My granddaughter in my flower garden about 18 years ago.

Alisande- that is precious! What a special picture.

Willie and Wynonna are beautiful!

I would love to go to Morocco, I am sure that was Amazing. The colors and carvings look so incredible.

Because there are door knobs on the picture above, it looks like it's the house of a giant. :) Fantastic. I bet Morocco was an amazing place to visit too.

This is what happens when you leave it to the birds to clean up all the seeds from your original 3 Rudbeckia plants. That is a 20 foot round bed that has been taken over.

Then it also took over a nearby 10 foot bed that you can see here on the left. Plus it is invading another bed here with the Phlox and crabapple tree in the foreground.

Gaz...I agree, no one wants huge 10' beds of rudbeckia in their ginormous walking gardens/yard. We'd better swap houses right away. You come live in my mountain home and I'll suffer through living over THERE! HA! :0) (That is totally gorgeous! Always looks like a magazine cover! Peeka has his halter on waiting to be walked on a "real" lawn.)

Yeah, and I better go with Nicole to help her get those under control!! LOL They are gorgeous, Gazania. I have a couple of very small patches and I'm looking forward to the day they take up the whole side and back yard!! That would be so awesome!!

Nicole and Aprile- your cats are beautiful!

Nicole and Murraysmom, thank you for your comments...I have to admit that the whole yard has gotten away from us this year. We have had a growing season of weeks long drought, extreme heat and then hard downpours that flattened most all perennials. All that and DH is in serious need of a knee replacement and then a case of very painful bursitis last week. And if it is more than I can reach from my scooter into a planting area, I am little help at all these days.

Thank you sabbath7..the litter had been dumped,in a shoebox before their eyes were even open. At least they were dumped at a vets office door and one of the techs took them home and nursed them. We took the last two. They have grown a bit over the years. :))

InGeorgia- I LOVE that photo! It seems like Georgia has a problem with people dumping cats. I have lived in many different states but have never seen so many stray cats as in Georgia. They did a story on the stray cat problem in the south on public radio, it was fascinating. I love seeing cats look out the window! Have you seen the book, "The French Cat"? I love looking through the photos.

InGeorgia I know how you feel about having cats brought to you. My brother in law is a mailman. Someone abandoned 3 4 week old kittens on his route. He knew I was a softy and brought them to me. I always laugh because mailman are supposed to bring mail and mine brings me kittens in a carrier lol! Right after he brought me the 3 I ended up with 3 feral kittens about the same age. So I had 6 babies at one time none of them used to humans. The 2 black and whites in the above pictures are part of that group. I also have 2 more that wondered to my house and I brought in so in total now I have 8 and I agree with the old show 8 is enough!

I love them all and I am blessed to have a big enough house that I can have them in.

sabbath7 and Aprile, the problem is horrific. People throw them out on back roads, drown them, throw them in dumpsters, move and leave them.

We have 4 indoor and from 4 to 5 outdoor that we feed. We just lost one of the outdoor kitties. I called him "mr. o" because he was a ginger with lots of white. He was sick when he showed up, pitiful. He started looking better after a month of good food but you could tell he was not really well. He was patient, never bothered the smaller ones, waited his turn and eventually would rub against our legs and even come for a head scratch. He was still very skittish though. Can't believe how much I miss him.

Am always happy to find someone who has taken in kitties and given them good homes.. You have some lovely purrbabies Aprile!

sabbath7 I will look for the book, thanks !

InGeorgia and Aprile- I met a woman at the gym when I rescued my fur baby and we started talking and she said she had five cats that kept having babies. I mentioned that I was taking my cat to Catsnip to get him his shots and fixed. She said, "Oh I will meet you there!" We planned and everything! Needless to say she never showed. I saw her after a year last week and she told me that she has 21 new kittens. I just stared in horror! I don't understand it. Thank you both for taking care of those sweet babies!

Wow! First thing I do when someone brings me a cat or kitten or one shows up is cart it off to the vet before it is even brought inside with the others. Soon as they are old enough they go off to be fixed! I have heard people tell me Oh, I will get them fixed but I want her to have one litter before I do? Why? Why? So because you"think" you will get one just like the mother father, you bring 4-8 more kittens into the world that you will have to give away free to good home and those people wont fix them and they will breed and just keep breeding. Sigh.

Sadly with cats there are so many that a re-homing fee doesn't work. If you charge a re-homing fee a lot of people will just go where they are free.

Most of my rescue work is with feral cats and Kittens. The shelters and Rescues are so over run that any feral brought in is usually put down right away because they just don't have the resources to socialize them. It is just extremely sad.

Aprile- that is so sad that they are put down.

Aprile, I admire you. i do not understand how some people think (or don't !) either. I offered one woman with cats that kept having babies 1. transportation to the vet and 2. help paying for it. Gave her my number and she has not called. I see her at least 2x a month and nothing. I just do not get it.

We had a cat have babies in our garage. As soon as it was okay, we took mama to be fixed. Then when the babies were old enough we took them. Three of them are still here, tho they do have to be outside and I hate that but we have no room inside...also Willie and Wy do not know they are cats and are scared to bits of them.

Our "shelter" here used to be horrible. The people that ran it were merciless and heartless. We now have someone who is really trying but with the ferals it is the same , they are put down. They have so many cats now I'm sure they can not manage them all. It is heartbreaking to me.