Silly Ussies On Selfie Sunday ~ Victoria Day Weekend

 First of all, we want to say we are not responsible for the silliness you will see a bit later...we blame petcretary for spying on us, BOL! Also we are sorry if we missed visiting any of our friends this past week...*she* was busy with a lot of not doggy things. But all is well with us all, so that is good!

Petcretary captured this beautiful seed head of a Dandelion. This lowly weed so brightly colored, already early in spring, has the most gorgeous and symmetrical seed head, before any winds come by to disperse the seeds on their eddies.

A year ago we had a tornado pass through very close to where we live, and THIS was the resulting horrific mess we had in our yard...click here to see it. Now after much work, it looks like this, the fence got fixed and most of the tree trunks except for the largest ones are gone or made into 'piles' ready to eventually burn.

Sadly the meadowlike area where all those trees fell, will take a lot longer to recover; as of now after clearing away what seems like millions of weeds and undesirables, now there are a lot of Solomon's Seal coming up, along with Jack in the Pulpits, May Apples and Canada Mayflowers, and various ferns, among others. There are many oak and maple saplings, and whenever invasive or non-natives are found, out they come! Who knew that all the honeysuckle shrubs where birds like to hide, and indulge in the berries are also invasive. And the wild roses and barberry, too will eventually need to come out...maybe when we are long gone from the earth, the next owners of this property will find it lovely enough to keep it as natural as any Michigan woods...

Tomorrow is Victoria Day in Canada, it is always the week before Memorial Day...Since petcretary is Canadian which means we pups are too, being her 'children'...here are some Victoria Day Flashbacks, from 2021:

OK, then, here are our silly ussies as promised"

We were having a bunch of silly fun...and I ,Dalton, was being kind of a pest to Benji...BOL!!Don't worry, sometimes he is the instigator!

We are sending our celebratory and silly selfies to The Cat On My Head, who are the faithful  hosts of this fun weekly blog hop. Thanks, Kitties Blue!

Happy Mother's Day, 2026!

 Yes, we do call her Petcretary but she is actually really our human Mom...so we pups will wish her a Happy Mother's Day! (Though there won't be any breakfast in bed for her, from us, BOL!)

The two legged sons took her out to dinner, YUM! Not something we do very often, just for 'special' days...

We hope all mothers and mother figures are having a good Mother's Day, be they moms of two leggers or moms of pets, such as doggies, kitties, birds, reptiles and so on.

We went to a photo shoot for Mother's day, and so now we can show our ussies. Note the backgrounds are all AI produced because for some reason the place hadn't received the Mother's Day background so they were still using the Easter one, teehee! So petcretary, aka Mom fixed them. A good use for AI if you ask us!

Anyways here we are:

And wouldn't you all know it, but *she* forgot about doing anything for Cinco De Mayo...so here are some artworks to mark that festival...and no we didn't get any Mexican food, no one here did, BOL!

Recently The Island Cats informed us that Slim, from the Garden center had earned his wings...so we made a memento for him, and another for his 'brother'. Chip.

Come and join us by clicking here to see all the other Mother's Day Sunday selfies, at the regular place as each Sunday the Kitties Blue at The Cat On My Head host this fun weekly feature.

In Memory Of Penny

Penny left for the heavenly realms, after fighting an infection for a long time, but she just wasn't able to deal with the treatment regime anymore, so her pawrents made the sad but loving decision to let her fly away to the RB, where she will rejoin her furblings who went before her...

Penny lived with her family at 15&Meowing, and you can visit there and leave comforting messages if you haven't done so already.

These mementos were made in her honor:

Penny

Penny

We are adding this post to the Feline Friday Blog Hop. since afterall, Penny was such a beloved feline.

Feline Friday

Jackie ~ In Loving Memory

A few days ago, we heard the very sad news that Jackie, of Two Devon Cats, Or Memories of Eric and Flynn) had passed away. Her last post was May 1, 2026...

She was a well known and very loved lady, by not only her beloved Ivor, but also by so many of us in Blogville. She blogged for 20 years! Imagine that!

Jackie also had a travel blog, All At Sea With Me , where she posted pictures taken on the cruises her and Ivor went on, and also from their travels around the UK, where she lived.

She was always quick to comment on your blog posts, and left sweet and kind comments.Even after her two beloved cats, Eric and Flynn had gone to the Rainbow Bridge, she continued to post flashback posts, including doing art with them and making puzzles for those who liked doing them.

Several years ago, Jackie began a long battle with cancer, that evil plague that affects us all, even if we ourselves are not stricken. She had been doing well for the most part, after a return of this disease, but sadly the cancer finally took its toll, and now she is cancer free, and at peace.

