Weed, Jesus, Voting, Crows- Welcome To Lloyd

That, my friends, is a blue-tailed, five-lined skink. Skinks come in all shapes and sizes and especially colors and if I have a favorite, I guess it would be the blue-tailed because, well, obviously. I am loathe to admit this but skinks weird me out. They look so...slippery. And they are also more snake-like than our little anoles, some more so than others. But this one was sitting on the back porch steps this morning when I went out to feed the crows and I don't know what was going on but he didn't seem to be frightened of me in the least and let me take his picture. 

There were big doin's in Lloyd today. Well, not really. But sort of. Glen and I went to the Baptist church to vote. This is the very large, white Baptist church which is a pretty boring place to vote. When the volunteer who manned the door opened it up for us I was somewhat shocked to take in the absolute, no doubt about it, smell of weed. 
Strong. 
I looked at the four volunteers, all of them white-headed and around our age and simply could not imagine one of them bring out a joint and asking if anyone wanted a toke. I mean, I know old people smoke reefer. Hell, it's legal here for medical purposes and anyone over the age of fifty is going to have medical issues that qualify you to walk into any of the many, many dispensaries and buy cannabis in a variety of forms, strains, and strengths. 
Still. 
But I let that one go and we voted and after we left I mentioned the odor to Glen who said, "Yeah. It was that guy who was in there voting when we got there." 
Now. Why I had not realized that shows the mental deterioration I suffer from. The man of whom Glen spoke had been a younger guy with dreads. Okay! That made sense. 
The volunteers told us it had been a pretty busy morning. "We've had 88 voters so far!" said one of the men. And honestly, that is a lot for little Lloyd. There are other voting locations too. 
We stopped at the Post Office on the way home and lo and behold, all of the My Gypsy Soul Boutique signs and funky decor had disappeared and were replaced with this.

Well now. A farm shop sounds promising, does it not? 
The "Rooted in faith" thing sounded a little, well, off-putting for me but fresh eggs, fresh produce, nursery plants? Count me in. 
I looked them up when I got home and when they say rooted in faith, they ain't kidding. 
Check them out. 
Talk about being eat-up with Jesus. 
And then there's this.

I'm sorry but, Jesus Christ. 

Well, that's Lloyd. 
Everyone who's tried to start a business in that tiny building seems to have had such high hopes and not a one of them has had any luck at all. There have been at least five that I know of. Perhaps the Jesus Farmers will finally break the curse. 
And hey- they are also certified concrete paver installers so they have that going for them. 
It amuses me that we've gone from crystals and sage and Tarot card readings to Brad, a family man of God, and his wife Meredith, who is whole heartedly committed to Jesus, her husband Brad, her children, and whatever business venture God has them take on next. 

All right. Here was the big news from The Church of the Batshit Crazy today.

For the past few days, only four out of the five-member murder of crows have shown up. What you're seeing in that picture is the four crows of whom I speak, plus a squirrel which the crows don't seem to mind sharing their space with. They were all busy, gobbling up the birdseed and shelled sunflower seeds Mr. Moon had dumped off the bird feeder tray due to the fact it had all gotten wet. That did not seem to bother the squirrel or the crows at all. 
I am not too disturbed about the missing crow. If my theory was correct, that fifth bird was a juvenile and if I am going to be all optimistic about this (and I am), I think he or she has found a mate and they're off doing whatever it is that new crow couples do. That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? 

I got my arugula planted and watered in. 

That little patch is all I think we need at this moment. It didn't take me but a few minutes to rake back the pine needle mulch and use my finger to make rows and plant the bitty baby seeds in. However, by the time I was done I literally had sweat running off of me. The greenery you see in that picture is the volunteer arugula I'm still using and a third generation volunteer zinnia sprout. 

Because I'm insane and because I have a great need to tend to this yard, I tried to do a little work on the old kitchen garden but ended up working on the fence where the confederate jasmine grows, taking out a dang elder berry tree that escaped my notice before it got too big to just pull. I merely cut it but had to also cut a lot of the jasmine vines to release it from the fence. 
And what does this accomplish?
Not a whole hell of a lot. That's what. 

A very short trivia fact:

In the 1930's the Hays Code was adopted by the major studios in Hollywood as a sort of self-censoring body meant to protect the innocent and decent from any of that nasty Hollywood moral-destroying movie making. AND, as I quote from Wikipedia
"The first major instance of censorship under the Production Code involved the 1934 film, Tarzan and His Mate, in which brief nude scenes involving a body double for actress Mauren O'Sullivan were edited out of the master negative of the film." 

And because I love you, I give you this.

And of course, it was after this that both Tarzan's and Jane's costumes became far less revealing and skimpy, to the detriment of all.

Maurice has discovered her throne. 

Mr. Moon says this is exactly what he had envisioned when he saw the chair. 
I am thinking about changing her name to "Lulu" in hopes that the reason she's so freaking mean is because she hates what we call her. I've been testing it out. 
She still slashed me twice yesterday. 
Sigh. 

Look what has arrived!

Just in time for tomorrow's back-to-pottery class. I'm pretty excited. 

Love...Ms. Moon