Kwaree Blog

Visiting Block Island – Again

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this post is worth over 38,000 of them. I apologize. I deleted about half of the photos I took yesterday, but so many of them were good that I didn’t have the heart to cut any further. You’ll just have to look at them.

I think I’ve been to Block Island, RI once before. It seems like more than that because I think about the place quite often. It’s one of those little gems that most of the area hasn’t visited. Don’t get me wrong, Block Island is jumping throughout the Summer, but the crowds disappear in the off season. Ahhh, the perfect time to visit.

The plan was to travel out to Block Island to have lunch at the Spring House Hotel. For my birthday last year, Laura got me a gift certificate just for this. I thought it was a great idea and was excited to go out and use it. We would take the 11AM ferry from Point Judith, arrive at Block Island at noon, eat lunch and leave at 3PM. Well, that was the plan.

When we arrived at Point Judith, we were a little early. I made a big fuss about getting out of the house at 8AM. I totally forgot how long it took to get to Point Judith, so yeah, as I said, we were a little early. Like about an hour. Good thing there was a high speed ferry that left at 10:30AM and only took a half hour to get to Block Island. By taking the high speed ferry, we arrived on Block Island an hour early (11AM).

When we got off the ferry, we walked straight up to the Spring House Hotel. I wanted to go up there just to let them know we were going to walk around a little bit and then come back for lunch. Hey, guess what? When we got to the hotel, we discovered that they don’t serve lunch after Labor Day. Oh well. We left.

On the way back down the road, I explained to Laura that it was actually a good thing that I didn’t call first to find that out. If I had, we wouldn’t have gone there for the day and would have just sat around doing other things. I was glad we made the trip. We just went and ate somewhere else.

Here’s the really cool part. Since we had a few hours to use up before the next ferry would bring us back to Point Judith, we decided to rent a scooter (or moped) to cruise around the island on. That was worth it because scooters are awesome to drive around on and you get to see the whole area. We drove from the most Northern tip of the island to the most Southern and made a bunch of stops in between. We looked hot on the scooter and all the other scooter drivers were envious of us because we could drive 28MPH. That’s a full MPH faster than most scooters on the island. Nobody had the guts to go that fast besides us. We were a gang of two.

At around 2:30PM, we gave the scooter back and did our thing to get on the ferry. During the ride back, I actually fell asleep on the bench. This was the slow ferry, so I had the time. Laura was busy talking with some old ladies who smoke and drank too much. I’ll tell ya, those ladies knew how to party.

Here are those 38 pictures I was talking about above. Enjoy.

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Bird Gardens, Hanging Basket, Living Walls, Mosquitoes and Square Foot Gardening

Bird Gardens: How to Support Wildlife in Your Backyard

Here’s a list of 15 ways to attract beautiful birds and songs to your yard, and 10+ more bird conservation tips from the National Audubon Society.

World’s largest hanging basket

Weighing in at more than a quarter of a tonne, the world’s largest hanging basket is certainly going to require a lot of watering. The giant eye-catching floral spectacular measures 20ft by 10ft and took a massive EIGHT hours to winch into position.

10 Incredible Living Walls

The idea of a living wall conjures up all sorts of images, but in reality it is nothing more than a wall completely covered in vegetation. This form of urban gardening is often designed as an art form to decorate buildings in cities and has been hailed as one way to make cities more enjoyable, healthier and ultimately greener places.

Eating You Alive? Try Eco-Friendly Garden Plants That Repel Mosquitoes

There are attractive garden plants that repel mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are horrible creatures that swarm around you and suck your blood. They cause itchy rashes and can carry disease. If you are interested in a more natural approach, consider these plants that will keep those pesky creatures far away!

An Introduction to Square-Foot Gardening

Grow your own food and save money. “The square-foot gardening concept is simple: Build a raised bed, divide the space into sections of one square-foot each, and then plant vegetables (and/or flowers) in just the amount of space they need…

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A Nice Day For An Autumn Walk

We were going to go for a hike this afternoon, but I feared the ground would be swampy when we got to our destination. I wanted to hike down to a pond a few acres away. I think we’ll get to that another day, but for today, we stuck with our usual walk down the road.

I have to say, for all those people who put off hiking in the summer because it’s too hot, today was the day for you. Weather.com tells me it’s 44 degrees outside…perfect for walking or hiking. No sweating and no freezing. Just perfect.

In an unusual move, I thought I would bring the camera along. It’s nice and sunny, so I knew the photos would come out nicely. Wanna see a few?

This is a piece of property down the road that both Laura and I are very jealous of. I am not sure how many acres it is, but they have a pond, a grassy area, a main house and another house out back. They also have a table and chairs set up near the back of the pond. I would like to drink my morning coffee there.

