Random 5 for May 12 – Mother’s Day, heron, pond, yardwork, spellcheck

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Here is a pictures of my Mom circa 1940’s maybe?

Happy mother’s day! – It’s not a holiday here. I don’t have children and my mother is gone so it’s just a day that’s really bad to go out to eat. If you are a mom, enjoy your day and do something that you want to do.

Traumatized fish — Doggone heron came back for a pond visit. I don’t know if he got anything. He ate half of my fish over the winter. The fish aren’t dumb (no matter what people say). When I came out immediately after he flew off, they were huddled under the hidey boxes I have for them inside the pond. Now I’m wondering if I should rig something up to make it unfriendly for him yet other birds can still take a drink or a bath.

Majestic heron at my pond looking for sushi

Speaking of pesky – The waterfall in the pond tripped. We have had electrical issues over the years. There are outdoor outlets (with approved weather-proof covers), yet they trip. Most of the time we are scratching our head. Yesterday was a head scratcher too. When I removed the fake stone that protects the outlet, there were a million ants climbing all over it. Some were inside the holes in the outlet. My best guess is that they tripped it. The weird part is that we have an ant trap inside the stone cover. This is annoying. We’ve been told that it’s a big year for ants because of all the rain. Ants love water. I’m grateful that they aren’t biting ants or fire ants.

Yardwork and aging – I have always been a big fan of working outside. It makes you feel so good. The fatigue you get at the end of the day is a good one. Makes me happy. That was then. These days I don’t enjoy it as much and I can’t do it for hours on end. Somewhere along the line I developed some seasonal allergies that kick in and make me miserable. Even though we’ve been downsizing the beds over the past ten years or so, it’s time for more downsizing. I should give up the garden except I love the tomatoes. I don’t grow enough for the whole neighborhood anymore but there is still work involved. We’ll see. Down to just a few plants now.

My tomatoes in a good year!

For bloggers – Has anyone else noticed that WordPress doesn’t have the spellcheck option when creating a new post (on the old editor)? Is this an attempt to get us to move to the new one? I haven’t heard good things about the new one especially if you cut and paste from a word document. Come on techies, work out those bugs.

So how was your week?

 

 

99 thoughts on “Random 5 for May 12 – Mother’s Day, heron, pond, yardwork, spellcheck”

  2. Hi Kate – In my Sunday post about babies in the park, a fellow blogger mentioned her pond and how the heron helps himself (or herself) to her fish. I mentioned you had the same problem and she said she uses a net. You can see her comment back to me that I cut and pasted below or look in my last post. Here’s Diane’s suggestion about putting a net over the pond:

    “I was told to do this by the metro parks. Once my plants multiply in the pond the fish can hide but I still keep them covered. The birds will peck through the net and kill the fish but then can’t get them out so they give up. Haven’t seen any yet this year. Egrets are another problem.”

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    • I don’t like to do nets because that restricts frogs and other critters from enjoying the pond. I can string fishing line (which is invisible) across the pond a few times in the middle section. Once the waterlilies have enough pads on the water, I won’t have any issue. Next winter I will put a few boards across evenly spaced. Just enough so they can’t walk in.

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      • I forgot about the frogs. I’m glad at least the waterlilies will help give the fish a place to hide. Someone always has to be a spoilsport. I had to give up feeding my porch pals because the big fox squirrels were getting too piggy. There was one in particular would sit there and feast on the nuts and when the smaller squirrels came to get some, he would chase them away, once or twice I saw them run into the street. I decided right then and there, it was over because I don’t want to walk outside and see Grady has been run over by a car in the street. I only stopped the end of April, when the ground was no longer frozen and they could find what they buried before. In doing that, the cardinals and blue jays lost out as well.

