THE CEMETERY, AGAIN

Several of my yahoo groups have been talking about cemeteries, cemetery upkeep, cemetery plants, cemeteries as places to spend time, tombstones, genealogy and things like that lately. After having lunch at Chisholm with Lydia today, Shabree and I went out to the cemetery. I finally got those painted pvc pipes hammered into the ground on most of the family graves. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring flowers to put into them. But I'll do that soon. I intend to go out when it's cooler and do some on site sketching.
You can see the pipes in this photo. One is holding flowers that were already there.
And the poor half-dead bushes that are to the left, in the photo, of the first two tombstones are the ones we took the cuttings from that I am trying to root. So far, no luck, but the 'stick' is still relatively 'green', so I haven't given up yet. They aren't blooming in the photo, although they were in April. This drought has been really bad and I guess the couple of good rains we have had since, were not enough to change the look of these bushes. I'm guessing my grandmother planted them. They are good hardy native varieties, so they will last until the drought ends, I think.

I'M NO PAULA DEEN...OR GEORGE RODRIQUE EITHER, FOR THAT MATTER...

I kept Mathieu all day today. We worked puzzles, did art, played 'Jumping for Gizzards' with Coconut, who will jump through a hoop for those tasty treats, spent time outside, and played hide and go seek. I especially like his version of that last game. I stretch back in the recliner, while he runs off, hides somewhere, then immediately comes running back to excitedly announce, "I was hiding behind the bed!!!". He and Shabree played Barbies for awhile, although their visions of the action differed greatly. Then he accosted her with the large plastic crocodile.
While he played outside, I trimmed several monsterously overgrown bushes, the low hanging branches of the anagua tree, and tried to cut as many of the tree's suckers as I could. I really need to buy an ax, I guess, to get them better.
He looked through a couple of my art books, but wasn't impressed with The American Art Book that I got yesterday at Barnes and Noble. He much prefers George Rodrique's Blue Dog Man. Apparently Coconut does too.
Both kids helped me make Chuck's birthday dessert - a bread pudding made from Krispy Kreem doughnuts, sweetened condensed milk, fruit cocktail and more. Shabree and I watched Paula Deen make it on her tv show the other day. I just now remembered - I forgot all about the Butter-Rum Sauce that was supposed to top it. Oh, well...it didn't need it. It was good, but not all THAT good. And the two dozen K.K. doughnuts that went into it were about $14, I think. Plus all the other ingredients. Definately not THAT good. If you want to see the recipe, go to Paula Deen's website. Yeah, hers wasn't as flat and burnt-looking as mine, but I used a bigger pan than she did, and even though it was too dark, it didn't taste burnt at all.

AUTUMN SALAD WITH SUMMER FIGS

I made three new recipes tonight for dinner. This was a truly monumental task for me, because while I am not the greatest or most avid cook, and rarely do I make more than one new dish per month, if even that, I did this during and while recuperating from a triple grandchild marathon. ... I have no problem whatsoever with creating run-on sentences, however.

This is Brandi poised to get a fork full of the delicious Autumn Salad. I scribbled down the recipe a few years ago from Texas Provencial Kitchen on PBS. I guess it is called Autumn Salad because of the Granny Smith apples in it. But it has figs too, which are being picked now in South Texas. No figs in autumn. This was a big hit with Chuck, Shabree and I. We all had seconds or thirds. It is an odd combination - one that seems strange to your taste buds at first, but then grows on you. REALLY grows on you. It's something we'll be craving tomorrow. The other recipes were good too - Faux Fried Mushrooms (recipe from my online friend, Fidget) and a Baked Chicken Breast dish with a soup, white wine and sour cream sauce.

Zach spent the night last night, and he and Shabree were up until 2am. They slept late this morning, but not as late as I would have liked. We went to Beeville around noon and got some groceries and then went through the drive-through window at Jalisco Taqueria to get orchatas and a licuado. We'd gone to Goodwill too, but didn't find anything we needed. Chuck brought Mathieu over to join the fray when we got back.

AUTUMN SALAD

Mixed Field Greens
6 Slices Bacon, Fried, Crumbled
1/2 C. Chopped Pecans
3 Granny Smith Apples
White Wine
Quartered Figs, about 2 per person

Fry bacon. Add pecans and fry a little. Remove from pan. Add apple slices to pan and fry slightly. Remove. Deglaze pan with with a little white wine, and reduce a little. Pour over salad. Add figs and toss.

