Happy Holidays, one and all!

My Uncle Charles and Aunt Nancy have been visiting my folks. They live in Little Rock, Ark. Uncle Charles (Right) has a conversation with my dad.

Stormy, my folks' dog, just isn't used to other dogs at her house. She spent most of the time inside my folks' house.

This is Buddy. He's not used to Denver's high altitude.


Neither is Princess.

Buddy takes an afternoon nap.

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The sorting hat says that I belong in Hufflepuff!

Said Hufflepuff, "I'll teach the lot, and treat them just the same."

Hufflepuff students are friendly, fair-minded, modest, and hard-working. A well-known member was Cedric Digory, who represented Hogwarts in the most recent Triwizard Tournament.

Take the most scientific Harry Potter
Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

U.S. 24 is a lonely highway.

This stretch is between Limon and Colorado Springs.

I love to count windmills when I'm on the open road.

Between Denver to the place they buried Robert's friend, I counted 32.

Inspite of the wind these pictures came out nice! I'm surprised! I'm sure Robert's friend, Clay, was looking down and smiling at me.

We'll all miss you, Clay!

Over by Teiko-Loretto Heights College is a place called Iris4U. The white with darks blue is one of the colors I ordered yesterday.
This the other color. This is called "Hook." I know what you all are thinking! Just right for the ol' Codfishlady!

These are a beautiful orange! I wish I could remember what they called them!

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This one's got an odd coloring!

I decided on Saturday that I would take a little stroll through Hudson Gardens.

This looks like Liatris.

Colorful Lupine. Looks like pink and white.

I always think blue is the prettiest!

I thought this was a very nice setting with the Yucca on the rocks.

Ah! One of my favorite hang outs!

I sat down at the snack bar and happened to see these poppies in the morning sunlight.

Clouds are starting to form over the mountains!

I love this water garden!

There were a few Water Lillies in bloom. I thought these were the prettiest.

The clouds are REALLY billowing!

There were at least two goose families there.

My very favorite flower! The Bearded Iris.



Hudsons' has a beautiful variety of these beauties!

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It was a nice and warm day for my husband and I's 29th wedding anniversary. We went to eat out at The Fort for dinner that evening. Before we went out I got to take a few pictures of my neighbors' flowers

Basket of Gold

Creeping Phlox

My Tulips

More of my Tulips

I took a little time to visit my folks. Of course I brought my trusty camera. Here is my dad putting the tarp back on their motorhome. Mother said as long as she wasn't too overcome from her chemo and she stay out of the hospital, they could spend a day or two up in the mountains as they have before.

It officially become spring shortly before noon. My folks' lawn used to have millions of violets! I remember many an early spring there would be patches of purple here and there! Mom and Dad got tired of it and nuked most of them. Still a few have prevailed. "Violets in the Lawn." Sounds like a title for a poem!

This is Stormy, their dog. She is an Australian Cattle Dog AKA Blue Heeler. She's a good dog, but she tends to be hyper.

Mother is a gardener. She always has lots of pretty flowers. These are primroses.

These are Glories-in-the-Snow.

I had a nice visit with my folks. Mother was doing fine considering. I had a nice lunch with them. It wasn't much, but satisfying. I live ten miles away from them. I would have seen them again because my aunt and uncle from Amarillo were in town, but I was under the weather this weekend. So the next best thing was to talk on the phone to my aunt. It was only a few minutes, but it was nice to hear from her. I am going to send her some photos and a Mother's Day card. She's on my Christmas Card List. I know she and my uncle will appreciate them.

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The Wonder of Nature

I had a great weekend this week. Even though I went through a spell of worrying all turned out well. My mother has cancer and was in the hospital. She had a reaction to new chemotherapy. That is cleared up now. She'll go home as soon as her blood count is back up. But enough of that for now. From late Wednesday evening to Thursday afternoon two pairs of my angelfish spawned. So on Saturday morning I saw that the eggs of one pair hatched. I waited nearly all day Saturday for the other clutch of eggs to hatch, but they didn't do so until Sunday morning. Now I am waiting for a third pair to spawn. Right now they can't seem to make up their minds on where to lay their eggs. For the new babies I will have to wait until they are swimming by themselves. At this time they are in a stage called "wiggler." That's all they do right now. Just wiggle. I cannot feed them yet because they are feeding on their yolk sacs. When their yolk sacs are used up they will be able to swim by themselves. Then it's time to feed them after I transferred them to A 2 1/2 gallon tank. I had the eggs hatch in half gallon wide mouth Mason jars with air stones bubbling in them to keep the water turbulent. They need turbulence because stagnancy will only cause them to die.

The parents are already in their separate tanks. They laid their eggs on two by ten inch slates. I take the slates out and place them in the waiting jars. A drop of a solution called acriflavin to keep the eggs from getting fungus. It turns the water into a greenish yellow color. Some angelfish breeders use a solution called methylene blue, but I have always preferred acriflavin. Methylene blue just turns the water blue and just doesn't do any good for me. Even if I used a whole lot. All I have to is put in one drop of the acriflavin and that does the trick!

I will not bore you any further with the technicalities, dear readers. Therefore I will end this blog with a fond good night and see you all soon.

Miss Stanford"s Friend

Here are some of my favorite pictures I have taken recently.

Mourning Dove

Antoinette



Eight Spotted Skimmer Dragonfly

Trees Reflected in Bear Creek

Milkweed and Cattails

Milkweeds and Milkweed Beetle

Wild Plox

Hollyhocksks

Moon Flowers (Flowers from Hell)

Thunderhead Taken 8/30/05