery solved the next morning as they brought tour bikes out of the trailer, 2 of the men in gear hopped on them and then the bus camper followed them out of the park!!  That is when we noticed a large sign on the back of the trailer that read, "Cycling from Main to Georgia".  All those chicken breasts were to give them protein for muscles while cycling!  So now I am wishing I was more inquisitive as there was definitely a story there--What kind of reporter am I anyway!!  But I only observed from my lawn chair.....

A good time was had by all, The RX for Camping really worked!!

Thanks for coming, come back again soon and do visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound and visit all this week's participants including Me!☺

  My heart to yours...