The changes I made were these:
I removed a little of the bacon grease from the pan before adding the wine and reducing. And since the figs were kind of small, I added about 3 per person and halved them instead of quartering them. The apples, I cut in fourths, cored and then sliced them across - the short way.

This was delicious! We'll be having it again - several times every 'fig season'.

ORANGE YOU GLAD IT'S SATURDAY?

Meet Lynx and Charlotte. These are Zach and Shabree's kittens. Mathieu's kitten, Tootie, didn't get in the photo because she isn't orange and today is orange day in my color week. The kids each named their own kitten themselves.
I joined a freecycle type group for this general area, today, and through that, have gotten rid of the three clowns that I bought to photograph as my entry in a blog creepy clown photo contest a few months ago. So by early next week these three guys will be gone.

TOO RED FRIDAY

Lydia and I had lunch today at the newly owned and less-than-improved Chisholm Trail. Not long after that, Zachary and Mathieu and I went over to the church to pick some figs from the large clump of 2 or 3 big fig trees behind the office and classroom building. They kept saying, "This is FUN!" We took Carl and Coconut with us too. They also thought it was fun. We were only there about half an hour, but got so hot and red-faced from just that short time in the mid-90's heat. The trees have been picked at least twice so far, and there are still a LOT more figs to ripen and be picked. We gave some to Lydia, and then some went home with Zach and Mathieu. These are the ones that were left from my cut after we had eaten quite a few. And I ate most of these as the afternoon went on.
In the photo, the can of Mecca Cola came from Kuwait. Stewart brought some home the last time he was here. It's like a cherry coke, only stronger and sweeter. The tablecloth is one I got at Goodwill. I guess it's from Denmark, since a soldier near each corner is carrying the flag of Denmark. It fits with our heritage....well, not mine, but Chuck's. And I had to add the lone, tiny tomato that I got off of one of our tomato plants today.
I wish I would have thought to take a photo of the boys and the dogs while we were picking the figs.

BLUE THURSDAY

There is nothing bluer than Blue Dog. This is a copy of 'Homage to Blue Dog' that I painted a little over a year ago. The original lives in the Pacific Northwest. I based my little painting on George Rodrique's "Novena for Me". The beads in the photo are handmade clay (or pottery?) that I bought at the Goodwill Store some time back. They are really heavy, but I like them, when I have something to wear that matches with them.
Not much went on today. Lydia called before noon and wanted us to go out to eat, but I was waiting for another friend who was supposed to stop on her way back from town for a visit and to pick up some books she lent me. But as it turned out, she never made it.
Then the man who called the other day asking about Hazel Coyote came by with another man. He had asked if I wanted to give her away, since his wife had been wanting an Australian Shepherd type dog. So he came by to look at her, but decided not to take her. I was both disappointed and relieved. But I do think we are going to have to do something. She and Patti-Jo are getting into fights over who is the dominant dog and also they are joining together and getting frighteningly aggressive toward some of the cats.
When the two men were driving off and I was in the front yard, closing the back gate, they stopped in the road and told me to watch for snakes as they had just seen one cross the road into the edge of our front yard. I hope it's not a rattlesnake. I went over to that area and looked around a little, but since I was wearing sandals and the fenceline is covered thickly and deeply with large vines, I didn't do more than a cursory scan of the area. It could have been anywhere.

YELLOW WEDNESDAY

The yellow bees and bee hive that hang on the secretary door are my 'yellow' for today.
Today's highlights...? I guess that was
1.) when Reagan came over after work to pick up the large package of pork carnitas to take home to barbecue. And then later Amy brought back half of them. So we both got dinner out of that large package of meat. They were delicious! Reagan is an excellent bbq-er.
2.) Garrett came over after work and visited for awhile. He's really funny and we always laugh when he's around. I got his take on the various people I've had mowing the yard lately.
3.) Evening Mass and talking with friends afterwards.
Here are two small paintings I did last night. Both of them are 4" X 4-3/4" Untitled (so far) and
"Lunacy"

