Fall in the Midwest

Oh yes, it is that wonderfully, beautiful, colorful time of year! Leaf Peeping Time.  If I've heard it once, I 've heard it ten times that since we had such a dry summer there would be no color this fall.  Well, after taking a walk through my back yard, and taking a drive down the scenic Route 2, I beg to differ.  This year has been awesome with color and our leaf peeping trips have been glorious, and here is my proof. I hope you enjoy watching as much as I did making this. These are pics I took in Boone, Winnebago, Ogle, and Lee Counties with 33 Miles singing one of my favorites "There is a God"!  

RIP Lemon the Bullfrog (June 2011-September 2012)

As most of you are already aware of our loss, it is with great sadness I write this post.  The little amphibian that my daughter brought home from a fishing trip has gone to that big swamp in the sky complete with her own mud bath and crickets abundant.  Yes we know ‘she’ was a ‘she’ because of the ear circle being the same size or smaller than the eye.  This bullfrog greatly amused us with her “finger licking good” worm eating methods, which regrettably was never caught on video.  However, her favorite delicacy was definitely the cricket.  Her flitting, rolling eyes and swift snap of her tongue during the hunting process is truly a work of timing and accuracy that will be greatly missed.  Lemon, aka Miss Lemony Snicket – the frog who loved crickets, is survived by a few crickets that marginally escaped her quick action hunt, her adoptive mother who lovingly caught her, brought her home and set up a domestic habitat for her and who also, along with the surviving grandmother (aka ME) searched with a flashlight in the yard the night she escaped from a covered aquarium.  Incidentally, this was an essential search after learning certain toads and frogs can be poisonous to dogs.  It was also during this search she was almost named Houdini, however, when her little cousin was introduced to her this quickly changed.  The adorable (at the time 3 year old) tyke took one look at the bullfrog and said, “She’s yellow.  Let’s name her ‘Lemon’!”  No one could resist and now this is history.  Also survived by numerous members of the adoptive family that really could care less, may she RIP.  Private services were held for immediate family only (aka ME) with entombment in the creek.  Please, no flowers or donations.

If you would like to leave your  condolences you may do so in the comment section below.  If you missed the introduction to Lemon into the household you can recap here Meet Lemon....

Who knows, maybe there’s a career for me out there writing birth announcements and/or obituaries!