IT'S BEEN A ROCKY TIME ~~ A NEW FLAMINGO IN THE FAMILY ~~ PUZZLE UPDATE ~~ PARTING SHOT

IT'S BEEN A ROCKY TIME

This past week on one of our walks we happened upon several painted rocks along the way down to the cemetery. Fortunately, I had my phone with me so I took a picture of each one. The next day, we found even more rocks in the neighborhood around our house. I got pictures of all of them but we only picked  up one because we hoped some kids might find them on Easter Sunday. Since then, a few of them have disappeared but there are still several in their original spots. It's nice to know that people are still doing that to bring a smile to others.

This is the one Linda picked up, to go on her
bookshelf with her Penguin Classic books

We have had absolutely gorgeous weather this past week, I believe the highest temperature was 75 degrees. It still gets rather chilly at night, close to freezing, but the days have been warm for the most part. Warm temperatures mean it is one of my favorite times of year...GRILLING SEASON! I finally got my little cast iron Lodge Sportsman Grill out and fired it up this past week. There is nothing like food cooked on the grill. It just seems to have this wonderful flavor that you can't get any other way.

Yum, grilled chicken and potatoes

Yesterday I had my grill going with ground chicken burgers, and I had my portable induction burner out on the back porch cooking up the last of my kale that survived over the winter. Add to that one of the Beautiful Burger Buns (that's the actual name of the recipe) that I made a couple days ago and it was one knock-out of a meal.

These were the best buns!

While I was outside grilling I was joined by my sidekick. She loves it when I cook outside...actually, she just loves it when either one of us is outside because that means she has some company. She made herself a little spot to rest in amongst the chives.

We walked to Tahoma Cemetery a couple of times this past week to check on the geese that we saw in the tree. They have not been back in the tree so I guess they were not building a nest up there. Maybe they were just resting.

Lovely day for a walk at the cemetery

It is so nice to see all the flowers coming up and blooming. I spotted a group of daffodils at the cemetery and just had to get a shot of them. Most of our daffodils as well as the tulips are already bloomed out.

However, the Basket of Gold plants are putting on a spectacular show in the front yard.

Basket of Gold

Even a lowly dandelion plant was hard to pass up for a photo opportunity. Several dandelion plants we saw on our walk had multiple flowers that were all low to the ground. The dandelions that we have in our yard just usually have a few flowers, each on a seperate stalk, so I wonder if this is a different kind of dandelion plant.

Fasciating Dandelion

Okay, I just looked it up and it turns out that there are more than 240 different kinds of dandelions. It seems that the multiple-head dandelions are doing something called fasciation (click here to read an article). Basically, fasciation is a mutation that causes a plant stem to look like a ribbon and sometimes results in multiple flowers on the stem. In my search for information on dandelions, I found a link (click here) to an article which contains a fascinating (but not fasciating) time-elapse video of the life of a dandelion flower. Take at look at it if you have the time, it is absolutely beautiful.

A NEW FLAMINGO IN THE FAMILY

This past Christmas, Linda and I received a new flamingo wind spinner from my sister and her partner. We decided to wait and put it out when the weather got nicer so it wouldn't get messed up by all the snow we (didn't) have. So, a couple of weeks ago we got it out and after much cussing and fussing managed to get it put together. Now she sits proudly in our back planting area. Of course we had to give her a name, so we settled on Felicia. Here she is strutting her stuff.

PUZZLE UPDATE

We finished our fourth puzzle since we started with the lockdown almost 5 weeks ago. This was the ice cream one, and it always makes me want ice cream when we do it. Alas, we didn't have any so I had to go without.

PARTING SHOT

Summer Girl made sure she got into her spot on the blog this week. She's not about to let any upstart black dog take her place!! "Parting Shot" is exclusively for Black Cat Ninjas (in her mind, anyway). Here she is doing important BCN things, like helping her mommies with the puzzle.

That's all for this week, my friends. I hope everyone is doing well and still trying to hang in there with this staying-at-home-all-the-time-till-you-want-to-scream. Join me again next week for more from the Southerner in the Northwest!