As you can see by the picture, I made a new friend today.  This morning while Mum and I were in the kitchen we heard this thud against the sliding glass doors.  I ran over to see what it was and there was sitting on the rug in front of the doors a little White Throated Sparrow.  I didn’t know what it was at first but I have a bird book called “Wild about Birds so I looked it up.

The poor little bird looked so surprised.  Can you imagine being him, flying along, not a care in the world on a beautiful spring morning and suddenly BAM – quick stop!

Pop opened the door and as you can see, he let me stand right next to him.  I talked to him in a soft voice, petted his feathers and told him it was going to be OK.  I think he really trusted me because he didn’t seem scared at all, just surprised.

After about 15 minutes he hopped away, but stopped and looked back at me.  I think he was saying “thanks Ernie”.  Hopefully he’ll stop back again to visit, just not the way he did it this morning.

Several weeks ago I told you that Mum and I had started seeds indoors.  They actually have done quite well.  We put them under grow lights downstairs with a timer that let the light on for about 8 hours and then shut off.  The lights were only about 3 inches above the plants all the time so Mum had to keep adjusting the lights up higher as the plants grew.  As you can see by the picture it won’t be long before they will be able to be planted outside.  We are growing, Cucumbers, Squash, Pumpkins, Zucchini, Peppers, Marigolds, Zinnias and some kind of flower called “Globe Amaranth”. 

Pop already got the garden tilled up and Mum and I planted 3 rows of onions.  Later this week we will plant radishes, lettuce and peas.

Last Friday Mum left work a little early and her and I planted some perennials.  As you can see by the picture I can get quite dirty doing these jobs but I just love helping my Mum in the garden.  Right now the other gnomes are flipping coins to see who gets to guard what plants in what gardens.  Having one of them stand watch for the first couple of weeks while the new plants are getting started is very important.  As I’ve said before, gnomes do bring good luck to your garden.  On Friday we planted Verbascum Mix, Anchusa Azurea and Brilliant Miniature Hollyhock and Starburst Ice Plant.  We still have some more to plant but it started raining so we’ll have to wait a few days.

By the way, Mum says I should tell you about this book “Best Plants for Midwest Gardens”.  She has it and says it’s her reference guide for this area.  She says sometimes it hard to know what will grow good here in the Midwest.  This book answers those questions for you. The Best Plants for Midwest Gardens: Flowers, Vegetables, Shrubs, and Trees for Spectacular Low-Maintenance Gardens Season After Season

In several of my past blog posts, I have mentioned my friend Chopper.

Chopper is the dog that now lives with my sister and her family, but he didn’t always live with them.

Chopper was actually born in Ecuador.  Now that is definitely something that not many dogs in the United States can say.  He was adopted when he was about 8 weeks old by my brother when he was living there.

Chopper lived with my brother for the first year of his life (and he lived a very good first year I might add).

When my brother had to come back to the United States for a few months, he wanted Chopper to come with him.  That didn’t go quite as smoothly as my brother had hoped.  What with paperwork, shots and quarantine, Chopper had to stay behind for another month, so when it was finally time for him to come over, he had to make the trip by himself.  He must have been very scared, however he finally arrived safe and sound and $500 later.

When my brother was ready to return to Ecuador, Chopper couldn’t go back with him because it was January in Minnesota and too cold for dogs to fly.  So Chopper remained behind and lived with my Mum, Pop and me.

After a while Chopper really liked living in Minnesota and my brother decided it would be better if Chopper stayed here since my brother didn’t know how much longer he would be living in Ecuador.

Since my Mum, Pop and me travel quite a lot, my sister decided Chopper would like living at their house.  He does!!!  At my sister’s home he has a really big yard to run around in, my niece and nephew to play with and a lake cabin to go to on the weekends.  He loves going to the Cabin.  At the cabin, he rides in the front seat on the 4-wheeler with my brother-in-law (whom I think is Chopper’s favorite), chase’s rabbits, runs in the apple orchard and all the things some dogs can only dream of.

Now Chopper won’t win any awards when it comes to cuteness, but a more loving, dedicated dog you’ll never find.  He’ll stay right by your side like a shadow.  He just loves being around people.  Sometimes when he hasn’t seen me or Mum and Pop for a while he just cries he’s so happy to see us.

The other fun thing is that when my sister and her family want to go on vacation we get to take care of Chopper, or like my post “My Trip to the North Shore”, I get to go along with my sister’s family and Chopper gets to stay with my Mum and Pop.

I love Chopper – he’s my best friend.

This blog is a sad blog.  I want to tell you about my Grandma.  I love my Grandma, but she’s not the same Grandma I remember.  Grandma is now is a nursing home.  Mum says she has “Dementia”.  I’m not sure what that exactly means but Grandma doesn’t seem to know who I am anymore. 