PURPLE/BLUE TUESDAY...AND DESTRUCTO DOG

Today is Purple Tuesday in my color week, and it's Blue Tuesday in Hula Seventy's color week. So this photo of Barbara arranging flowers ties them both in together, with the help of the blue vase (a Goodwill Store find). The flowers are vitex or chaste tree blooms, anagua tree berries and white blooms, globe amaranth or 'bachelor buttons' as the collequiel name, one lone vinca, and some Mexican petunias.
Then there is this photo, which has nothing to do with lovely photos of the color of the day, but everything to do with why my backyard is such a wreck. With the help of the two boys who came to the door yesterday evening, I had the whole yard and deck picked up and straightened just before dark. This is what I woke up to this morning. Destructo Dog, otherwise known as Patti-Jo, does this every day. She had some help from 'Hazel Coyote', but it was this way every day before Hazel Coyote came here to stay. At the beginning of spring, each of those pots you see in the photo (and more that had already been removed over the course of the past couple of months) held healthy, growing plants. What you can't see is the yard with such varied items as a bottle of transmission fluid, a lawn umbrella, more pots, a broom, and a wire brush, etc., etc. scattered to the four corners. No wonder she needs that nap! I guess I will have to salvage what plants I can and move her 'bed' to the deck table that is almost covered with the new plants I put in pots recently. Too bad we won't be able to use it for dining al fresco this year. But isn't she just the cutest little doggy-girl?

NEUTRAL MONDAY / YELLOW MONDAY

I had big plans for today's neutral colors photo. I was going to feature my cowhide chair with the black and white 'fur', plus my bride and groom collection, but... You are getting this shot of Cauliflower with Garlic and Bread Crumbs. It's one of Paula's (The Cookbook Junkie) recipes that I have been meaning to make since she posted it. It really is delicious, despite how it looks, although DH declined to even taste it. I will be gladly having it for lunch until it is gone. Yum! The only change I made from how CbJ wrote it down was that instead of seasoned bread crumbs, I used seasoned croutons and pounded them into bits.
Then there is this scintillating photograph. It's what's left of some kind of rock structure that Zachary made in the mud puddle at the end of the driveway. I like rocks and I love that we had RAIN enough to have a mud puddle. Yay, rain!
Hula seventy is having color week over at her blog too. There, Monday is yellow day, so here is some yellow in a photograph in honor of that. There are so many anagua trees bearing their yellow to red berries right now. Strangely enough, some are far behind in the cycle and are just now being covered with the white clusters of flowers.

Okay, my photographs pretty much suck tonight, but I am just feeling so blah, that I procrastinated all day in getting any better ones. The day started off well, with me going to morning Mass, although I was a tad late. Afterwards I went straight to town and got Stewart's financial stuff all taken care of - something I'd been putting off and dreading. I just hate dealing with all of that, but made the three stops and got it all over with for now. So I was pretty happy to have that behind me and stopped at the Goodwill Store to celebrate. I didn't find anything there, and went on to Walmart for dog and cat food and some more hanging pot drip catchers. Then it was through the window at Taqueria Jalisco for a large orchata to drink on the way home. OHHHH so good!!! After I got home, I puttered around the house and got so tired from lack of sleep last night, that I finally took an hour and a half nap, and woke up with a head/neck ache and general draggy feeling.
While I was starting dinner, two little boys came by selling chilies. I didn't need any but then the guy driving them around asked if I wanted my lawn mowed. So we struck a deal, and they came back a little while later. The boys, especially the older one, really liked the dogs and said he was a 'dog person'. I said, "Hey, me too!" He said he has 5 dogs, so he has me beat by one! Anyway, the three of us were picking up the back yard where Patti-Jo gets into things and drags them all over every day. And where Zach had a rock pile and campfire ring made, and Mathieu had some kind of stacked construction made of flower pots and hubcaps. Ha! - Are they like their grandma or what?!
I asked the two boys if they sold any bags of chilies and they said no, but that they got $5 anyway. I guess some people just donated money to them. They said they were trying to earn money for fireworks for the Fourth of July, because they (the family) didn't have enough money to buy them.
Anyway, their uncle who was supposed the be mowing the front yard, came around back and said the carborator on his mower broke, so they will be back tomorrow.
Tonight, someone called and asked about the ad I put in the paper, in the lost and found about the new dog. He said he might want her if I wasn't going to keep her. I had mixed feelings about it, but he said he had a fenced back yard, and his wife wanted an Australian Shepherd so... He said he'd call again and come by tomorrow to look at her. I hope he does... I guess. I hope if he will give her a good home, that he will take her. But I'd really hate to see her go somewhere where she would be mistreated.

