America Pickers Weekend!!!

This weekend is American Pickers Weekend for us. I live just 25 minutes away from LeClaire, Iowa where the pickers are located. The town of LeClaire decided to have a weekend just for them once a year. Last year was the first time. This year I got to go! My daughter went along with me as hubby had to work. It was a pretty hot and humid day that's for sure! I think it would have been worse if the sun would have been out. Right now as I type this, at a little past 8 p.m. It's 81º!! Ok...so you are saying...lets get to the pictures!

On our way down to the Mississippi river levee to see Danielle and Mike. Frank wasn't able to be at the event today. He was busy doing something else. Not sure what.

On the way, we walk past Mike's dog Ruby. I believe that is Mike's girlfriend with Ruby talking to some friends.

My daughter Becky standing next to the big picker truck!

Standing in the long line for the autographs and pictures. Danielle and Mike are under the white tent. It took us about 35 minutes to reach them. Not to bad I think.

While waiting in line the riverboat Twilight was giving rides up and down the Mississippi river playing calliope music. Pretty cool!

And here we are!! That's my daughter Becky next to Danielle and me over to the right.

Me in front of the picker truck

Danielle and Mike's autographs! Wish that Frank was there.

My t-shirt I got!!!!

Time to go check out some of the shops along downtown LeClaire. As you can see Becky sticking her tongue out at me as usual. :)

The one and only primitive shop in LeClaire called Primitive Cottage. Really nice things in there.

This is Miss Mousey that I got at the prim shop!

This band was pretty cool. They were called Old 57's and they played honkey tonk music. They were good!

Here's another shot of the band playing on the lawn of the Grasshoppers Gift shop.

Then we walked down to Antique Archaeology

Me standing with the car!!

Mike's VW that he sometimes drives around town.

Love this shot of the car!

Me inside Antique Archaeology!

Stairs to the upstairs area

So that was my day today! They have more stuff going on again tomorrow. I'm so glad the rain heald off today. Woo! Hoo!!



The Beauties of Nature!

Sometimes I can't believe how beautiful flowers can be. Especially Hibiscus!! I think I am finally finished planting flowers. Now to keep everything alive.

Haven't had a hibiscus plant in years, so I treated myself to one this year. I'm going to bring this one inside this winter and see how it does. I have a friend that has had one for 28 years!!

Here's a little succulent garden I have in a old enamel bowl, that I got at the antique mall a couple of weeks ago. It came with a small worn hole in the bottom. So that works perfect for drainage! That's my miniature hosta and regular size hosta to the right.

Had the most wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Hubby and I drove up to Wisconsin to meet up with my daughter and her family. They flew in from North Carolina for a friends wedding. Got to see the grand kids who I hadn't seen since Feb. We were the official babysitters as kids weren't allowed at the reception.

Next to our motel was a beautiful pond that had 2 families of geese.

This family had the older chicks

And here is the other family with the smaller chicks

It was fun to watch the chicks running around catching bugs in the tall grass.

Here are a couple of newly listed birds in my etsy shop!

Well that's it for now folks! Have a wonderful evening!!!!

A Little Wildlife

Yesterday I spent a good part of the day outside planting flowers and cleaning up some of my other flower beds that I hadn't gotten to yet since winter. I like to take small breaks during my yard work. I get myself a glass of ice water and sit in my lawn chair and watch the wildlife in my backyard. Sometimes I get my camera and see what I can capture. I discovered not only do the deer like my hosta's but so do the rabbits!

This bunny took about 3 nibbles and then was on it's way.

 Then I saw a wren checking out the new house listed on the block. I think it was only looking and not ready to buy yet.

Then saw this robin searching for insects and worms. It was finding quite a few from what I could see.

So the other day my hubby emailed some pictures from where he was working. He is a technician for a heating and air conditioning company. He was on a roof top of a huge building repair one of the air conditioner units and what did he find inside of that unit? A nest with baby birds in it!!! He said that he was there the day before and all he saw was a nest with light blue eggs. They had hatched overnight.