She wasn’t always like that.  You would have liked my Grandma.  She liked to go sliding with us, ride bikes with us, she always baked good things and she always smiled and hugged us when she saw us.  Grandma and Grandpa used to live on a farm and we used to have so much fun when we visited at their farm. 

Grandma used to have a big (and I do mean big) garden.  When we visited her she would get up extra early in the morning to get her work done in the garden so she could play with us when we woke up.  Grandma made the best pancakes for breakfast.  She made better pies than anyone I know. Every Saturday Grandma would make bread and caramel rolls from scratch.  They were the best.

About 15 years ago a tornado came and destroyed most of their farm.  Almost all of the trees were wrecked and some of the buildings.  After that they didn’t want to stay on the farm anymore so they moved to Chandler, Minnesota a nearby small town and built a new house there.  It was a nice house but I don’t think they liked it as well as they did on the farm.  Grandma still had a garden but it was a lot smaller.

When my Grandpa died, my Grandma became really sad because she missed him so much.  She lived in the house by herself for a few more years but she wasn’t happy there by herself and she got very lonely.  When Grandma got sick she had to go into the nursing home.  I know that they take good care of her there but she doesn’t like it there.  My Mum and Pop and I go to visit her but it’s not as much fun as it used to be when we visited her at her house.  Grandma and I used to play games together but she can’t do that anymore.  Sometimes she still smiles when she sees me but she can’t remember my name so much anymore.  I hope she can still remember all of the fun things we used to do. 

My Mum told me that sometimes that’s what happens when people get old.  I hope my Mum and Pop never get old.

I have to tell you about my scary experience last week with my old computer.  I’ve been writing all of these blogs on an old Toshiba laptop computer.  It seemed to be working fine but very slow.  Slow was good since my hands are small and I can’t type very fast, however when my brother would try to help me, my computer wouldn’t go fast enough for him.  He’d tell me to open this site or that site and before I would know it, everything thing would lock up tight and then he’d have to wait while I’d have to re-boot which would take about 20 minutes before I’d be up and running again.

One evening a couple of weeks ago I was typing away and suddenly it started making a making a funny noise.  My Pop can make funny noises sometimes but it didn’t sound like that. At first I though oh oh this is it but it stopped making noise and so I kept writing, however more and more it would just stop working and It couldn’t move until I rebooted it.

Knowing that it would be only a matter of time before It probably would quit completely I started researching some new computer possibilities when Mum and Pop were at work.  For years my brother would tell my Mum and Pop, “when you are going to buy a new computer buy a Dell” or don’t call me when you have problems.  They never listened and over the years they bought an E-Machine, a Gateway and the Tobisha.  This time I decided it’s got to be a Dell if he’s going to keep helping me. 

After many days I finally found the one I wanted.  The Dell Inspiron 15.  I found this one on Amazon.com and the price was a good one.  First thing I had to do was to ask Pop for his credit card number.  Knowing how much fun I’m having with this blog writing he agreed to buy it for me.  He did say this would be both my birthday present and Christmas present but that’s OK since we gnomes don’t usually want very many things.  He didn’t want me to know his credit card number so he ordered it for me instead.

While waiting for it to arrive I kept on writing and then last Thursday night, I was awaken with a terrible noise coming from the old one.  I quickly got out of bed and turned on the light only to see this picture on my computer. Now I admit to not knowing much about computers but something told me this wasn’t good. 

The first thing in the morning I called my brother and told him what the computer screen looked like.  He told me it’s called the “The Blue Screen of Death”.  My computer was finally taking it’s last breaths and he and I were soon to part ways.

As luck would have it the new Dell computer arrived that same day.  It’s the prettiest blue you ever saw.  The color is called Pacific Blue.  Since then it’s been many many hours on the phone with my brother.  My brother lives in California but luckily we both have cell phones with Verizon, so phone calls are free.   Isn’t this a great world we live in.  Between him and my Pop, I’m up and running again.

This Dell computer is so fast I’m having a hard time getting my hands to work as fast as this computer can go.  I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a techy or geek gnome but I think I’m beginning to be one.

Of course after all of these years of my brother telling me to get a Dell, when I finally told him I bought one he said – why didn’t you buy a Mackintosh?  Go figure.

I love this computer and know I’m going to have so much fun with it.  I can see myself writing at least a post a day.  If you want to know more about the computer I picked, check out Dell Inspiron 15 (I15-156B) Notebook PC, Pacific Blue – Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Mobile T3400 2.16GHz,  3GB DDR2 SDRAM, 160GB HD, 15.6