GREEN SUNDAY...PLUS A WEED & RING QUESTION

I found several photos of something green for the color of the day. This is a bracelet and necklace that I bought at Walmart recently. I love big fake jewelry, and green makes it that much better. My birthstone is peridot.
This is my favorite (I think...) Dr. Suess book - Horton Hatches the Egg.... "I meant what I said; I said what I meant - An elephant's faithful 100 percent!"
And then this is some of about a gazillion weeds that are growing in our backyard. I first took note of it when I was taking some fruit and veggie scraps out to the compost pile yesterday. I wish I knew what kind it is, since I love knowing the names of wild plants. If anyone knows, PLEASE leave a comment telling me. The little pale green chevron markings on the leaves look like little hearts, don't they?
This photo has nothing to do with green, but while I was getting the other set out of my jewelry box, I thought I'd photograph this ring, too. Isn't it unusual? I bought it around 1971 in a junk/vintage shop. Can anyone tell me anything about the style (art deco???), type, possible age or anything at all about this ring?
Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there. Zachary and Mathieu (oh, boy!) spent the night with us last night. This morning after Mass each father there was given a St. Joseph pocket-coin and prayer card, rosary and carnation. Then we went to Papa's and bought breakfast tacos.
Oh, and the biggest thing to happen today was that it RAINED!!!! LOTS of blowing, heavy rain from at least 7am (maybe earlier) until right before we left for Mass a little before 9am. We are looking forward to more during this week.

COLOR WEEK, ANYONE?

I have been seeing things like 'Blue Thursday', 'Red Friday', White Monday' etc. all over some of the blogs that I read. Today, I think I finally found the source - a blog called 'port2port'. But the color thing only went for 5 days, and is over now. So I thought I'd do my own color week, for my own entertainment (yeah, it doesn't take much) and for anyone who wants to go along with me. All you do is post a photo on your blog of something (one or more) in the color of the day. It starts tomorrow.

Here's my list:
Sunday - Green
Monday - Neutrals: Black, White, Brown and/or Gray
Tuesday - Purple
Wednesday - Yellow
Thursday - Blue
Friday - Red and/or Pink
Saturday - Orange

If you are participating, be sure to post a comment, so people can check out your blog and photos.

FLOWERS FOR FATHER'S DAY

This is my friend, Lydia, the parish secretary. I took her photo today with the flowers we got for the church for Father's Day. We went to Beeville to get them, so we had lunch at Jalisco Taqueria while we were there.
When we got back, I did a little watering at the rectory and C.C.D. building. Around the side of the 'L', I noticed that the two fig trees are covered with figs. There were 4 that were ripe, so I picked them and we ate them. Now I need to look up that recipe I got from Texas Provential Kitchen on PBS a couple of years ago, for a salad with figs.
Shabree's mother came unexpectedly this morning, and picked her up. She'll stay with her for about a week and a half, in Austin, and then come back here. We sure miss her.

"I AM NOT A CrOOK!"

Shabree and I had smoothies for brunch. They were really good. She wanted them in my martini glasses and wanted two Barbie dolls to be posed with them when I took the photo. The mint sprigs were my idea. I have a feeling we will be having smoothies for breakfast every morning now. And although the most enjoyable thing about cooking, to me, is posing dolls or something with it for the photo, we probably won't be doing that every morning.
The question of the day at Cookbook Junkie's blog gave me the idea to take a photo of my messy cookbook shelves. The upper shelf is mostly 'real' cookbooks. The lower shelf holds Taste of Home magazines. The other two cookbooks were in the shelf beneath that one, so I got them out to put in front. The pumpkin cookbook was sent to me by a wonderful internet friend, because she knows how much I like pumpkins and scarecrows and Halloween things. The cookbook has loads of hand drawn illustrations. The other one - which my daughter always refered to as the "Oh No! Mom's Cooking Dinner Cookbook" - in a binder filled with plastic page covers which I have filled with loose recipes, recipes given to me by friends, and recipes from newspapers or magazines. Some of the pages are done up fancy like a scrapbook, and some are just a magazine page slid into the plastic protector. Recipes from friends have notes added about the person they are from and the occasion it was served, etc. And there are sections for our personalized holiday menus and ideas. Cookbook Junkie's question of the day today was, (paraphrased, probably) "Do you remember where you got each of your cookbooks?" I think I do, although I didn't go through them all to check myself. And then, here was dinner.... I got this recipe from someone's blog today. If I remember correctly, they had gotten from one of the well-known commercial recipe sites....I think. Anyway, it wasn't a hit with us. Barbecued Turkey Burgers and Baked French Fries. I completely lost Shabree, who had been anxious to help cook dinner, when she read the turkey recipe and saw chopped onions listed. The burgers were dry and had kind of an odd flavor, with bbq sauce, mustard, chili powder, garlic powder, etc. mixed in. Oh, and instead of using a grill pan (because I didn't understand part of the instructions), I just cooked them in a frying pan on the stove. Maybe that's why they didn't live up to their potential. Um...besides that, they were a tad burnt. The baked french fries were better, but I used red potatoes because that's what I had on hand, and it really needed to be the larger baking potatoes. They got overcooked, so were kind of mushy inside. The raw potatoes were shaken in a plastic bag with olive oil, paprika, garlic powder, chili powder and onion powder before baking. So all in all, if someone actually followed the recipes and instructions as they were meant to be, instead of 'ad-libing', like I did, the results would probably be much better.

