What's the view from your favorite perch? Show and tell...

Connie, How pretty she is, and don't they take over our "perches". Marie

Great pics of sunsets, sunrises, mountains, etc., and kitties! Love it all!

Wonderful, spectacular views. I must admit I am in love with those trees myself.
Gotta love the kitty pics especially collapsed at the puter.

We have a cabin in the mountains with a pond and here is the view from the front porch, mind you this is not the view in the winter months LOL!

Here is a view with the pear tree in bloom.

Whoa! Haighr ~ "Trees" with a view! I am impressed. That would suit me until cold weather arrived... : ))

Marie, Scoe IS a grumpy old man. He has had a hard (11 year) life ~ self inflicted. When young & foolish, he got run over so is "stove up", has survived 3 (that I know of) poisonous snake bites and will run to a fight in a second! On the other hand, he is a sweetie...

Connie_W ~ You are on my list! Making me want another kitten. We have 4 at home and one (hurricane refuge) at work. A friend says everyone needs a kitten around... Brutus is a charmer. Center of attention between you and the DG. I love it....

connie cute pic of your baby....we have 20 of them babies.....

This is my deck at the back of my yard. It was made from recycled lumber from various projects. I keep the umbrella up all the time for shade. Besides, the umbrella fills up the hole that was accidentally burned into it when huggy forgot to put the chiminea on it's stand. The deck is right next to the little wood shed. My hubby is a carpenter so we have a lot of scraps and "stuff" in the building.

Janet

I got tired of looking at those hideous cushions and recovered them earlier this summer.

I have all of my jade plants on the deck, along with anything else that needs mostly shade. I like enjoying my morning coffee from the glider.

This is my Right Side Fence -
Starts with a big bunch of cannas. I don't know what the generation of them is, but we started out with ONE about 10-12 years ago. Now they are all over the yard.

I will post more later. My youngest just showed up here.

UniqueTreasures, That planter on the left with your jades. I have one of those!

janet....lovely nest you have there.....nests are very important for serenity!!!

Thanks Sticks. Nada, I have several of those. I acquired them from a friend that was moving and wanting to downsize his "stuff". I've enjoyed them. I was thinking the other day that they would be good for bromeliads.

OK, we're still on the right side fence, and there are all kinds of plants there.... daylillies, spider lillies, banana trees, and some others that I never learned the name of. We just call them the big sticky things.

That banana tree is up over the fence now.

Further along, are the passion vines. The papyrus has just about taken over that corner now. It'll have to be cut back for the winter. I am hoping hubby will dig it up and put it elsewhere. By the time I finally see the passion vine blooms, they are on their way out. :-(

Papyrus, covering up my beautiful Sego Palm.

This is the center island. Lots of plants in there. This view is from the deck.

unique ....how long have you been gardening...you have lots of stuff!!!

UQT, I am glad you joined in... Your view (s) have a delightful tropical flavor. What a treat to have a clever and willing DH too. Did you suffer any damage from Rita?

Sticks, We moved in here in 1989 and the yard was already landscaped with one island. We've just created islands wherever we want them. I didn't really start getting my own plants until about 3-4 years after we moved in. I still had a very active toddler at that time and the yard was the least of my worries! HAHAHA

Thanks Pod, for the warm welcome. There's a lot more to my yard, small though it is. Not much to mow in my little slice of Texas. I'll have to post some here and there for you to see the whole thing. Let me say that it takes me about an hour to an hour and a half to water each evening.

Yes, we did have damage from Rita. There were 2 trees that fell. Both turned about 30 degrees as they came down and both landed on my house. One clipped the corner of the dining room without doing anything really major, other than cracking one of the beams in the attic. The other was about 12 inches from the edge of my house. One of the branches went through my daughter's bedroom.

Fortunately, she had already moved out, and I was basically using the room for storage for my ebay store. I wrote off everything that got water damage and started all over.

Unfortunately, several computers were stored in there. I was thinking that side of the house would be safe and before I evacuated, I moved lots of electronics to the bed that was in the room, just in case of flood.

Insurance paid for everything. Yeah Allstate!!!

