Flower power in Paris

I need to backtrack a bit and finish showing you some nice stuff:


flowers on buildings

on monuments

on cathedral doors and windows

in cafes

and museums

on six inch mosaics

on the ceilings in a department store


in the shops

overlooking gardens

in a random courtyard

in the George V Hotel lobby

and next to the sink -(they are real)

and for sale on the streets.

Meal time for Baby-Girl Squirrel

Look how much bigger she is this week.....she loves her food!

This week she is picking up little bits of food while sitting on her hind legs.
I started giving her a few bits to nibble on, apple, corn and banana along with the nuggets of mouse food.

And in the mail today ....a postcard featuring a very distant relative... Nutkin, of course. Thanks Mandy :-) Baby-Girl Squirrel hasn't managed to hold up her tail yet, I wonder if it will be as fluffy as Nutkin's.

Sweet Home Alabama

Remember this road sign? On a stretch of I-65 between Montgomery and Mobile there is an exit with a restaurant serving a real county experience - we stopped there for breakfast and I thought you would enjoy a snapshot of the menu.

From another restuarant, overlooking the river in Tuscoloosa there is a tree that has had a few signs nailed to it over the years. All showing flood levels.

"Roll Tide Roll" - the Crimsom Tide - team chant

The Alabama football fans are very loyal to their team, every home game is sold out - 92 thousand seats, with construction in progress to take it up to 104 thousand. The team arrives in police escorted buses, a good 2.5 hours before the game. These fans wait for that moment, lining up for hours, ready to cheer when they arrive.

It's 2 o'clock in this photo....waiting for the team to arrive....the game starts at 6:45. Notice all the jackets - it was a cold day and an even colder night in the stands.

Took these next two last year on a hotter day, we didn't watch the team arrive this year. - yes once was enough :-)

Every parking lot, front lawn, driveway, and town square is taken over by tailgaters....food, music, booths selling everything team related, private parties, and public parties...you name it it's there.

Earlier in the day there was a parade which we missed but we had ample time to stroll along the streets lined with the huge Frat and Sorority houses which were all decorated for this years homecoming theme (Return to Glory). The houses compete by building large signs all made with coloured tissue paper. They were fantastic, I couldn't believe the detail - (I don't know any of the people in the photos)

and from behind


So our weekend immersed in everything Crimson Tide went well. The stadium atmosphere was exciting, the pom pom waving was constant and of course they played the song "Sweet Home Alabama" with the phrase "Roll Tide Roll" added to the lyrics after the chorus.

Baby-Girl Squirrel in action

You all seem to be enjoying the progress of Baby-Girl Squirrel, thanks for your comments and questions.
I have just fed her, popped her in my pocket while I made coffee and microwaved a heating pad for her, she is now back in her box and I can get the promised video uploaded for you.

Every couple of days I check her weight, and I calculate the amount of formula to give her. She weighs in at 75-80 grams. At each feeding you stimulate the bottom area to help her pee and pooh, and if she cooperates it is all caught in a tissue...simulating how mummy squirrel cleans the babies...sure keeps the box clean.
After the feeding she will climb and explore a bit, usually up our arms and into a fold of fabric, curl up and rest. She loves to spread out on all fours with belly flat on the heating pad and will nap there a while before curling up and sleeping away a few hours.
She has started nibbling on little nuggets of pet mouse food, holding it but not yet picking it up. Soon she will be sitting on her hind feet with the food in her hands. Now we will start to introduce more solid foods and start the weaning process. At about 12 weeks she should be weaned and ready for release.

We will be setting up a cage which we can take outside where she will meet other squirrels in safety, will eventually leave the door open, continue to feed her and if all goes well she will come and go until she is ready to venture off alone.





on the scales

It's American Football season

After living here this long, and having two big fans in the family I have no excuse for not really understanding the game, it's just that I like it when something is actually happening, a good run, kick, throw, or tackle is exciting. But how on earth can a game with play time of 60 minutes last for four hours! it's a huge time commitment. Add to the actual game the tailgating and the travel involved and you have a whole day taken up.
So between moments of action I watch the people, the rituals, the cheers, the band, the flag twirlers and cheerleaders. I am also much more fascinated with watching the stadium transform from an empty place to one throbbing with people - this is serious stuff!
If you are a fan and don't go to a game, you watch it on TV. On an average Saturday for university football, with at least five TV channels showing games from all over the country all day and night and repeat that on Sunday and again Monday night for the Pro games, isn't it in my best interest to learn to understand this American pastime.

This weekend is a big one for the University of Alabama, it's homecoming week, which is a big deal. We have had our tickets for months, a hotel booked too . The school in Tuscaloosa is almost four hours drive from home, the tailgating starts early, but only after the mandatory stroll around the streets with 1000's of other people. We are going with another couple who are alumni and have a son attending the school. This game starts at 1845 so it will be late when we get out of all the traffic and head to the hotel which is in Birmingham (all hotels in Tuscaloosa booked solid). I have never been to Birmingham and would love to tour it quickly, but I think we will be heading directly south so that we can at least have a little bit of our weekend at home.
So if you think of me on Saturday, I will be there, watching the people and waving my pom poms, look for me on TV, I'm the one in red :-)

The photos are from a game we went to last year. And to tell the truth, I don't actually sit and watch the TV games.