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  3. They read the invitation wrong – it was “aunts” welcomed, not “ants”? (Must be because of the spell check MIA – Arrrrrgh – no, not wanna move to new and problematic!) Ants in electrical boxes/areas are a big problem here – guess they enjoy a little zap now and then?
    Grow tomatoes as long as you are able – they just taste better (but we won’t discuss how much each one of the little guys cost after all the “nurturing” …there’s something wonderful about tomatoes (how I miss my dad’s surplus)

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  4. I love your post and all the comments. From bottom up, NO, I don’t want to change to WP’s new system. It keeps asking me to, and I ignore it. I’m amazed at what I finally figured out to do – change is NOT good necessarily, right? Urgh. Now up to the heron… so graceful and elegant and, whoops, those poor fish. I’m sure the heron thinks you put the fish right there expressly for her/him.
    In principle, I love to garden. I love when my guy gets all excited when May approaches and starts figuring out what he’s going to put in his garden. I love it when he asks if I want to weed with him and I say, “oh, I better make you more iced tea, dear, it’s hot out there.” Haha. And I love the fresh tomatoes and the colorful flowers out in our back deck — that I can admire from inside the house. 🙂

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  5. I went out to eat twice on Mother’s Day – once with my mother-in-law and then with my mom. I was surprised at how NOT busy either restaurant was! Especially during the brunch hour. Nice for us at least. I thought places would be packed!

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  6. Cat moms count!!! I really count on the spell checker. I haven’t noticed it not working and I’m not moving to the new editor until I have to. On the ants try full strength cinnamon oil. On the heron… do you have a little fountain? It makes it harder for the heron to see through the ripples but our fish were dumb. They’d swim to the surface whenever anything got close. I tried fake snakes and moved them around but somewhere I have a photo of the heron’s foot basically on top of it.

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    • I can string fishing line across the pond and that’s what I will do (if it ever stops raining). It’s only until the water lilies put up enough pads to cover most of the pond. It’s too hard to get in my very small pond then so I don’t have issues with herons. They can’t fish from the side either because of the cover. Cinnamon oil next round of ants!

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  7. Your tomatoes look so yummy! I probably should get a plant or two in the ground soon so we can enjoy fresh-picked also. I didn’t know about WP and spellcheck (I create/edit in Word, then cut and paste) but I’m not surprised that they may be making the classic editor less user-friendly. I have no interest in changing over to Gutenberg… they’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming.

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  8. Hi Kate, I don’t have kids either. I love my mom, but I don’t like Mother’s Day. Same for Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day. Not everyone has people in their lives that these holidays require. Plus, people we love should be shown appreciation more than one day a year. But, I won’t go on about that.

    Since we moved back north, we added more yard work. The sandy soil in Florida made it more difficult to grow much of anything but palm trees. Bugs even made a lawn difficult to keep alive. Now that we’re back north, we’ve added gardening. However, chronic pain for both of us makes it more difficult. Figures, we move back and we’re too old to enjoy the things we wanted to do.

    Anyway, I get it . . . both the Mother’s Day thing and the yard work.

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  10. I love flowers and gardens, but I haven’t been a consistent gardener. Now I do even less than I did before. I’m grateful to the people who care for the flowers and plants I pass on my walks. Today the lilacs were so unbelievably fragrant.

    Best of luck to your fish. Ponds are another thing I love, although I’ve never had one of my own. We visited some beautiful koi ponds in the Philippines and China–so dramatic with the arched bridges.

    I’ve had a lot of trouble placing photos with the new editor. When I center a photo, for example, it looks centered on the edit page and then on the finished page, it moves to one side.

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    • When I first moved here 16 years ago, I did a lot with both perennials and annuals. There were 10 pots on my front porch and beds all over. Now there are 2 pots out front and no flower beds. I weave a few around the pond but that’s it. I have a couple pots in the back with a window box. Way more than enough. I’ve heard that photo complaint from several people for a while. Surprised they haven’t fixed it yet.

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  11. Oh the poor fish! They most certainly must be traumatized! I don’t know how you’d make the pond unfriendly toward the heron, and we have the same issues. Sometimes I have to just steel myself against knowing that one animal is being sacrificed for the benefit of another. It’s kind of gruesome! Good luck with the tomatoes. I’m hoping for a bumper crop this year. Last year’s was a near bust!

