2024


January 2, 2023. Son Hanley installed his Christmas present to us. A wireless video camera that will let us peep in on any baby birds that find this feeder their home this spring.	That smaller white thing sticking up is the birdhouse arial that will send a wifi message to my cell phone and let us watch and take pics or videos of the little peepers.

January 15. Two weeks later nature put us in the deep freeze. Everything was frozen solid for over a week. Fortunately we had space heaters set up under the vacation house down the street and didn't get frozen pipes as many did.	The birds really showed up at our several feeders. At one time I counted 13 redbirds and as many more other kinds.

Here's our little friend Jenny Wren who had a nest in our wifi birdhouse two years ago. We are hoping she will choose it again this year.	Snow covering the limbs of the huge sycamore tree in our back yard caught in the bright early morning sun.

My vote for the best dressed bird, the male rufus sided towhee. The female is very striking too, only is more subdued colors of dark brown and orange. He's all puffed out like a city alderman against the cold.	Bunny, our squirrel dog, keeps her post even during single digit cold and snow.

For a long time we thought this might be a starling, but it isn't. It's a female red wing blackbird.	Here he is again. Our yearly short visit by a junko. He came, ate an hour or so, and took off for warmer climes.

January 17. Here is the garlic planted in October. It will be ready to dig and hang up to dry in late June or early July. It usually lasts us 8 or 9 months	Well, since outside activities were limited, I made an apple pie. This is the first of 4 or 5 and I haven't stopped yet. Sherry and I are eating them for breakfast and after dinner. Yum.

Our friends from the yoga class I teach at the Donelson library, Barry and Bonnie Augustine, are always bringing us presents. Here is a screech owl house Barry made and decorated. He's quite the craftsman!	This is a reprint of a book we produced back in the 1990's. We were running short of stock so I redid it on Create Space, the Amazon book publishing site.

After the first pie I began to put messages on them. Mostly they were valentines to sweetie Sherry. I did one in Latin and another in Greek. Good ol' internet!.	Well, this one was too good to eat right away.

March 3. Warming up now and Harry brought his dog Maggie over to run in daughter Travis' big field. We are keeping an eye on this unusual house across the Cumberland. It's certainly different. As yet we have seen no humans nearby.	My famous Boy Scout stew. Recipe on request. So now you have proof I'm not just a one-trick Cookie..

March 11. Our buttercups are going bananas but I had to buy the rose.	Japanese magnolia going nuts as usual this time of year. It usually gets frozen soon after this first bloom. Sure enough, it did this year too..

Wood duck in our big sycamore tree that hangs over the river.	He's not alone. He and Mama are looking for a good nesting hole. We can't see the other side of the sycamore, so there may be an abandoned piliated woodpecker hole. Hope so.

Oooops! Another pie. Hears and hugs and kisses this time.	I mounted the screech owl house down the street at our old house that's now a vacation rental. It's pretty heavy so I wanted some support under it as well as the attachment to the tree. So far (it's November 14 as I write this) we have had no takers. Hope we get some around nesting time next year.

Sister Ann found this photo of our Daddy, Joe Williams Loller. He was a mechanic, a carpenter, a farmer, and an electrician. I just wish I had paid more attention to the skills he had when I had the chance. He wrote the story of his life which was full of adventure and action. I posted it on this site and you can read it here.	This is a piece I made in the 1970's in Puryear Mims sculpture class at Vanderbilt. You can't tell from this angle, but the rock is shaped like Africa. I found it like that. Now I wonder how I did the casting of the plaster? The black power movement of the 70's is in this. Damn, it's good!

Summer. This white ground hog was hanging around our house and the one next door for a month or so and then we didn't see it again. We were feeding it veggie scraps and it was a regular visitor.	This was in November when the turkeys were flocking up. There were 23 in this bunch.

This was in the early spring when it was still pretty cold. Notice the tohee is all fluffed up.	Our friends Barry and Bonnie are fanatic animal lovers. They feed the deer and racoons and any other critters that care to visit. Here is a little turtle that lived in Barry's garden. It would come when Barry arrived, knowing he would get one of the tomatoes too high for it to reach.

Here's one of the butterflies that appreciated the Zinnias Sherry planted for them on our deck.	This mama deer is visiting daughter Travis's field. Her fawn was nearby, but outside the fence.

Here's a house on Fatherland Street in East Nashville. Those are all dolls of one kind or another decorating their fence. We drove by one night and the scene is nicely lighted. Takes all kinds.	Our cat, Miss Jane Tabby eats out of this Have-A-Heart trap. The dogs can't get their heads inside.

Son Hanley ordered this Ford Maverick truck almost a year before he got delivery. He is one proud trucker.	Our man who cleans the gutters started doing roofing as well and after working three nights on roofs because of the hot daytime weather he was so sleep deprived he drove his big van into the trellis over the drive at our vacation rental down the street. I rebuilt it and planted heavenly blue morning glories to help the wisteria vines that were still covering the uprights grow out over the overhead wood.

Here are the suprise lilies I planted in the middle of the yard. You can't tell from this angle but they are in a nice circle.	Here is our latest mystery bird. I wasn't able to get a very good shot since it kept darting here and there. You can't see, but it had brown spots on its breast. I think it might have been a thrush of some variety. Any idea?

Two mama turkys with their young ones. There were actually more polts outside the shot, over 23 in all.	This turtle is the only one I saw all summer. It was in the middle of the road when I rode up on my bike so I took a pic and carried it to the side it was heading toward.

We have a pair of bald eales nesting in the wood lot at the north end of Gleaves farm. A friend of mine got this shot.	Here is a shot of one of the young ones in the nest. I got it before the leaves got so large they shut out the view.

Late November. Got this shot of our neighborhood Red Shouldered Hawk on top of one of our blue bird houses. Pretty bird. He doesn't seem interested in the birds around our feeders. I guess they aren't big enough to tempt it.	Early December. We have had mostly mild weather and this large mushroom showed up on the side of the road.

December 5. We had a week of below freezing weather in the middle of the mild streak. These are known as Frost Flowers. You can only see them on the day after the first hard freeze because once they thaw the moisture that comes from their stems is gone. This is the first time we have noticed them on our road.	The cold snap didn't faze my brave little garlic plants. I planted 7 rows of 12 plants, so if they all make it that will be 84 late next June or early next July. The ones from last year usually last us until spring and I use those left for the next crop.

December 17. This is an old glasses case I've painted to make a sarcophagus for the frog I found in my truck. He got in and couldn't get out and I seldom drive it so what with the blazing hot summer weather he got mummified. Anyhow, Grandson Lucas thought it was the funniest and weirdest	thing and always wanted to see the frog when he visited. So I rigged this up as a Christmas present for him. He liked it a lot. What other frog ever got such a fine resting place? BTY, the figures at the bottom of the case are a pyramid and a spinx.