Back to the fortunate side, my husband is a carpenter and isn't afraid of hard work. We'd just replaced the roof the previous year and insurance paid for a new one. So we had that done. Other than that, my husband has done all of the repairs to the house and also removed the trees. Well, he does still have half of the lower trunk on one of them. We had rain about 3 weeks straight where he couldn't saw away at it and the hole filled up with water. Now, it's almost below ground level, but there are a ton of weeds all around it, mixed in with portulaca and other stuff. I just ignore that section and enjoy the rest because there isn't much I can do to remove the tree. I ain't no chain saw kind of gal! HAHAHA

I miss those old trees. They sure provided a lot of shade in the yard. Considering the number of plants I have (hundreds of them) we didn't lose a single plant to the storm, other than those 2 trees. No one was home when the trees came down, so no one was hurt. God is Good.... all the time!

I'll post more photos tomorrow. If you'd like to take a tour of my yard before I get them all posted, you can check out my journal. In July, I put in about 275 photos.

Night View of the Deck

I love rope lights. Every year, the day after Christmas, I sneak over to Wally World and buy everyone they have. This past year, they were all RED. In years past, before the storm, they were green, blue and white. Most of those were toasted when the trees heaved.

Here is one of the islands, where the tree still needs to be cut up, back when it was blue and white. This was ALSO before I got a decent camera!

Janet

Amazingly enough, these two stained glass lights survived the hurricane. The winds buckled the plywood that hubby had put over the french doors.

Janet

UQT ~ So glad Rita wasn't worse for you. Where did you end up in the evacuation fiasco? We are north 100 + miles and it was down to a cat 1 when it came over. Put us in the dark for 5 days.

I will tour your journal, I am working up my journal courage and may need your advice/ support... Love the rope lights. These are strawberry jars on the porch (candle holders)...

I had about a dozen of these lights. Thank Heavens I removed the covers and put them away before I left the house. Still have them, but not installed any more. I lost my electric to the middle of the island, so until that gets replaced, I have to imagine them there. :-) They were really pretty around the pond. The pond buckled in half when the tree that hit the dining room heaved. Fortunately, I didn't have any fish in there at the time.

Pod, I left for San Antonio at 8:30 a.m. on that Thursday Morning. Drove 85 all the way to Houston. Hit 610 and slowed to a crawl. The van I was driving petered out on me and I was alone. The National Guard was convoying right there and spent 30 minutes trying to get that van started. They finally had to leave. I sat there about 15 minutes waiting on a tow truck and knew that the bajillions pf people crawling past me thought I was out of gas. I opened a new roll of paper towels and got a Sharpie from my purse and wrote GOT CABLES? really big on about 10 paper towels. I did my best to put it in the rear windows. Within 1 minute, someone stopped. A lady in a Suburban with her 3 children, ages 6, 3 and 6 weeks, along with Granny in the back seat and her waybigo dog behind. She was heading to Laredo. I asked if she'd take me on to SA. After a minute of conferring with Granny, she said, we won't leave you here and she dropped me at my mother's house...... at 9:30 a.m. on FRIDAY. It took me 26 hours to go 300 miles. The traffic was wall- to wall for 200 of those miles. All of it heading west. It was so surreal to see it happening. My sister left heading to SA the day before and took her 7 hours. She complained about that, until I got to SA. I have to say that those kids were the best little kids I've ever seen. I only heard Isabell, the baby cry once. Granny held her the whole way and I sat where her car seat was. That night, we were still in Houston, it was 120 degrees according to the temeperature gauge in her rear view mirror. I heard Granny holler out, Oh Issabell done did a turd in my hand! We all laughed and I told them that they'd need to write that down in her baby book. Wonderful family.

Sorry to have gone on and on....

Time for this gal to hit the sheets.

Janet

Janet, how beautiful. I love the tropical look and you have done it so well. Enjoyed all your pictures and all others that have come up. Keep sharing, Marie

Janet, thanks for sharing your story - my heart goes out to you for all you went through, and I do so appreciate hearing about the "good" people that are indeed around.

your photos are glorious! AND you are very artistic!

This thread is definitely eye candy.

I couldn't sleep, so I'm back for a bit.

Marie, I've always known that God would never put more on us than we were capable of handling. It's all in how the situation is handled. I took plenty of photos for the insurance company and they were very prompt in paying, once the adjuster finally came to the house. With so many people having damages, that took almost 2 months.

Hubby was out of work for at least a month. But has made up for it since then with more work than 10 of him could handle. So many homes were damaged in this area. Thankfully, many of them had insurance, unlike the folks from Katrina. There's still plenty of work to be done, but for the most part, our town is back to normal.