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    • Until the pond plants cover most of the water surface making it hard for the heron to walk in, I’ll zigzag fishing line over the top from side to side so it can’t walk in. When he was here in the winter I ended up putting 2x4s across so he couldn’t access and that worked but it’s unsightly.

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  13. Your heron photo is stunning, but I can understand that you’d rather not have him around.

    I’m using the new editor. Cutting and pasting is easy for me, but I struggle to get photos where I want them.

    Happy non-mother’s day.

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  14. Home grown tomatoes are the best thing ever! They are worth the work for sure. So sorry to hear about your fish – darn heron! And the ants as well – hopefully they can be gotten rid of. Do herons eat ants at all? 😉

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  17. I know it’s no longer fashionable to mention Woody Allen, but your “I should give up the garden except I love the tomatoes” line reminds of his re-telling of an old joke about having a brother who thinks he’s a chicken. When asked by a psychiatrist why he doesn’t turn his brother in, he says, “I should, but I’d miss getting the eggs.” Okay, sorry.

    I wasn’t aware of the spell-check missing on the classic editor, but I just checked and you’re right. The browser I use (Safari) does an automatic spell check, but you’re right that the WP one offered hyphenated corrections that I found helpful. Likewise, I can also confirm that public comments seem to close now on older posts — they instead revert to private emails. I don’t care for these changes. When I tried Gutenberg earlier, I found it to be too buggy. But I guess they’re slowly forcing us to using it full time. – Marty

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  18. I don’t have children either and my cats think they are enough gift for me. I’d be happy if they could just feed themselves at 5:30 am but then again we’d have to put a lock on the cabinet door where we keep the cat food. As far as WP is concerned, I keep reverting to the classic editor even when WP tries to trap me in the new editor. I don’t mind change in general but often with software, change is not good. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Good luck with keeping your fish out of the heron’s mouth.

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    • We have a lot in common. Sasha usually checks to make sure I’m alive by slapping my face around 5:30-ish. I don’t get up to feed them then but she’s content to know I’m alive and breakfast will be in a hour or so. Once my pond plants start to cover the water surface, the threat is minimized. He can’t walk in a tangle of stems and such.

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  19. I don’t think it is a biological thing to “mother” something. Having said that, Kate you are a wonderful mother to your kitties. They each have a life that is full of love, understanding, and most of all food and shelter. So indeed I think you can relish and enjoy the distinction of this very special Hallmark day. I will!!!!!

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    • It doesn’t. I tried doing them in a pot but I prefer the tall varieties and they don’t do well in a pot. At least for now, I’ll do just a few in the enclosed garden. Some techie change makes life easier but most doesn’t. Somehow it’s never intuitive for me (and they always say it is).

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  21. I have closed comments for a single post before but the classic editor is putting a “comments closed” on a newly written post… baffled. I will probably hit the help? button. I know there are bloggers here who know the ins and outs but it takes me too many words to explain what’s going on. WP wears me out.

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  22. Hate thinking about the fish huddled up BUT thankful you gave them hidey boxes, of course you would 🙂 ‘We” are not missing working in the yard and picking up after the messy Oaks but Jerry misses growing tomatoes. He’s going to get a couple of container pots and stick some tomato plants in them. I keep playing with my blog (tweaking) so I’m prepared if I ever do a post. I tried to see if I remembered how to do a post in the old editor and when I hit preview it said “comments are closed”… what? I’ve checked everything and I don’t get it. The Happiness Engineers helped me a couple of weeks ago… I’m thinking it was their “helping” that’s causing me to need their help again.

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    • Some of the themes are more friendly to mobile devices but I think of this as a place for stories rather than a Facebook platform. Maybe I hate change. The other thing I hate is that for bloggers that don’t pay for ad free, the ads are getting outrageous. There is now an ad banner at the top that is distracting.

