Backyard Frozen Food...And This And That!

       The backyard looks all calm, and just like it does every day, doesn't it?!...until you look at it close! We're in the midst of a kind of storm, of sorts, that's dropping freezing rain all over the place...

      I feel bad for the little birdies! They're gonna have to chip their little beaks to death this morning, piercing through the frozen food (suet)...

       I have to say though, it sure looks pretty close up! :-] ...

     Hubby got such good shots of the little frozen droplets on the tree branch, didn't he?! :-)

      Speaking of frozen...I'm thinking about the parents, teachers and first responders in Newtown Connecticut this morning. I'm sure their lives are feeling a little frozen in time today, with the first burials of the little Sandy Hook Elementary School students happening...Six year olds! :-(

       Do you remember being six?!!...

(Photo/Sticker Calendars from ComfyCozyKeepsakes)

      I was recently reading a child development tracker on the PBS Parents website about what you can generally expect when your kids are six...It's hard to think that twenty children's creative and wide-eyed development was just snuffed out in an instant of a crazy morning...My thoughts go out to all of the relatives, friends, acquaintances, and all of those affected...especially the teachers...

(Adult T-Shirt from PersonalTouchShirts)

      In completely other news...something to smile about :-) ...my husband spent the weekend cooking! ^_^ He made homemade chilli with beans...spaghetti with hamburger...a chicken sautee' with celery and butter...lemon squares....and a cheesecake!! :-)

      Most of it you don't wanna see...trust me on that one! LOL There's nothing photogenic about beans and chilli or sauteed chicken and celery!! ^_^ And lemon squares aren't that much better!....but I tried with them!...

       See what I mean?! O_O

       But when they came out of the pan, and were actually cut up into squares...even though hubby had forgotten to get powdered sugar to dust over the top of them, they looked pretty good! :-)

      We puckered our way through a couple of them ^_^ but I think we're done! *smack! smack!*...They were sooooo lemon-y that even hubby wasn't impressed with his own cooking! LOL...Not of the lemon squares anyway!

     He was highly impressed with everything else!...including the half pineapple/half cherry cheesecake he made! :-) ...

    ...although photographing it didn't go so well! LOL...Uhhhh....I think he needs to stick to frozen droplets on tree branches! :-)

      I did have some other stuff to share with you, but I'll wait until tomorrow. My stomach is growling at me! ^_^ Have a good day, everybody. Take a moment today to remember being little...and six.

When Jeff Was A Boy

He had an orange bicycle
that he rode all over town;
A banana-seated 'Stingray',
and its handle grips were brown.

At 12, to make some cash,
he had a great big paper route.
He'd either walk or ride his bike.
Come rain or shine, he would go out.

He had a fast-red wagon
he pretended was a car.
He hauled everything in sight,
from sister's dolls to dirt-filled jars.

He played little league football,
basketball, kick soccer too.
Despite his having asthma
(which his coaches never knew).

He had lots of toys to play with-
matchbox cars and small 'Hot Wheels',
'Pick-up Sticks' and building blocks,
and model planes, which gave him thrills.

All his responsibility
was to take 'Skippy' out to run.
That's all his dog and him would do.
This made his childhood lots of fun!

Now he's older, likes to stroll,
and grow his garden in the yard;
Doesn't hanker for his boyhood.
Doesn't wanna play that hard! 

Meet..."The Intimidator"!

(Hummingbird Watercolor Print by DeanCrouserArt)

       ♫ 'This is a story 'bout a man named Jed. Poor mountaineer...' ♫.....Okay. No its not!...This is a story about "The Intimidator"...A man referred to as 'brother' by his fellow worshipers....

            ...as 'Bae' by his loving wife...and as "Mr. J" by the neighborhood kids...Or, should I say, by SOME of the neighborhood kids! The neighborhood kids who weren't in his yard the other day, throwing stuff and trying to bother his property! O_O

       Here's the story: The weather has been teasing us in our area. One day it's hot. The next day it's chilly. The next day it's raining. The next day.....you get the drift. But somehow here lately there were three or four really nice days strung all together! :-) And hubby was getting antsy about getting in the yard and digging something up...planting something....hanging something up!...