GRANDCHILDREN'S ART

Okay, you know I just had to do this eventually. Zach spent the night here last night, as well as all day yesterday and today. He and Shabree got into everything imaginable, including my paints. Here are some of the results.
Zachary (11) has been drawing horses since he was two. They are by far and away his favorite art subject.

And here is another one. He was telling me something last night about a certain tribe of Indians who preferred appaloosas, and painted tiny spots on their horses. I think. I am not sure I remember the information correctly.

Here is my favorite one of Shabree's. She is 10. This is a picture of her crying over a cousin's death. The young man was in his early 20's, played college basketball, had asthma and died playing basketball. It was really sudden, and a shock to everyone. That is him at the bottom of the picture, representing him in her memory. And the darker blue right below her, is a pool of tears that she's cried, flowing off the side of the picture. It is such a heartfelt, poignant painting. She wants to make copies for several people in the family, and put the original on eBay.
She did this one, just having fun with the process. She has made abstract paintings like this before and I copy them, cut them to size and use them as postcards or note cards. So she made this new design for me.
This is an artist trading card she drew and colored with markers about a year ago. She was trying out drawing faces sort of like the ones I do.

That's it for tonight's photos. With Zach's (and Mathieu's) help today, I got more shoes hung on the shoe tree and finally got my compost enclosure put up.

SPOON RIVER PORTRAITS

Oscar Hummel


Russian Sonia


Cooney Potter

George Gray

Louise Smith

BOY SCOUT BBQ TODAY

This is one of the two plates we bought from the Boy Scout fundraiser taking place at the Fire Station today. It looks pretty...um..messy, but there is a lot of food stuffed in that plate for $6. Plus dessert and tea, which I didn't think to photograph. Too late now!

There were mockingbirds everywhere today! Starting this morning when the dogs were barking at Mama Cat who was inexplicably looking suspicious, sitting on the back gatepost. I called her and she jumped down and came to the door, being dive-bombed by a mockingbird on the way. Looking around, there were mockingbirds in several trees, and flying around.

After Mass, there were mockingbirds in the trees there, too, plus one sitting on the cross atop the bell tower at the back of the church roof. I did take a photo of that, but between the distance and the glare of the sun off the roof, it didn't turn out well.

I took my usual 3+ hour Sunday afternoon nap. I'm sure I need it, but I really hate taking naps.

Well, that's about it for my day. Pretty dull, actually. I painted a little, but didn't finish anything. I'm fooling around experimenting with backgrounds.

DIORAMA REMINDER...

Just a small example from the internet.

MORNING STORMS, SUNNY AFTERNOON

For some unknown reason today started out tense, with increasing chaos and edginess until late afternoon. The aggravation build-up nearly came to a head. That sounds like an emotional, nervous 'weather' report. I held it together though, despite big kitchen messes, bad dog behavior, people at the door, people on the phone and tons of major computer related snafus... and by late afternoon the internal storms had passed and sunny calmness came out.Chuck came home from work early again, and took Shabree over to the cabin to swim with Zach and Mathieu. You can see our cabin in the background. The pool is halfway between our tiny cabin and Reagan and Amy's house. Then later, while I was getting things together for dinner, Chuck came back and got his swim trunks so he could try to persuade Mathieu to get in all the way. The older kids had splashed too much previously, and he had retreated to the safety of the ladder, not venturing into the water again.