Jackie will be sorely missed, her absence is already being felt...

Here is a memento to honor her...

Jackie

Somehow it doesn't seem right, but Jackie's kitties and her remembering posts were always very awe worthy so we are going to join that hop...

It's MAY!

 Yes indeed, it is May, and that means full on spring! Petcretary;s favorite season. Though...we have had a frost warning, both Saturday morning, and again today after midnight. Brrr! She took  several plants inside...but the perennials will just have to deal with it...though she did notice some frostbitten leaves on some of the shrubs, and the trumpet creeper.

Oh well, the cooler weather means less bugs for now, we will complain about that! Though a few days ago, Petcretary found a tick trying to make itself at home on her arm...so she'll watch for any signs of illness. She did save the tick for analysis, just in case...yucky little monsters!

Out in the wayback of our yard, there are still bazillions of weeds, now she's starting to try and get a handle on the cleavers...which is not a bad plant per se, but it is a nuisance! It STICKS to everything! And smothers everything as it spreads. It actually can be eaten, and used for various traditional remedies. BUT...it also makes seeds that stick to US, Blah...

Thank you, internet...this is what cleavers look like.

We also have a few 'stands' of May apples

May Apples; very toxic, and used in medicine, one of them being for plantar wart removal!

The Canada May Flowers are beginning to show flower stalks, though many of these plants do not make them at all!

Canada Mayflower

Wood ferns, check out the fiddle heads! There are all kinds of these clumps everywhere in our woodsy part of the yard.

Yellow corydalis

Chives, almost ready to blossom

Bleeding Hearts

Of course we also rule our yard...and Benji dug out three huge caverns in the back, he was so diligent in his efforts, the dirt was scattered about 10 feet from where the action was. So out came the cayenne pepper...its a great way to make digging in the same spot not fun...at least this project was at the base of a large pile of wood from petcretaryls lumberjacking efforts...

We got some treats after we ate our supper...(Shhh, don't tell them they are actually dental treats...)

That was yummy...

Can I have another one?

I make mine last a while...

I Love these, and they  have nothing that I am allergic to.

                              That's all Folks!!

Click here, and then you too can join in the Sunday Selfies Blog Hop! Hosted each week, by The Kitties Blue at The Cat On My Head

Update:

It is with great sadness that we heard of the passing of a very good friend and well known lady in blogville, Jackie of Two Devon Cats; (Memories of Eric & Flynn)

Jackie, you will be missed greatly and we love you now and forever.

Ussies In The Grass

We had a fairly quiet week for a change!

We had some nice weather, warm and sunny, and we had rain, too. So much that the grass is growing way too fast! Petcretary says she can sit down and see it growing, BOL! She mowed it twice in the past 10 days.

And yes the grass is nice and soft too! Good for laying in, or rollin on...

Petcretary keeps on with weed removal, specifically the non native invasive ones, and the vines that want to climb up the trees. (Virginia creeper, invasive non-native bittersweet, bindweed, and even poison ivy, garlic mustard, pokeweed, bittercress, cleavers, and all the weeds that make 'stickons' that cling to the dog's furs...) She also removes a lot of tree seedlings, such as cherry (Not the yummy sweet ones, these make tiny rather bitter ones...), and cottonwood, which when mature make a huge mess very late spring, and they are easily blown over or lose limbs. So she lets the oak and sugar maples stay. Walnuts, well we already have plenty of those, so those come out too.  You are welcome to come by and dig any out that you want to grow for yourselves, BOL! Dandelions are allowed to stay, as are many others...

She found these gems back there in a meadow like area of our woodsy back third of the yard.

Purple violets

White violets

Solomon's Seal; soon tere will be little white flowers hanging from it, then in the late summer, there will be dark blue berries hanging there.

Jack in the pulpit; in the fall the 'pulpit' will be a large spike with red berries.

She wishes there were trilliums back there...but none ever have been seen...There used to be a little stand of large grape hyacinths, but when all the trees came down, in the storms of May 2025, we think they were destroyed. Maybe they might come back...We also have lots and lots of Canada Mayflower., the are just beginning to show up, eventually the ones that bloom will have a stalk of white flowers followed by red berries later in the early fall.

OK, here are our Ussies:

Dalton was being silly, trying to get Benji to romp

Hi, Petcretary...nothing going on here...BOL!

We forgot about this day...so here is an older image of the three of us...

We are hopping along with many other friends at The Cat On The Head who are the weekly hosts of this fun and popular blog hop.