Posted on

Did You Miss Me?

So, I haven’t posted anything since last Thursday. It’s been five days. And no one, not one single person, said, “Why haven’t you updated your blog?”

Hmmm. Think that should tell me something? Like maybe I don’t have nearly as many faithful fans as I’d thought?

Oh well. I’m not easily discouraged. When it comes to doing creative stuff anyway. Especially when I actually have something interesting to write about and new pictures to share.

Hubby and I spent the weekend at the WV place with our three grandchildren.

There’s Brianna, who is going to turn eight at the end of December…

Then there’s Gaige, who turned five a month ago exactly.

And finally, Joey. At 16 months, he’s the baby of the bunch. But he’s hardly a baby anymore. He walks. He talks (a little). And he’s all about having a good time.

It was an interesting weekend. They kept Hubby and I hopping, that’s for sure! After spending any length of time with the three of them, we both wonder how our daughter, their mother, maintains her sanity. Especially since her Army husband has been off training for EIGHT months. Which in essence means she’s been a single mother of three.

Wow.

Don’t get me wrong, they’re fabulous kids. But they, or at least one of them at any given time, require attention pretty much every single second that they are awake. I guess Hubby and I have just gotten soft in our old age.

Despite the chaos, we did manage to have a pretty good time. Check out this little video to see for yourself. It’s a low-resolution .mpeg. If you’d like to see the higher resolution version and have the patience (just under two minutes with a high-speed connection) to wait for the 16.7 mb .exe file to open, CLICK HERE.

Maybe I’ll share more details later. But only if I get some comments so I know people really are reading this.

Posted on

Eating at the Bridge

Hubby and I spent another relaxing weekend in West Virginia. Quite a change from last year, and the year before that, and the year before THAT when all we did was work, work, and more work.

Now, all we seem to do is sit around enjoying the cool little house we built, riding our motorcycles, and eating.

Speaking of eating… it seems like that was the highlight of our weekend.

Saturday, we hopped in the car and drove about 30 miles east to Capon Bridge, West Virginia. A small town about 20 miles west of Winchester, Virginia on US 50, Capon Bridge is home to El Puente, a yummy little Mexican restaurant. A place we didn’t discover until recently that serves quite tasty Mexican food. (NOTE: As I suspected, “puente” means “bridge,” which explains the drawing of a bridge incorporated into the restaurant’s logo.)

Sunday morning, we made the 45-minute drive to La Vale, Maryland, a smallish town just west of Cumberland, where there are quite a few dining options. Chain restaurants, mostly. Like Bob Evans’, which is where we ate. They serve up a pretty good breakfast.

Later, we hopped on the motorcycles to explore more of West Virginia’s back roads. It was mid-afternoon when we ended up in Paw Paw, West Virginia. Of course, by then breakfast had worn off. When we stopped to gas-up, we noticed a little Italian sub shop place called Anthony’s Jr. It looked like an okay place, so we went there for a late lunch/early dinner and had cheese-steak subs, which were really quite good. In fact, they were the best cheese-steak subs either of had had in quite a while.

That was our weekend. It makes for a pretty boring blog post, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.

Posted on

It’s Just Nature, Baby.

So, in yesterday’s post, I told you I had lots of nature pics to share. I was going to post them all here. That is until I realized I had more than 30 to share. Even I think that’s a lot of pics for a blog. And I’m a photo nut.

Anyway… I also mentioned the soldier beetle yesterday. Why? Well, ’cause they’re in lots of my pictures.

I was walking with the dogs at our WV place, camera in hand, enjoying the very tall, yellow wildflowers growing in abundance along our driveway. Along the road, too. Me being me, I took a closer look and saw this.

Not too remarkable, eh? Then I saw this.

Um, well, me being me, of course I thought to myself, “Heh, heh, look. Bug sex.” (There’s a kid in all of us you know.)

So I kept looking. The more I looked, the more bug sex I witnessed.

There are lots of yellow flowers. And there were copulating bugs on just about every flower I saw.

Going to town.

I was amazed. Not just at the numbers, but how densely congregated they were.

Next year, I’m thinking there will be lots of baby soldier beetles.

This wider-angle view might give you a better idea as to how many active couples there were.

That one branch of ONE plant, had more than a dozen active couples (go ahead and click on the picture for a close-up, you know you want to).

And there are hundreds of plants! It wasn’t just soldier beetles, either. Check this out…

Amazing. I’d stumbled upon a bug orgy. And I couldn’t resist photographing all of it. Now I feel, well, sort of dirty.

The session wasn’t really all about graphic images of bug sex, but practicing close-up shots. I’m amazed how clear the pictures turned out. Considering I was holding the camera in my hand with no tripod and there was a slight breeze.

Here are a few more cool ones…





If you want to see the entire collection, visit my “Nature” album on Picasa. The SLIDESHOW is the fastest way to see the pics. You can also click on any of the photos above to see a larger view.

I hope you enjoyed the show!

Posted on

New Beginnings

Yesterday was a big day in the ToadMama household. A big, big day. The beginning of a new chapter in Hubby’s life. He started his new job. And, even after only one day of orientation, he thinks he’s really going to like it.

“I met about 50 people today,” Hubby reported, as he was telling the family about day one. “And they were all really excited about me joining. It’s been a long time since anyone was excited about having me work for them.”

That just reiterates the fact that his former employers were idiots. It was WAY past time for him to get out of there.

On another front… I do have lots of pics to share from this past weekend. But not enough time right now to get them all posted. So I’ll just share a few. They’re all nature photos. I like nature. And since this blog is letting you experience the world through my eyes, well, here’s the kind of stuff I see.

First, a big, fat toad. He (or she, I didn’t look THAT closely) was on our porch in WV two evenings in a row.


Next, a pretty neat butterfly picture. That’s a SOLDIER BEETLE flying in the background. More on that later this week…


Here’s my favorite ladybug pic. Entomologists call them lady beetles, but that just sounds stupid. “Ladybug” rolls off the tongue better. I think it sounds more natural, too.


And the final bit of nature for today is just another butterfly picture. It’s not a super close-up or anything, I just like the composition of the picture and the vibrant colors.


I hope you enjoyed today’s nature shots. Trust me when I say there are MORE nature shots yet to come. And a weird story, too. I’ll try to get that posted tomorrow.

P.S. – Did anyone notice anything strange about the family photo from my Local Photoshop Disasters post? I thought for sure at least one person would comment…

Posted on

Twisties + Sweeping Curves = BIG FUN

Another glorious weekend of motorcycling has come to an end. The weather was far from perfect. Friday, it rained. So we pretty much hung around the house relaxing. Saturday, it was cloudy. We still did about a 5-hour ride. Sunday, the weather was perfect. That’s when we did our longest 7+ hour trip.

The roads in West Virginia are perfect for motorcycling. They are full of the twisties and sweeping curves that make rural riding the pleasure that it is.

A “twisty” is a series of switchbacks, or left-right-left curves. It’s the kind of road you’d expect to encounter after passing a warning sign like this one.

The picture above is a small stretch of US 50 west of Keyser. This curvy incline, AKA hilly twisty, is a typical stretch of “highway” in the mountains. It really is exhilarating and relaxing all at the same time.

The weekend flew by. Even if we were in WV for 4 days. Actually, the entire summer has streaked past. It’s hard to believe summer is almost over. It doesn’t officially end until the autumnal equinox on September 22, of course. But with the kids back in school, the sun setting earlier, and the nights getting cooler, it sure feels like fall is on its way.

I’ll share more images and stories from the weekend in later posts. Right now, I have to get to work (imagine a huge, damn-I-don’t-wanna-work sigh here).