A Stuffed Gator Head, Water Hyacinths and a Bee

The water hyacinths are blooming in the pond. The frogs are wandering around the yard, looking for bugs; I think they ate all the minnows, but at least the water hyacinths are doing great. J took apart the filter again this morning and evicted a bunch of water snails, which get inside the motor and gum things up. I'm thinking some nylon net around the filter might help that problem.

And we have bees on all the flowers:

We also went to Home Depot and bought a pickaxe for enlarging the moat around the shed (it still floods when it rains hard), and we tried to buy some light bulbs--the bulbs weren't in the computer, and in disgust the clerk just gave us the bulbs; so we got a couple of small Chinese bulbs as a Gift With Purchase with the pickaxe. By the way, if you need house paint and you aren't in love with a particular color, check out the paint returns--sometimes people find they don't like a custom mixed color, and there will be a few odd gallons of paint languishing in a cart in the paint department, waiting to be adopted for something like 30% or more off. It's often the really nice Behr paint, too.

J is getting ready for a small fishing trip; so we went up to the fishing store and while he bought what he needed there, I walked over to Affordable Antiques (it's on Ogden and Naper Road, I assume in Naperville), and I had not realized a) it's huge inside and B) they have doll stuff. In fact, I found a pitcher that matched the punch bowl and cups I bought at the doll show in June. It's basically a consignment place, with each little booth-like space belonging to the consigner, and the stuff was amazing. Lots of vintage and antique jewelry, deco stuff, teacups galore, your various curio and Cursed Objects (J said the Winchester boys would probably want to just torch the place because the sheer volume of oddities in there, you'd never be able to spot that one haunted painting or Egyptian amulet among the hundreds). I did sneak a photo of my favorite amazing thing:

It's true that the Supernatural producers might not like the fact that it is also brightly lit and obsessively clean in there. I found two bjd scale Wheaton bottles there too, and I regret I didn't buy the second green flask-style bottle with Benjamin Franklin on it. I'll take pix of the bottles I did buy tomorrow. We went to Ted's for dinner, Barnes and Noble for a couple of cds, and discovered that my credit union card isn't hooking up to the bank, so there is some kind of computer fubar going on there. I have to investigate more Monday to see what is up. J said it must be "beer on the servers".