u/CJgreencheetah

And I graciously accept

Every spring I buy a bunch of colors of lisianthus and remove all the labels. I mix them all up and plant them at random. That way it's always a mystery what colors will end up together and I get to have something to look forward to throughout the summer as more colors emerge. So far I'm still waiting on the green and red ones to bloom, I believe all the other colors have at least one open flower.

Don't worry about the cat in the background, I scrubbed myself clean immediately after taking the picture and threw my dress straight in the wash, so there would be no contamination. I am very cautious when dealing with the lilies.

I have no idea why these specific lilies get so big. I have other lilies bought at the same time that were labeled the same, but only this specific package grew into monsters. This flower bed actually tends to kill most plants and there's no extra fertilizer that goes into it, so I guess there's just some weird genetics at play. They get this size every year. They also smell amazing, similar to a hyacinth in the spring, whereas none of my other lilies have any smell at all. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I love my weird giant babies.

Photo from North Dakota fish and wildlife website: https://gf.nd.gov/ecology/species/birds/prairie-falcon

This was the closest photo I could find. I was driving and saw this really cool looking bird in the ditch guarding some sort of prey, but I didn't get a super great look and thought it was a hawk. Thirty minutes later I drove past again and was able to get a really good look and realized it was a falcon, which I've never seen in the wild before. I debated stopping nearby so I could walk back and get a better look and a picture for identification, but decided to just look it up later. Well, after looking at pictures of tons of falcons, I found this nearly identical looking one. This is a prairie falcon, which is apparently very rare to see in Ohio, and especially so during the summer. Like, birdwatchers would kill for a sighting levels of rare. And I just drove right past it and hardly took notice 😭🤦🏼‍♀️ I will definitely be going back tomorrow and sticking around a while to see if I can spot it again, because now I'm dying to confirm (and get proof).

And yes, I've looked at tons of pictures of merlins and kestrels and I'm very certain they don't match as well as a prairie falcon. Especially because this guy was so big, like at least turkey buzzard size if not even a bit bigger.

Most of our shingles blew off in a storm in November. It took a couple weeks to even get the insurance company to answer the phone, but they finally contracted the job out to a roofing company... in a different country (live in the US, the company was in Canada). Cue another few weeks of trying to get the insurance company to pick up the phone, and we finally got contracted out to a different roofing company... which turned out to be dissolved two months prior. So yet another week of calling, and now they can't cover our claim because our ticket has already been closed out and we need to file our complaint again. Ugh! We haven't even managed to get it tarped yet, so the damage is only getting worse and worse, especially since we've had one of the wettest springs in a few years. The mold smell is awful, we've had to completely shut off the room and keep the window open 24/7 to air it out. The worst part is, we live right next to a roofing company, the insurance just won't work with them.

I found this cute little praying mantis in the mulch in my garden. I just happened to see him out of the corner of my eye. I've only ever found one mantis in my garden and it was a large female, so I was really surprised to see this one.

This is Mac (the tabby) and Batman (the tuxedo). My mom foster failed Batman in 2021, then in 2022 Mac and his brother Donald (guess where they were found lol) came to us as little spicy kittens. Batman was still pretty young so he was a big help in socializing the kittens. Because he played with them so much, Mac became extremely attached to Batman, and they were almost inseparable. While Batman doesn't really share the same sentiment, he tolerates Mac's snuggles and endless grooming. Since they were so close, we couldn't bear to adopt out Mac, so he and Donald became permanent residents here. This is just a small handful of the pictures I've taken of the two of them cuddling. (I also want it known that if you ask Mac "Where's your boyfriend?" he'll go find Batman and rub up against him ❤️🧡💛💚💙).