Moving further along, there is a river that flows pretty much along the entire road. When Rob came up to visit a while ago, we looked for salamanders under the rocks in this river.

This is Laura’s favorite house on this road. It’s an old white farm-ish type house. It’s hard to see back there, but what I was trying to get a picture of was the nice driveway and Pacasandra planted off to the right.

I just had to grab this one on our way back. The sun was hitting it and the leaves were bright yellow. Also, this is a great stone house to look at.

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Putting Up the Deer Fencing

I have to say, my days have been pretty full and this blog has been helping. I really enjoy doing things in life and writing about them. Perhaps I should’ve been an author. Nah…the minute someone expects something from me, I don’t want to do it anymore. Half of the fun of writing here is the surprise for my readers.

Now, today’s project was fun. Actually, it was today’s half project. The first half of the day was spent writing the “Funniest” post. Did you know that I put that into Microsoft Word to spell check it and it was five pages? FIVE PAGES!!! Who does that? At least I had a good time writing it. At one point, I had to stop typing because I was laughing. I think it was the “Craig biting into the egg sandwich” part. C’mon, that was funny.

I thought it was a good day to put up that deer fencing I bought at Lowes yesterday. The weather was nice and brisk. I had the plastic fencing and posts all ready to go. I pulled out my not-so-great staple gun and proceeded to staple the fencing to the beams below the porch (behind the arborvitae). My staple gun has a little problem that it developed during my screening of the porch. It only likes to spit a staple out every fifteenth try. It gets rather frustrating. I got most of the back part done when I went into the basement and oiled the gun. I went back out to give it another shot. WOW, it didn’t work any better. Determined, I went back into the basement and took the staple gun apart on top of the dryer. After fiddling with it for about ten minutes, I realized that I could not put it back together. I am not sure if it was because there were too many parts or if it was me. You know when you take something complicated apart…everything is fine until that one little part pops out of where it is supposed to be? Then, while reaching for that part, something else pops out? That’s what happened. I slid the staple gun off the dryer and into the garbage. I wasn’t going to play that game. The damn thing didn’t work anyway. It’s a shame because it was fairly new…I mean it was a few years old, but hardly used. Whelp, there’s another trip to Lowes.

Yesterday, during my checkout, the nice cashier gave me a $10 off coupon, good for my next purchase. I decided to use it today on some very exciting things.

First, I picked up a new Stanley SharpShooter “AntiJam” staple gun. It was only $15 and change. I really looked for a better one, but they don’t exist. It works fine. I also got the recommended staples to go with it. Maybe that was my problem? I don’t know.

Next, I got a nice little drill bit set. I am so sick and tired of messing with the dead bits I have. I keep hoping that somehow they will heal themselves while sitting in the basement and become sharp again. It’s like that old Larry Miller milk joke…when he says, “Hmmm, maybe I’ll just put this back in the fridge and it will be fresh tomorrow.” Anyway, the set I picked up is a 16 piece DeWalt Pilot Point drill bit set. They are nice and shiny and I like DeWalt. DeWalt has yet to let me down and I know the company offers quality items. Thank you DeWalt. Also, they are shiny.

Lastly, I picked up some new accessories for my Dremel. That Dremel kicks ass. I have used it a few times already in some tight situations. I give it high marks. Since the cutting disks wear out kind of fast, I got some more of them. I also picked up some finishing abrasive buffs. I am going to use them for the tile in the bathroom. Some of the tiles need to be cleaned. These two attachments use a fancy Dremel EZ Lock piece for a faster accessory change. It’s pretty cool.

What about the deer fencing? Ok, here goes…

Well, what do you think? Now, I can rest a bit easier knowing that my prized arborvitae will be eaten, but not without a fight.

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We Caught the Deer

Well, Laura did anyway.

She was letting Holly, the dog, back inside this evening, (which is now dark by the way) when she heard something in the leaves. She told me about it and grabbed the flashlight. I told her I was going to go out the front door and we would surround whoever was out there. Somehow, Laura ended up going out the front door with me. I don’t think she heard me. So much for surrounding the enemy. Either way, we walked out onto the front porch and saw their eyes sparkle in the moonlight…two hungry deer.

I ran out on the lawn and watched (and heard) them run away into the neighbor’s yard across the street. That’ll teach ‘em. Yeah, right. I walked downstairs and grabbed my big sprayer full of deer spray and had my way with all the trees on the property. Now, the whole place stinks to high heaven.

Tomorrow, I will wrap the trees with fencing.