I'm pretty sure they are robins. I'm always hearing about robins building their nests in the most craziest places.

And here is a shot of one of the units like the one that had the nest in it.

And on that same roof not to far away he discovers another nest!!! Out in the open in the rocks. He saw the bird that the nest belonged too, but couldn't get a picture of it. He said it was freaking out. Doing a little dance like it was injured to scare him away. We looked up in my bird books to try to figure out what it was and it called a Willet. It's like a sandpiper. This building he was at was next to the Mississippi river.

click on the picture and you can see the 4 eggs better.

This picture is from the website All About Birds

Willet

I think hubby still has to go back there to do more work. I hope he can get some more pics of the baby birds.

And here are some flower pics that I took this week!!!

This is a Purple Columbine that I've had in my garden for many years. I used to have many, but I only have one left now.

And I just LOVE Coleus! Here is one of the more interesting ones that I planted this year.

And my petunia's. I was able to get some really cool new ones this year!!

This is Phantom

Black Velvet

Raspberry Blast

And this one I am so excitied to get it this year. It was a new plant last year.

It's called Pretty Much Picasso! Isn't it amazing!!!!







Apple Gourd Bird House

I spent a few days this week planting flowers in my yard. And I still have much more to do. Also we had a record breaking temp this last week with a high of 93º!! Crazy I say!! Now today it's cloudy, rainy and only 52º!! The norm for right now is the lower 70's!!! I wish the weather would make up it's mind!!!

Today I got my hubby to cut a hole in my apple gourd to turn it into a bird house for me!! Here it is hanging in my burning bush! I think it looks like a pretty cozy house to live in! hehe 

I thought about painting it, but decided I liked just the way it looks, al naturale. I couldn't believe how many seeds were inside when I cleaned it out! Call me crazy, but I counted them! LOL There were 320!! So I planted a few today and will see what happens!! Excited!! You can get them to climb on a trellis or they can grow on the ground. They just need lots of room to spread out.

So, since I have so many seeds I thought I would give them away. Just contact me via email tambo331@mchsi.com and I'll give you my mailing address. All you have to do is send me a SASE (self address stamped envelope) and I send your 10 free seeds!!!!

Here is what my apple gourd looked like last fall in my fall gathering!

And in other news..... Starting tomorrow I will be selling a few of my items at Early Work Mercantile! I start selling tomorrow May 15th! I'm very honored to be asked to sell among some of the finest primitive artist around!!!

Click this link "Early Work Mercantile" to visit some of the most amazing talent around!

Back Up and Running!

I was without a computer for a few days. Mine took a dump on Monday morning with the death blue screen. Got it into the shop Monday night and got it back late this morning. Thank goodness it wasn't anything serious like a virus or anything else. Just had to replace the WiFi thingy on it.
While I didn't have my computer to waste time on I did manage to work on orders and take more pictures of wildlife in my yard.

White-Crowned Sparrow. Love these little guys with their black and white Mohawk

Another pic of him.

I've been getting loads of American Goldfinches!!! I had hubby attach another shepards hook onto the one I already had. So now I have 3 feeders and more goldfinches!

Just can't resist taking pictures of Mr. Cardinal in our big oak tree.

I hung up all my hummingbird feeders on Saturday and noticed them at my feeder on Monday. This is a male ruby throated hummer. The males always arrive 1 to 2 weeks before the females do.

 Plump I think Mrs. Robin

All my feeders!

Mr. American Goldfinch

This was so funny. I was taking pics of the birds when this squirrel found a patch of sun on the deck and stretched out and laid like that for a few minutes. He almost closed his eyes and took a nap.

White-Crowned Sparrow

And last but not least, my half tail squirrel, Lucy!!!

And tonight my primitive chippy paint bird make do that I listed a week ago ends tonight on ebay. I will be listing these 2 new birds tonight on ebay.

Have a wonderful evening!!!!