I was visited by a prince.

While at work the other day this guy showed up  to see what I was doing. This is hands down the largest tree frog I have ever seen. He must have been about four inches long. He hoped out at me but I quickly dodged him and he landed here. A few weeks ago one of my co-workers had one jump in her hair and pee. But it wasn't even close to this size.

He quickly retreated back to the rotary unit I was working at. But he kept peeking out and looking at me. You know like "give me a kiss" kind of look. You can see his suction cups on his feet pretty good here. If it weren't for that I would have thought it was some sort of toad because of his size.

 You can see by this letter I'm holding up that he really is large. You have to account for the fact that the letter is closer to the camera than the frog. Cause that thing wasn't getting close enough to me to pee in my hair. Also he was lighter than normal tree frogs but he still had green on him and brown age spots. I was at  a retirement community after all.

.Eventually he got tired of staring at me and trying to get a kiss so he made a giant leap toward the nearest bush.

Can't say I'll be missing him. And I'm not sorry for not breaking that witches spell that turned him into a frog either.

Yumm... Figs!

We haven't been expecting much out of the fig tree we planted the beginning of the year but I guess it has been loving all this hot weather because that tiny little spec of a tree is loaded with figs. It's no more than two feet tall. But we will probably get a whole bushel of figs from it.

Can't wait to taste them. If the pests don't get them first. We have been swamped with little snails the size of my pinky fingernail. They have munched and slimmed my little orange tree almost to death.  I also found a locus on our mini palm. I don't think they eat palm fronds but I definitely did not want him to find our fruit trees. Chris exterminated him for me. He looks so less creepy here than in real life.

While we were checking out the yard there was this beautiful double rainbow over head. It was so vivid. Every color was popping. It was almost like someone painted it there.

Here is both sides of it. You can't really see the one on top in the picture but it was spectacular.

Summer.

Veronica going for a swim.

It's been hot here in Florida so we've been trying to keep cool any way we can. It's probably only going to get hotter from here on out. I see a trip to the springs in the future. Hopefully soon. And hopefully I can take some pictures. I'm still shopping for that perfect little camera. You know the one takes nice pictures and can hold up to the camera killer. That would be me. Until then your going to have to settle for my phone pics. They aren't the best but they are better than nothing.

What's cooking?

Hi! Here's what's cooking... as little as possible, it's too hot!

This time of year we are always buying melons, watermelon,cantaloupe,honeydew, and they only get half eaten. So the other day I finally broke down and bought a melon baller. I sliced the cantaloupe in half and the other half sat in the frig as usual so I balled it up. And it was eaten by the end of the day. I froze the balls so they weren't just a fun shape they were a cold treat as well. It's easy to do. 

After you scoop the melon to nothing, you take the little balls and spread them out, on a cookie sheet or a flat tray, so they don't touch. Then freeze. Once frozen you can put the balls into a Tupperware dish and you've got frozen balls instead of a melon rotting in the frig.

Here's another good recipe I made up. There is heat involved so some of you may not be interested at this time.But the rest of you... I had some fresh broccoli left over from putting it in summer salads and dipping it for a snack. Mmm.... fresh broccoli. I also had half a bag of egg noodles and some mozzarella left over from pizza topping but not enough to do anything with. So... I combined them! Here is the recipe give or take on the measurements

Creamy Broccoli Noodles.

Fresh broccoli-chopped small

1/2 bag of egg noodles

1/2 cup mozzarella

1/2 stick of butter

1/2cup of parmasan

1/2 cup of milk

Garlic powder 

smidgen of oregano

Put broccoli in water bring to boil. Add egg noodles cook till desired doneness of the noodles. Do not over cook the broccoli.(broccoli should be mushy but doesn't have to be you could add it later.) Drain.  Then add butter and mozzarella stir till melted. Then add Parmesan, garlic (to taste) and oregano stir. Add milk till desired creaminess. Stirring well.

Serve as a hearty side dish.

For those of you who eat chicken I bet you could stir some cooked chicken in and call it dinner!

Darnedest thing any of us have ever seen.

About three days ago our Goldfish, Goldie Charlie, ate one of the albino catfish that are in his tank cleaning it. Chris saw the whole thing. He doesn't really care for the Goldfish. It has a bad attitude.When it's hungry it bangs the thermometer, that is in the tank, up against the side making a clank sound. He is always hungry. Also if he can see you eating he will stair at you.
Any way, when Chris saw the fat goldfish swallow up the cat fish he reach in the tank grabbed the goldfish and tried to pull the catfish out of its mouth. He was unsuccessful. The tail end of the catfish was left hanging out of the goldfishes mouth. We all thought the gold fish would either choke to death or die from not being able to eat. After a few hours we wrote the catfish off as being dead. The goldfish swam all around the tank with that tail hanging out of it's mouth for three days. Every  so often it looked as though the catfishes tail was wiggling but that was obviously from the movement of the goldfish.
Once when we fed Goldie Charlie we thought he was going to choke. He started twitching and then did a fishy body slam into the large rock that is decoration on the bottom of the tank. Then kept on swimming with that wiggly tail a little farther down his throat .

We all thought he would be able to finish swallowing it soon and maybe just maybe that Goldie Charlie would survive. Secretly Chris was looking forward to getting some new fish. He could get about four or five to replace that big old goldfish. I thought for sure the tugging of the catfish to get it free would have cut the goldfishes throat up and probably logged its fins in like a hook.
But.... That smart old gold fish finally spit that cat fish out. Once again Chris saw the whole thing. The catfish lay on the bottom dead and probably rotten. So Chris got the net, reached in and that cat fish took off like a bullet. ALIVE! And the gold fish is alive. A day later and they are both alive. Maybe they were talking and reached some sort of fishy agreement. I don't know but that's the darnedest thing any of us have ever seen.