Murmur, I couldn't agree more about this thread being eye candy! Aptly put! I just found it the other day. I have to limit the number of forums I look at or I'd never get anything done around here. I don't remember how I found it, but I'm sure glad I did. I am not much of a traveller, except vicariously through the internet. So this is very special, to see all of these glimpses of the world.

I have always enjoyed viewing beautiful yards. I'm always looking for ideas, though truth be told, it's just about gotten to the point of ... yes, I have a spot "there" I can put that.... As long as there is ground beneath me, I'll find a spot for whatever I see that makes me smile. Afterall, I can't take it with me. I might as well enjoy it while i'm here. :-)

I appreciate your good words about my little world. Most folks do up their front yard. Mine is at most acceptable, but it's just too dern hot up there to do anything really good with any more. When we moved in there were 5 trees in the front yard. Today, there are none, other than the few small ones we've planted. I used to have so much fun planting petunias, etc. out front. There was an island there as well. The trees just died. We're not sure why, but we had to take them down, or take a chance on them coming down on their own... on the house! YIKES! I would like to make a plan for the front yard, moving plants from the back, but then get sidetracked doing other things. It's a good thing the front yard is pretty self sufficient, other than mowing.

This shot is looking from the back door into the front of the center island.
Lookie what I found!

I found him at Goodwill for $3.99. He's one of the newest critters in the back yard.

Oh, Janet, It is precious, looks so real. I couldn't believe one could be so small........but........at this time in the AM I might believe anything.
I love how you word things, I am not good at that. I guess I show my love in pictures. This is at my mothers. Dad didn't want to have much to water around the house so he cemented the whole front yard. Mother needed a patch of lawn so it is at the side of the house. This is one of my grandchildren playing on grandma's perch. He is a terror most of the time but he looks so sweet here.

Connie, Pod and Sticks, I couldn't sleep (took a Claritin D), so here I am at DG, I can't show a picture of this one but I have my faithful cat at my feet. Sometimes this is the only way she gets attention.

Marie

Oh he's a cutie pie! Looks like he'd be a real "handful" of energy. My grandbabies are 5 months, 16 months and 2 1/2 years.

I've been wanting one of those gliders with the awning. Maybe I'll find one on Clearance! I have a really hard time paying retail for ANYTHING!! Maybe I can get my hubby to make me one. He brought home a big piece of canvas that he scarfed from a job the other day. I'll have to look at it closely to see if it would be enough to make the awning. We have a lot of cedar scraps, etc. I'd leave the figuring out up to him. He's pretty crafty.

I found this copper fountain in the surplus at Goodwill. Paid $19 for it, still in the original box. Hubby made me a plaque for it from cedar and I was really pleased with the way it turned out. I guess I'll keep him! HAHAHAHA

"La Cheapa" Janet

Another shot, for size perspective. That is a 4 X 8 sheet of lattice it's mounted on.

Very unique, Unique - I love the outdoor room especially the driftwood on the lattice wall, looks fabulous!

Marygarden, I absolutely love your Cobalt Fountain. If you go to Mid-Atlantic Form thread What Happened you can see mine. Not quite as impressive as yours. (Sorry not sure how to do a hyper-link) Mine has a story.

All these pictures are just wonderful it's so nice to see the different styles.

I just love your garden.

Unique, perfect little garden room - and the copper fountain was indeed a treasure! Love the contrast of it against the cedar. Send pics as soon as you create something with the canvas! The little fawn is also precious . . . must startle people when they first spot it!

Marie, darling little boy!

myree...don't you hate it when you cant sleep...i suffer from a sleep disorder to where it is hard for me to sleep also.....drives me nuts and also makes me ill...;

HollyAnn ~ I love, love, love your egg! It is just like mine! Except mine came with a bowl. The stand was hand-made by the guy we bought it from. Your story was so funny that my husband and I couldn't stop laughing! Thanks so much for sharing. (I'm going to post this same message on the Mid Atlantic thread in case you miss this one). Thanks again.

By the way, hyperlinking is easy if you know how to "cut and paste" on your computer. Just go to the site that you want to link to and "copy" the address in the address bar. Then go the place that you want to put this link and simply "paste" it into the body of your message. When you hit enter to go down a line, you'll see it turn blue and you'll know that people can just click on it. Good Luck!

unique you got some great treasures from goodwill....just love to find stuff at out of the way places....especially if it is a bargin!!

holly that was a funny story ....love your egg