So when I got things organized to be able to serve dinner quickly later this evening, I went over and took some photos, and sat on Reagan and Amy's deck with them, and watched the kids.
This is Zach's dog, Buddy. Carl had been over there with Chuck the first time, but came home when he came to get his swim trunks. I took Coconut back over there too, and she had a great time running around seeing her 'cousins' and exploring all over.
This is Shabree's new horse, Starlight. She came right up to the gate to see me.
These are the other horses. Ruff, who is extremely old. Poor old guy. He looks bad, but for his age, it is amazing that he is still doing so well. He is retired. Then there is Trigger, the Shetland, and Wildfire in the round pen, where he is put to eat, because he will take Ruff's food too.
And speaking of food, I made this tonight. I read about this on Cookbook Junkie's blog about a month ago, and just now got around to making it. It is Artichoke Salsa with Toasted Whole Wheat Pita Bread Triangles. It was pretty good, but had an extremely strong garlic taste. She had warned her readers about that, so I used less, but the garlic was still pretty overpowering. Chuck loved it, though. He thought it had a little too much basil, but that didn't bother me. The pita bread would have been better with a little olive oil drizzled on and some salt added before toasting. I'll make it again. It really is good, healthy and different. Besides that, we had boneless, skinless chicken floured and fried in olive oil, BBQ beans from the supermarket deli, and leftover spaghetti.

BREAKING NEWS!!!

I have a very embarrassing update, plus a Wandette feature, but blogger is still not letting me upload everything. It was working briefly this afternoon, but quit again before all of my photos were uploaded.... So as soon as I can get my pictures on this entry, there will be some 'breaking news', right below this entry...

MYSTERY....SOLVED

CHRISSY - Hey, what happened to our log?
MARTIN - I don't know! It was here yesterday...

DOG - I know, but unfortunately, I don't speak your language, and you don't understand mine.

NISSA - Ditto.

THREE BLIND MICE - We didn't see a thing!

Let's go get Marlene!

MARLENE - You're right! It's completely disappeared!

CHRISSY - Sabrina, what happened to your arm?
SABRINA - *sniffle* Coconut kidnapped me and was playing, and chewed part of my arm off.
CHRISSY and MARTIN - *GASP!!!* How terrible!
Hugs... SABRINA - Yes, Wanda was very sad about it. I'm practically vintage, you know. She's looking into a transplant, but it'll probably be a long time until she finds a donor.
JANE - What is going on here?
MARLENE - The old log that the kids always played on has disappeared.
MARTIN - Yeah! I bet space aliens took it! They wanted it for scientific experinents and whooshed it up with their flying saucer!

MARLENE - Um...I don't think so.

JANE WEST - And then what would these supposed aliens want the old rotary lawn mower for? It's missing too.

CHRISSY and SABRINA - Spare parts!

MARLENE - I think it is much more likely that the sock monkeys are behind this.

MARTIN - If a sock monkey and an alien got into a fight, who would win?
MARLENE - Sigh...

BARBARA - I knew it!
-----------------------------------



Okay, ... I am sooo embarrassed to admit this, but with the help of the Wandettes, I found out what happened to my log. The only mystery is where my brains are. Sigh... In my defence, I guess I will plead that it was dusk, then dark last night when I looked for it. Chuck went out too, and couldn't find it.

And since I have run my mouth off AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLL over the internet about this, I guess I have to own up to my mistake. The log is still there, it just collapsed in on itself. And with all the rain, that probably aided it's collapse, the plants, grass and weeds just took over like kudzu or something. Sigh... I am just so embarrassed. I will never live this one down with my sister and kids.

I swear that Chuck and I both looked closely, last night, and couldn't see any part of it through the plants. And there was a funny empty spot there where I guess the front side had been covering, before it fell inward. The only reason I found out that it was still there was because Shabree and I were doing a 'Wandette shoot' there this afternoon, and I eventually saw small sections of the log peeking through, farther back from where the log was supposed to be.

Yep, just call the men in white coats!

Oh, and the rotary lawnmower is still 'missing', but I am wondering if it is not out back in the shed or the old horse stall and Shabree just didnt see it...