       And so he did!...He toodled around the yard removing dead branches, pruning, straightening, etc. And once he took the dead branches off of my former hummingbird tree....*moment of silence...;'_';...*he realized that there was an area still left there where he could hang the hummingbird feeder! :-)

       So, off he went to make homemade hummingbird nectar......Shhhhh! I didn't bother to tell him that it was waaaay too early for hummingbirds. When a man has a dream...and a hummingbird feeder...who am I to burst his bubble! ^_^

           And therein lies  the problem...there are other 'man-children' in the neighborhood. Other 'man-children' with too much time on their hands too...and a dream. A dream of hitting something colorful with a rock...or stealing it to use for target practice somewhere else! O_O

       

          And this is when "The Intimidator" felt  the strong need to make a showing...

             ...Yeah. You can probably tell from looking at this picture of him where this story is going! ^_^ But anyway!....From the window he could see that the kids were too enamored with his feeder. They kept going back and forth in front of it, staring at it...Then, because I was the one in the room at the time, out of the corner of my eye I saw something whiz past the feeder. It was either a rock or a stick or something! O_O ...I told "The Intimidator" what I saw.

      He went over to the window and saw one of the kids, with a stick, swinging at his feeder!!...Grrr!...Just seeing him in the window, he thought, would be enough to scare the kid off. But the kid kept right on swinging!...Then he realized the kid couldn't see him. Our windows are tinted. (When the sun is up you can't see in them from outside!)

        So he SNATCHED the blind up really fast!!..."The Intimidator"!!!...

        (Vinyl Decal by CustomSilhouettes)

       

           ...and the kid went running! :-] ...Just exactly what "The Intimidator" knew he would do!....Then hubby went outside and said to them: "You don't be touching people's property!!! If you touch it again I'm gonna chase you!"......O_O Huh?!...He says he was at a loss for words.....Yeah. I can see that! ^_^ How intimidating is a 50 something year old man chasing two eleven or twelve years olds?! O_0 

        Apparently they thought..not much!...because hubby looked out the window and saw the same kid back again....and staring at his feeder, trying to figure out how to get to it! When he saw the kid climbing over the tree, trying to actually take the feeder down....THAT WAS IT!!!..."The Intimidator" went back outside!....The kid saw him and ran to the other side of the yard where his friend was.

       Hubby stood in the yard and pulled out his cell phone...

(Long Sleeve T-Shirt by DancyCreations)

        ...The kid saw him and yelled: "What are you doing?!"...Hubby, in his angry 'intimidator' voice said: "I'm calling the police!!"...

(Metal Art Sculpture by 518workshop)

         Then the kid, to hubby's surprise, actually looked scared!!!...

 (Finger Puppet Trio by crochetbylauren)

       He said: "Who calls the police on a kid?!!".....Hubby said: "I do!"....Then the kid said: "The other kid dared me to touch it!...I didn't hear what you said the first time!...I'm sorry. I won't do it again."....

 (I'm Sorry Card by maracaseyshoots)

             

           ...Success!.....Intimidation worked! :-))

        Great!...."The Intimidator" was born...and considering the results, I fear he's gonna be around all summer. I say this because since that incident two days ago, we've had a couple of other incidents of kids sauntering through the yard. And each time "The Intimidator" had to go outside to make sure they kept moving and didn't get anywhere near his feeder!...Grrrr!

        So far "The Intimidator...one!.....Neighborhood kids....zero! ^_^ I hope it stays that way. Otherwise "Mrs. Intimidator" might need to look through her medical books to find out what to do for big knots getting put on her husband's forehead by a flying rock! LOL...Aargh!

When Jeff Was A Boy

He had an orange bicycle
that he rode all over town;
A banana-seated 'Stingray',
and its handle grips were brown.

At 12, to make some cash,
he had a great big paper route.
He'd either walk or ride his bike.
Come rain or shine, he would go out.

