Japanese Morning Glories & water hyacinth in fish pond

I love morning glories, but have loved them even more since I found these gorgeous Japanese variety of morning glories

just look at the colors on these, some are even 5+ inches in diameter!

stunning!

see how bright and pretty they are, and I love the varigated leaves they have

 beautiful colors that just pop out at ya!

and they have a beautiful shimmer or sheen to them too, would love to have one of every variety there is out there!

 water hyacinth in my fish pond, they have taken over!

told ya they took over LOL, can't find the fishies in there any longer!!

Kitchen cabinets get a paint job!!

HA remember how I say if you want to do something, just do it and don't ask the hubby first?

That's my theory and I am STICKING TO IT!!!

well I would have been scolded every which way from Sunday if I had said I wanted to PAINT the kitchen cabinets, ya know, he's a cabinet builder and LOVES wood naturally, well sometimes natural wood is just plain UGLY, so there! So I had it all planned out in my head, soon as he heads off to work, I am ripping off those cabinet doors, sanding them down in basement, painting them and while the doors dry, I run back and forth between basement to do doors and the cabinet exterior up here  and then getting them all back up before he gets home tee hee, he can't stop me if it's done right?

recap of the old orange-ish looking cabinets and knobs

 one of the drawers was falling apart, so I glued it, screwed it and then taped it to hold it together until it dried, yea I know a clamp would have worked much better, but he had all those at work and I certainly couldn't have asked for one or he would have been onto me and my project!
then get them all gathered up to take to basement to start sanding!!

gotta take off knobs and hardware and get to sanding!

 as you can see I have doors in progress, also started painting the cabinets as well

my plan was to paint the base color a green color, then apply that crackle and put the off white paint on top, so it would have the aged crackle effect, however after trying one cabinet I knew I needed a huge wide roller to do this, so . . . I gave up that and had to just paint over the green :(

 maybe another day and time when I have the right large roller I will attempt it again!

and now . . .

see, we moved the fridge over to the area where they had laundry

oh la la, just lookie there what I did when he ran off to work ;)

I even rummaged around in the basement of the left over treasures the former owner left here and found an old metal coffee can full of the silver knobs, they had to be used in this kitchen at one point in time because there were the perfect amount of them!!! Score!

and remember the upper cabinets above the old oven cook top?

well . . . hubby took that down for me awhile back, and I have since painted the soffit area too

we can see through to the other part of the room without a big road block in the way!

the before of where the oven was hanging out in the wall cabinet & the opening where the fridge used to be

there's the other side of the kitchen, the fridge used to be in that nook where we have placed the stove, fits perfect and I want you to take note of the counter top laminate in these photos, the stuff is so old it's pulling apart, discolored, etc. not to mention TAPED, again with the tape geesh, never heard of repairing with glue? anyway take note because we will be redoing the laminate counter tops too here soon :)

Baby ducklings growing up & peeps too

update on the ducklings, they are getting so big!

 they are so ready to get out in the chicken yard to play in the water and run wild

this one has a strange furry hat almost, but he doesn't seem to notice or care

Remember Henny Penny who hatched out the baby guinea and banty?

there they are out in the yard getting bigger and eating lots of bugs!

everything is so pretty and green, purple coneflowers are in full bloom, I love this place!

Update on baby kitten found in hen house

Wanted to give an update on kitten we found in the hen house
here it is getting spoiled and bottle fed still

so little and fluffy, still fits in palm of your hand!

 she is learning to eat canned kitty food, see how tiny she is still?

 poor baby! she is really having a hard time of it, but we still bottle feed her too, so she's really doing great!

seems to get more on her face than in her belly sometimes

 NOT  a real pretty baby yet, but look at that face, just like a child after eating, a mess and ready for a nap!

guess she wasn't interested in me taking photos of her poor face or when I said it's bath time again

as tired as she is, too bad, she needs a bath!

do you have any clue how hard it is to clean her face?
I mean seriously, I have to give this thing a bath every day and she sits right down in the sink or in the bathtub and gets her bath without any complaints

told you she loves to snuggle, she has to dry off somehow after a bath LOL

there much cleaner and dry again, she is growing, not much, but she is trying! She still doesn't have a  name, nothing seems to fit at this point, something will come to me eventually

4 wheelin & mall cruisin

LOL kids, havin a good time

ridin 4 wheelers on a pretty day

cruisin the mall

Another baby kitten found in the hen house

So we had a deep fried turkey gathering with the neighbors on both sides of us, while visiting, Cora the farmer's wife told me that a baby kitten was in the hen house following the chickens around, she noticed it when she was in gathering eggs, the mother had been hit on the road she thought, she said it was a "wildcat" and she wasn't about to try and catch it, but just a teeny baby, sooo.....

I sent my nephew over to see if he could find it, he did, the poor thing was so small, its eyes were all matted shut and it could see nothing!! It was squalling so hard, it was starving, so I deserted our party and ran to the pet store to get some kitten formula to fill the teeny baby bottle I had, we cleaned it up, cleaned out it's eyes and washed it and gave it a good warm bottle of formula

I know, how horrid the poor baby looks, so tiny and dirty and scared to death, she looks like a tiny little rat, but after we got her cleaned up, she was the snuggliest little critter ever, and ate like a total hog, she just fit in the palm of my hand, she was still nursing and unable to eat yet on her own, she was immediately my favorite kitty in the house!!

She loves to crawl up on my shoulder and make her way back under my hair and fall asleep, she just wanted constant attention and I don't blame her, poor little mite . . .

I will update more on her later, but for now she is in her forever home!

and I will just have to be her new momma!

Box Turtles, new kittens & Henny Penny with peeps

The box turtles, don't they just think they are hiding!

too cute, hangin out under the tarp that makes their pond!

look how fat they are, I must be over feeding them, they can't even get all the way closed up in their shells LOL

and here we have miss Henny Penny, she was a surrogate mother, she hatched out a baby guinea chick and a little banty chick, she loves them babies!

the little black banty is soo sweet!

Almost 11 months here at the new homestead, and Scooter is right at home, runs around like she owns the farm

meet some new kitties, this is Koonie

Cali

Tigger

Smokey

they are some of the most playful kittens and friendliest ever, they were a drop off over at the farmer's barn, one day we went for a walk and they tried to cross the road to follow us home, we just couldn't bear to see them get smooshed on the road, so we went back over and brought all 6 of them home with us, how sweet are they? They know they will be smothered with love here :0)