Dreamscope Fun

Frog picture enhanced with Dreamscope App.

Found a new online tool I've been having fun with.  It takes your uploaded photos and makes the changes using a wide variety of filters.  It's taken my garden, family and wildlife photos and given them a whole new appearance.  Here are a few samples:

Anole on bromeliad my picture before

Anole after dreamscope filter

Bard Owl Before

Bard Owl after Dreamscope

Bea before

Bea after

Cameron and Amber before

Cameron and Amber after

Canna Picasso before

Canna Picasso after

Bear before

Bear after

I find it a fun distraction while watching evening news or as something to do at the end of a busy day when you just want to have a simple distraction as you unwind. You can give it a try at Dreamscope  and give a whole new life to your photos.

Chickens before

Chickens after

Forbidden City, Beijing before

Forbidden City, Beijing after

Dahlia before

Dahlia after

Lauren, Hannah and Tarzan before

Lauren, Hannah and Tarzan after

Blue Heron before

Blue Heron after

Hibiscus before

Hibiscus after

Great White Egret before

Great White Egret after

Landscape before

Landscape after

Tractor before

Tractor after

Waterlilies befpre 

Waterlilies after

China Wall Mural before

China Wall Mural After

Tiger Eye Lilly before

Tiger Eye Lilly after

Cameron and Hannah Shanghai before

Cameron and Hannah Shanghai after

Have fun. SOOOOO many other filters to choose from for your unique photo creations!!

Bulbs in Bloom

Back in February on a particularly gloomy and cold day for Florida, the girls and I had some errands to run and one of our stops was at Walmart.  When we were there looking for some items on our list we saw the newly stocked shelves of bulbs and seeds for sale.  Looking at the beautiful flowers and plants made us long for their appearance in our yard.  So we loaded up a whole lot of them, then stopped by Home Depot to get the ingredients I needed to put together my potting mix and we began planting the bulbs in anticipation of Spring color and texture in our yard and garden areas.

Not part of our bulbs, but the apple was one of the first to flower

Another was the cranberry hibiscus

We bought a lot of perennials so we can look forward to more production over the years, as well as seeds for the annuals that we'll spread around each year to keep multiplying their appearance with pops of color.  It's exciting as we see the first fruits of our labor now appearing and adding to the established green that was already in the yard.  Until now we've primarily planted trees and plants with the idea of food production, With those doing well it's time to bring color and beneficial insect attracters into the yard.

One of the first bulbs to come up was this pretty daylilly they called "Dreamcicle"

This is one of the many incredible blooms on this Dahlia

I have many of these nice Dutch Iris springing up around the yard

The purple gladiolus are so showy

This Daylilly is called "Night Beacon"

I found a Guara on clearance at Lowes and here are some of its blossoms

The Hibiscus is showing its color as well

We'll continue to divide these plants as they mature and spread them throughout the yard and garden so that the whole yard will be a beautiful productive place to be.  Hope you enjoy some of the beauties that have already made their appearance.

Just LOVE these yellow calla lilies and their variegated leaves!

The Canna "Picasso" makes a bold statement flower 

The Echinacea is pretty and useful

This delicate pink Calla Lilly is lovely

The Tiger Eye Lilies are so pretty too.

I'm still waiting for many of the others to show up throughout the yard and in pots, but I've also been treated to my banana flowering and producing bananas.  This is also the first year my pineapple guava has flowered and I'm hoping for fruit on that too.  I have 10 pineapples producing and we already enjoyed some loquats from that tree.  It's a delight to see the color and now I'm looking forward to enjoying the fruits as well.

The banana flower when it first appeared.  Since this photo  was taken it has produced 6 hands of bananas and is still growing longer with more to come.

Pineapple Guava

One of the 10 pineapples that are beginning to grow

We've been busy with the garden, and are delighted to see the results.  Will share photos when I have more to show you.

Spring Chickens

New chicks in the Tractor Supply Box

Well Spring is in the air and 3 weeks ago we stopped by Tractor Supply to pick up a few needed items for current projects and to check on the parking lot vendors they have come in with their animals for sale.  We've been talking about getting chickens for some time and wound up buying our first set of chicks, 11 in all this trip.

Girls helping to set up the tank /starter home for the chicks

Sooo cute!!

Hannah with a chick

Lauren holding one of the cochin chicks

We set up their preliminary home using one of our tubs we purchased for use when we set up our aquaponics system, and it was a perfect starter spot for this group.  The people we bought them from call their business Chicken Pimpin. They have a mix of young chicks and this trip was primarily olive eggers, cochins and ameraucanas.

The following weekend we went back and bought all the chicks they had.  We now had a total of 28 chicks with most being only a few days old.  This second group had polish chicks, german spitzhaueben, ameraucanas, and blue laced red wingdottes. In the coming week we lost the smallest one of them, but have managed to keep the others going strong.

Our second group of chicks is a real mixed one.

The kids setting up the second tank

German Spitzhauben Chick with it's little Mohawk Feathers

One of the Polish Chicks - cute

We built a temporary shelter outdoors by the house, as we were delayed with the work on our main hoop house coop because we had to have emergency surgery on Bea our basset hound whose battle with glaucoma has been going on for a couple years now.  Despite all the measures we'd taken and procedures trying to save sight and eyes, she lost her sight a month ago and we couldn't get the pressure, which had become extremely high, down.  So our only option left was removal of both her eyes.  This was a very sad day for us and not an easy one for Bea.  She's been making a lot of progress in the week since her surgery and is clearly feeling much better now that she's healing and doesn't have the intense pain of her glaucoma. Our time and efforts with her have been worthwhile, but it necessitated the temporary cage to move the now growing chicks out of their tank lodgings.

Bea before surgery, eyes enlarged and hurting with the high pressure she was experiencing

Bea just after we returned home from the vets.

We have the first and largest 11 chicks outside and the remaining 26 in two large tanks in the garage. This weekend will be a busy one working on the hoop house coop and preparing it for the home of this interesting flock of chickens.

The girls helping Kevin with the first section of the hoop house

This is as far as we've got.  We have a shed coop to add to this closer end, walls, doors, strengthen the sides and add the hard wire for predator protection.

Kevin working on the temporary coop salvaged from a coop a woman who was taking down.

Chickens checking out their new lodgings. The cochin are so funny with their feathery legs, especially when they're running

Getting bigger, this olive egger is checking out the new environment

That's it for now.  Will update again soon, as we make progress with the chickens and the many other activities we have going on around the property.