Not much going on

 Since it has been raining, I've made a couple of things to keep me busy since I am out of reading material. The topiary took oodles of cardstock to make the 38 flowers. I had no long stick pins with pearl heads on them to stick the flowers on so went to Pa's shop and found some 2 1/2 finishing nails. I glued half pearls on them and attached the flowers to the styrofoam ball. I sprayed the flowers with glitter spray for a finishing touch. I really liked how it turned out.

The piano is actually a box. Took me all day to make it since I had so much trouble with it. First of all, I had no 12x 12 black cardstock on hand. I found some at Walmart when we went shopping last week. It was nothing but crap! So I threw everything I cut out away. I had some good quality 8 1/2 x11 and after looking at the cutting pattern discovered only the piece that surrounds the top of the piano needed something larger than what I had on hand. I put the piece on my virtual mat on my Cameo, cut it in half, made a tab and welded it on one piece, cut it out and glued the two pieces together. Turned out just great!
    We've had so much rain, that Pa has collected close to 2000 gallons of water for our garden tank. That was just from two rain storms. The weather has cooled down a lot which makes my body feel better. The garden is loving the rain and the tomato plants are getting huge. Unfortunately for some reason, there are no tomatoes. Lots of blossoms. Probably due to not much flying around to pollinate them. We do have lots of lady bugs this year and not too many potato beetles which love tomato plants. We've also seen little ants crawling around on the squash and I have a yellow squash almost ready to pick. I can hardly wait.
    We had a nice visit with some new friends who have property at Sierra Highlands. They came over for a couple of hours, first time we've met in person. They were so nice! Unfortunately, they can't move until they retire in 9 years. I guess I'm destined to have no close girlfriends who live nearby. Two friends are 60 miles away in Holbrook and one is 60 miles away in Show Low!
   My grandson might be moving in with us until he can get on his feet. His mom and stepdad are kicking him out of the house this weekend. He just graduated from high school, has no car, no driver's license and no job. He's been searching every where for a job. His stepdad can't even find a job so I don't know what they expect. It breaks my heart that they are treating him this way. He is a good kid, not into drugs or anything bad. I told him I would find a way to get him here by bus or something. I'm so upset with my daughter. She had better be prepared for him to move out and never hear from him again. Can you imagine how unloved and unwanted he feels? It will probably damage him for life.

 We had a new visitor to the bird feeder. No idea what it is but it likes sweet water!

 Just in the past couple of days, our feeder has attracted around 15 hummingbirds. They didn't appreciate the new visitor.

My windows, as usual, are dirty thanks to Tilly's nose prints. We won't mention the dirt on the outside of the windows. As soon as the monsoon season is over, I'll wash the outside. I haven't washed the outside since we moved in. Hey, I never said I was Ms. Housekeeper of the world. It won't last long with all the dust and sand blowing around anyway.

Since our little ranch fire, I decided to take pictures of all our stuff in the house so I'd have a record for the insurance company. I can't imagine anyone believing all the stuff  I'd have to claim just in my craft room alone. I have a few more to take and then I'll burn a copy and send it to my daughter in Vegas for safe keeping.

At the end of our fence line, Pa piled a bunch of tree branches to close the gap between the fence and the state land fence. Of course, the needles from the juniper trees broke down and made the brush fence lower. A cow and her calf jumped the barrier and were munching to their hearts content in the front yard. Pa and I rounded them up and herded them thru the front gate and down the road. I told Pa that we needed to check the fence line to see where they got in. I had no idea Pa had just piled brush up for a fence. Lo and behold, the cows just jumped over the brush and got back in. They were in the back part of the property. Took us forever to find them again. I was using the grannie mobile and Pa was on foot. We finally found them and I herded them off the property with the grannie mobile. This time I got them going in the other direction and down the road. That mama cow was so pissed that I wouldn't leave them alone. Fortunately, I stayed on her heels and got her to move on to greener pastures.  Pa piled more branches across the gap. We discovered the next day that they ate part of my apple tree. Dang their hides!!!  The other morning I woke up around 4:30 and heard this weird growling sound. I looked out all the windows and back door and couldn't see anything. It kinda creeped me out!  I heard it again the next day and discovered a bull wandering down the road.....growling. I had no idea they made a noise like that. Learn something new every day!