Autumn cooking

Pumpkins are at all the markets now, plus lots of other lovely fall vegetables. Our weather isn't at all autumn like though, still warm ( high 20's to low 30's ) and most days it is humid.

Humidity and getting things dry just don't go together, thank heavens for clothes dryers, even if we had a clothes line, it wouldn't be much use! I spilled a drink on a small rug last week. It needed to be hosed down, and now 7 days later after moving it to every sunny spot, it is damp, still smelling very much like the camel souk the hair it is made of came from.


Anyway, back to the pumpkins. Getting into the mood for Autumn food, I made some delicious pumpkin and acorn squash soup this week. I topped it with cilantro, crumbled bacon and toasted pumpkin seeds.

The recipe is from the Oct 2009 Southern Living magazine.

Buying in bulk!

Dried apricots are a popular snack in this house, they have to be a certain type though. The kind that remind me of apricots I grew up eating in NZ, they were drier and less sweet than the fat plump ones in all the stores now. I had luck finding them for years at Publix stores, they had "Pacific" style dried apricots next to the "Mediterranean" apricots. They have stopped making/selling them so I had to look elsewhere.
I got lucky at the Whole Foods store over in Mobile - they would pack up containers of what they labeled "Patterson Apricots" at $10 a pound, (yes expensive) we would buy some each time we were over there. Well last week on a trip over we see them selling for $ 2.95, big excitement!! so decide to buy quite a few and ask if they have more behind the scenes that we can have. This is when we are told that they are discontinuing this type, we are not so excited anymore :-( !! We end up getting offered them loose for $2.00 per lb. so we snatch up a box of 25 lb - they had two more boxes which we wanted but being practical.....who can eat that many and we have no idea how well they will keep. So I have bagged them up and we are happily nibbling away!
I did make these little fried apricot pies which were yum and are requested again.

PS. I won't be making jam, but other suggestions are welcome :-)

Hummingbird Casualty

One of the beautiful hummingbirds that visit our backyard feeder was found dead this morning. It is the female bird that you have seen photos of at the feeder. She was at the base of the garage door, must have crashed into it while on one or her high speed games. What a shame! Isn't she beautiful?

Hello little eyes

Our "Baby-Girl Squirrel" is another week older. She opened her eyes early in the week, just little slits and it took several days for them to open fully. Her focus must not be very developed as there is a lot of stumbling around.


The week went well and you can really see the growth, especially the fluff on the tail and the thicker fur. The photos below show her today, just waking up with a curious friend looking in and then posing for the camera.








Unfortunately she had a bit of trauma one day. I came home to a mess in the room where her box is...she had managed to climb out of her box (had never showed any interest in doing that before), fell off the table and found a safe haven behind the book case. What we don't know is how much help she got from Chester!! The box was still upright on the table. The contents of the bookcase (big books, my beautiful Andris Apse NZ Landscapes, scratched to death, boxes and all the computer hardware and cables) were all over the floor as Chester tried to get to her and we will never know if he "handled" her at all, though she seemed fine with no injuries. We had showed her to Chester every time we handled her, he wanted to see what that little thing was. He was curious but always backed away after a quick sniff.
I feel awful and should have had the box covered and the door closed. It won't be happening again.

Here she is at feeding time. I will post a video soon.

I think we will call her "Baby-Girl Squirrel" for the time being...thanks Aunty Barb :-)

she is sweet

This little girl has been taking up all my spare time....am even waking up for night feedings!!

I hope we are beyond any touch and go days, we had a couple of worries there for a while. I think she is a bit younger than we originally thought, maybe she is 4 weeks old now. When we found her she was very cold and dehydrated, close to death. We had to try and reunite her with the mother, so we were in and out with hot water bottles, making her cry by holding her upside down by her legs (to attract the mother), dropping Gatorade into her mouth and moving well away and watching the spot we left her under the tree. One squirrel came halfway down the tree, but after an all day attempt we gave that up and settled in to look after her ourselves.

Feedings are now going well and we are looking forward to those little eyes opening.

The law over here states that it is illegal to keep any wildlife, so we were on a mission to find a wildlife rehab location that we could give her to. After talking with a local wildlife group I was told that here in Alabama, I was able to look after her myself without a permit until weaned and then release to the wild (backyard). So we are heading for a new experience, which I hope is fun for us all and I will keep you posted on progress.

falling from trees

Our magnolia trees have been dropping loads of seed pods.
Fantastic to look at close up.

the acorns have started to fall -

100s & 1000s of them!

we can hear them plop plop on the roof.

and this little Grey squirrel fell from his tree this morning.

We have kept him warm (baby Mango's' heat lamp has a new purpose) and tried to hydrate him with Gatorade, as instructed by numerous Internet pages, and will be picking up some puppy formula to mix as his food - here we go again, what am I letting myself in to? But with two boys who give you puppy dog eyes when it comes to baby animals, I can at least try to give it a chance. Having a tame suqirrel in the back yard might even be fun!

looking at photos on-line we guess that he is about 4.5 weeks old with eyes still closed.

Wish us luck. :-)

bed revealed

not really 100% finished as I plan (one day) to decorate one pillow with beads and gold bullion thread. Clicking on the photos will give you the details. The colour on the cable velvet throw are a bit off, it is more of a chocolate brown.

lots of pillows to take off every night!