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  24. I spoke with WP earlier this week about the removal of the spell check function. Apparently the developer removed it. She indicated she would provide feedback and suggested using another one such as Grammerly. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather set my hair on fire than use that stalking aggravation that pops up in ways that makes my head spin. Perhaps if enough bloggers complain, they’ll get the message that it’s kind of a necessary aid that we rely on. I liken it to using a flashlight in a cave. I need it to see where the heck I’m going. As I remember, it was missing in the Gutenberg editor and one of the MANY reasons I switched back to the classic editor. There are enough challenges in life, I don’t need to add one more. Good luck with your pond issues. Ants and herons simultaneously seem like quite the horde to deal with.

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  25. My sister-in-law had the same problem with the herons trying to eat her lovely koi. She placed a special type of net across the top of the pond that made fishing there difficult and dissatisfying. I love the herons, but appreciate that you don’t want your pet fish to be a heron’s snack!

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    • One option is to string fishing line across the pond so that other creatures can get a drink but a heron likes to walk in. It won’t be able to. Halfway through the winter We put 2×4 boards across it to keep it out and that was effective — unsightly but effective.

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  26. Mother’s day over here is just before Easter. I do have children, five of them plus two grandchildren. Here some people put out a plastic her on to deter others but not sure it would work if he already knows the address of the sushi restaurant. I suppose you could try netting your pond and putting out a bird bath. I am another one who is tired by lunch time.

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  27. I think it’s been a good week, two temptation days being today and our anniversary on Friday, but I’ve made an effort. First official weigh in tomorrow!
    The fish in the lake are getting fat, no herons, but plenty of gulls.
    WP decided the spell checker was redundant so removed it. Hm.
    No kids for me either, just my furbaby in Maggie.
    Enjoy the rest of the day.

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      • That’s what another blogger was told. As for spell check, there’s a cute (?) little wavy line under anything iffy as you type and every so often a drop box pops up with spell check ticked (have no idea how I did that or how to access it, I am such a techno dimwit)
        As for my fosters, sadly no. It’s been over 30 years now but way back in 1992/3 one of the Ex partner’s sons looked me up as he’d just passed his driving test and wanted somewhere different to go with his friend. He was a good lad, the better of the two in fact, and we had a very pleasant day. Lethal Weapon 3 had just been released on video so we sat and watched that after I’d cooked them chicken nuggets and chips. Apparently all of my foster girls were Mums by then, so I guess I’m a granny by default. One of them shares my birthday today and she’ll be 47. Now I feel old!!!

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  28. Ants can trip an electrical outlet? I didn’t know that. How very.

    I like to work outside in the garden/yard, too. But I do less of it at one time than I used to. I figure any gardening activity is better than no gardening activity.

    WP still does spellcheck for me. I use the classic editor and hope to do so for as long as possible. I have little interest in learning a new system, might stop blogging because of it. We’ll see.

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    • The ant thing is our best guess. Something was tripping the outlet and it wasn’t the equipment which ran fine on another outlet. The only thing different was that there were ants running in and out of the outlet holes. Since ants are moist, I suspect it tripped it when the pump was plugged in. We had some ant stakes under the fake stone but apparently we have smart ants. We should get those childproof thingies you put in outlets so kids can’t poke in them. I’m using the classic editor and can’t find the spellcheck icon. Boogers. Yes, definitely less at one time. I need to be ready for happy hour! Hope you are not getting the rain we are having.

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  29. I’ve always been a bit like Tom Sawyer when it comes to outdoor chores . . . the less work I have to do, the better. Except for growing tomatoes!

    Hope you can manage a few plants this year, Kate.

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  30. I’m not sure whether I want to cheer for the graceful heron who knows a good thing when he sees it, or for the poor fish trying to survive from the flying monster who swoops in from time to time.

    I’ve never been the gardener type. I would love to have a magazine cover worthy yard, but I don’t have the interest or patience to put in the effort.

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  32. I have always been pretty active doing jobs etc. etc., but now I am realizing that this body is changing. It only wants me to work in the morning, and perhaps a little in the evening. The afternoons are for walking Ray and having a nap! This was made very clear yesterday when I spent the morning moving patio slabs around etc …. and was beat by lunch time! 🙂

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