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The Deer Ate My Crabapple Trees

I know, I know, I complain about the same thing every year.

I kept forgetting to spray my three new crabapple trees with the Liquid Fence deer repellent spray. I sprayed them before, but it seems like every time I do, there are heavy rain showers. Even though the spray claims to stay on in the rain, everyone knows that is just a dream. By the way, if you are going to buy this spray, purchase the concentrated bottle. It goes a much longer way than the other pre-mixed stuff.

So, the deer have been nibbling on the end tree. I thought the other two trees were a different breed that the deer weren’t interested in, because they weren’t touched. Well, this morning, I noticed that the trees were bare. When I say bare, I mean the wood was eaten too. The damn deer even broke a few branches to get to the leaves at top.

I love animals, but at this point and want to strangle these deer. Today I am going to the Depot to get some of that see-through black deer fencing. I will take a picture for you.

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Today’s Theme – Birds on a Wire

This morning’s drive was a mixed bag…sunny in some parts and foggy in the rest. I thought I got some really cool shots of the fog, but they ended up to be just gray.

If I was able to stop on the side of the road today, I think I would have been able to get some really interesting photos. There was cool fog mixed with the Newburgh/Beacon Bridge and some clouds were hanging about half way up Mount Beacon. Since I was on the highway, I thought I would look like a herb pulling over to take pictures. Also, I probably would’ve been killed by that one 85 pound woman driving that huge Suburban all alone. I thought it was a bus.

Anyway, to the pictures. One of them actually has some leaf change…

Ok, this isn’t the one with the leaf change. It’s a pretty picture of a field. Remember, this isn’t too easy to do while driving. I think whoever was driving behind me probably thought I was drunk.

Here is another good shot of some trees.

This is the one with some color change. Right in the center of the photo, you will notice a little something peeking out. Actually, there was some action today, but I didn’t get too much of it. I will have to make more of an effort next time.

I thought this was pretty neat. I was sitting on Rt.208 in Montgomery, waiting to turn left to get on Interstate 84, when I looked to the left. Up on the wires were some birds. Since it was cloudy, I was able to get a nice pic right into the sun.

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The Animals of Punta Cana

Ok, only three posts about Punta Cana left and that’s it. My fingers are getting tired.

During our short trip, we saw many different animals that were pretty foreign to us. After all, I have never actually seen a real Pink Flamingo in our front yard. I am just going to post the pictures with some descriptions below them. I really don’t know what any of them are, so maybe you can help out with that if you recognize something.

During breakfast, there were a few kids who liked to feed the fish little pieces of bread. The fish went crazy for this, but so did the ducks. This was a pretty agressive duck that came by to stir things up.

One of the first things I noticed after showing up, was the good number of peacocks at the resort. They were near the pool, on the sidewalk and, like in this photo, on people’s porches. Instead of roosters, we heard peacocks screaming like kids in the morning.

I saw a few of these unidentified lizards here. I remember the first time I saw a lizard like this in Florida. I just thought it was the most amazing thing. I kept trying to get a good picture of this one, but he would keep hiding on the other side of the tree.

I have also never seen a live pink flamingo (I think). These birds are neat because their legs bend opposite of the way ours do. They also sleep standing on one leg with their heads tucked in their backs.

This is a good photo of a bird (I am not sure what kind of bird) with its new little chicks. They were just walking around chilling out with the rest of us.

The pictures above are of the different kinds of fish that were in the ponds. The last one is of this huge carp that looked kind of lonesome. The others were various tropical fish. I mentioned earlier that I actually used to have some of these types of fish in my old tropical fish tank at home.

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Throwing Rice at Weddings – Can it Hurt Birds?

On my drive in to work today, I heard a story on NPR’s “Nature Watch” segment about the myth of harm to birds by throwing rice at weddings.

I’m sure you have all heard of people changing their ways to protect the birds. It has long been said that by throwing rice at the bride and groom after a wedding can harm a bird. People say that when the bird eats the rice, the rice expands inside the bird’s stomach, causing the bird to actually explode. I always believed this and have thrown bird seed at weddings instead.

Well, Nature Watch told me this morning that the whole rice story is really a myth. They said that birds eat rice all the time in the wild and it has no harmful effects on them.

So this left me thinking…the next time I see a bird explode over my head while in flight, what the heck caused it?

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The Cottonmouth Water Moccasin Adventure

This post was written by Steve Henry

My beautiful wife, realizing that the weeds around the house have grown to over three feet tall, surprised me with an Anniversary Edition Craftsman 32cc 1.9 cubic inch 2-cycle 17 inch cutting path gasoline weedwacker with Sim-Pul technology for smooth easy starts.