He had a fast-red wagon
he pretended was a car.
He hauled everything in sight,
from sister's dolls, to dirt-filled jars.

He played little league football,
basketball, kick soccer too.
Despite his having asthma
(which his coaches never knew).

He had lots of toys to play with-
matchbox cars and small 'Hot Wheels',
'Pick-up Sticks' and building blocks,
and model planes, which gave him thrills.

All his responsibility
was to take 'Skippy' out to run.
Thats all his dog and him would do.
This made his childhood lots of fun!

Now he's older, likes to stroll,
and grow his garden in the yard;
Doesn't hanker for his boyhood.
Doesn't wanna play that hard! 

An Old Bike and an Old Memory

      I know it's kind of an odd photo to be sharing as my header picture, but it perfectly depicts my subject matter today...It has to do with what I mentioned yesterday about what hubby was doing when I woke up from my nap.
       His mom, in preparation of trying to get things in order so she can move out of their family home, has been calling all the siblings and saying: "If you want......you better come and get it before I sell it!"...Hubby got a call about this bicycle.

       It was a childhood bicycle of his father's. It's a J.C. Higgins bike.

      When hubby brought it from his mom's house it didn't look like this though! It was all in pieces...all except the seat section. That was intact. But as any J.C. Higgins aficionado will tell you, it's not vintage to the bicycle!!...Seriously?! An orange banana seat?!! ^_^

     Hubby started laughing when he saw the seat part because he recognized the seat from a bicycle that was his as a kid! Apparently his father had been 'tinkering' in the basement again!! LOL {If you knew his father you'd be rolling on the floor laughing right now!}
       But considering that some of his father's previous 'tinkering' resulted in a mattress on the roof of the garage, and a bunch of paint cans inside the garage with....'who knows what' in them...but NOT paint!! O_0...he figured that an orange banana seat on an old vintage bike wasn't all 'that' bad!!! ^_^ But, trust me, it doesn't belong on there! Look at all of these J.C. Higgins bikes. Not a banana seat in the bunch!....'Bunch'. Get it?! ^_^

      Anyway!...Hubby decided to spend part of his time,...after fiddling around with the sunflowers,...putting the bicycle back together. He was told that it might be worth some money...a few hundred dollars. After getting a close look at it,....Uhhhh...I'm not sure I think so! But I'm gonna share this Old Bike Blog site I found with him though. It appears to have some comprehensive info for J.C. Higgins bike owners, or people with questions anyway.

        I wasn't gonna show you 'every bit' of battered and beat up section of it, but just in case there's a J.C. Higgins expert out there somewhere that wants to see it....here you go!! ^_^

         Hubby thinks this thing is the next best thing to baked bread!!! :-))

        No....seriously!! He thinks it's as good as,...if not better than...baked bread!! ^_^ He even likes it with the banana seat on it!!

        That's why when I opened my eyes from my nap and looked out the window, this is what I saw....

         A grown man...riding his 'newly put together', orange banana seated, old J.C. Higgins bicycle...

       ...back and forth...around and around the backyard! :-)

      He was so happy that he actually got it working!....^_^ ...Somehow I think the chances of him selling it, at this point, are about as likely as us buying a baked bread company!! ^_^

 When Jeff Was A Boy

He had an orange bicycle
that he rode all over town;
A banana-seated 'Stingray',
and its handle grips were brown.

At 12, to make some cash,
he had a great big paper route.
He'd either walk or ride his bike.
Come rain or shine, he would go out.

He had a fast-red wagon
he pretended was a car.
He hauled everything in sight,
from sister's dolls to dirt-filled jars.

He played little league football,
basketball, kick soccer too.
Despite his having asthma
(which his coaches never knew).

He had lots of toys to play with-
matchbox cars and small 'Hot Wheels',
'Pick-up Sticks' and building blocks,
and model planes, which gave him thrills.

All his responsibility
was to take 'Skippy' out to run.
That's all his dog and him would do.
This made his childhood lots of fun!

Now he's older, likes to stroll,
and grow his garden in the yard;
Doesn't hanker for his boyhood.
Doesn't wanna play that hard!