Personally, I don’t mind weeds. I think weeds get a bad wrap. Weeds should have just as much right to grow as do grass and flowers. Weeds can be beautiful too. It is part of nature.

Anyway, I got the hint so last Sunday, April 29, 2007, I fired up the weedwacker and went to work. I live in Southeastern North Carolina, in what is known as the sub-tropics. Wilmington, North Carolina to be exact. Home of the famous Azalea Festival. The reason I mention this is to help explain some details to the people reading who are not familiar with the Southeast United States.

The Southeast has many creepy crawly creatures that like to make homes in overgrown areas with lots of weeds. Many, many reptiles and live hand in scale with humans. There is also a plethora of small rodents and mammals crawling around out there…so makes the circle of life. I like to refer to my backyard as “The Jungle.” We have a fairly large backyard that is fenced in by a wooden 6 foot fence. The first half of the yard, the part that is next to the house, is cleared (except for my overgrown weeds). The back half is “The Jungle.” Many a day I have heard things rustling through the underbrush in the jungle. It doesn’t bother me, because I am a tree-hugger nature boy, and I love all animals (except that German Shepherd that lived up the street when I was a kid, the one that used to chase me all the time).

So I start wacking the weeds next to the house. I have to admit, there were a lot of weeds. It took about 30 minutes. I had forgotten about the hole my dog Keesha had dug last fall. Keesha is an Akita.

The weeds had totally covered her hole, naturally I stepped in the hole, tripped and fell. I chuckled, because I bet it looked pretty funny. I got up and wacked the hole, which is right next to the house. I then stopped the Craftsman weedwacker. I suddenly noticed numerous unusually large geckos running away from the area. I thought this to be a little strange, since this was something with which I had never noticed of their character before. I then noticed some sort of commotion about 25 feet away near the corner of the house. I walked over to inspect what was happening. Apparently, I had disturbed many creatures, two of which were a young opossum and the largest Cottonmouth Water Moccasin (Agkistrodon piscivorus) I had ever seen. The cottonmouth had its fangs sunk into the opossum. I was totally in awe. This is something you would see Steve Irwin (Crocodile Hunter) examining. The opossum stopped struggling after about 10 seconds. For some reason, I automatically tried to help the opossum, like it was a murder victim or something. Without thinking, I had grabbed my trash grabbers, those things you can use to pick up trash without bending over. I reached out and hooked the snake and picked it up. It would not let go of the opossum. So I grabbed the opossum with the tongs and started shaking it. After about a minute, the snake fell to the ground, not very happy with me. My neighborhood is built on what used to be a swamp. Cottonmouth snakes are not uncommon, but usually do not come this close. I figured it must have been living in that hole that Keesha had dug.

I did not want to kill the snake, since I am a tree-hugger. It was obviously very angry at me and coiled to strike. I tried numerous times to pick it up with the grabbers, but apparently, to my dismay, Cottonmouth snakes like to climb. This thing wanted a piece of me bad. I then decided to chase it away, into one of the many streams or ponds that are around the house. The snake was very adamant about getting around me and going back to that hole. It struck several times, hitting the grabbers with an impressive force. I now know why they are called Cottonmouths. Very white mouth. I jumped back, and the snake made quick move toward the house. I did not want the snake to get to the hole or the house, because right beside the hole, is the back garage door, which is broken (it is on my honey-do list) and has about a 2 inch area on the bottom that is wide open. I knew the cottonmouth could fit under this, and this is where he was heading. I have small children at home, and really don’t need large poisonous snakes in my garage or next to the house. The only thing I could think of doing was throwing the grabbers at the door, and hopefully scare the snake into a different direction. It worked, but the snake turned and started to climb up the electric outlet box. It got pretty high, and then I noticed the vent that goes into the attic. It is not that high, only a single story house. The snake was heading right for it. It then fell off the house, then started climbing again, straight for the vent. I ran to pick up the grabbers and noticed an old rusty machete lying on the ground. I don’t even know where it came from, since I have never bought a machete. I ran back to get the snake and all of sudden the snake falls, but falls on the other side of the fence, and has a straight shot for the front door. I hop over the fence and fall, then quickly notice that I am face to face with the beast. I did not hesitate swinging the machete with full force. My aim was true, and I hit the snake in the head. I then jumped up. I felt really bad, because I knew the snake was dying.

I stood there and watched over it for the next 30 minutes, while it tried to still bite me. I figured it must be in pain, so I swung again and put it out of its misery. I put it in a bag and had a proper burial. I still feel bad for killing it, but I guess this is what happens when humans start encroaching on wildlife. I will leave “The Jungle” for all beasts that wish to live there.

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