Thursday's This and That

I love these flowers!  One of the homes along the trail by the golf course has a bunch of these in their backyard next to  the trail.  I don't know what they are called but my mother always had them in her garden.  The plants are 3-4 feet high and the blooms are quite large.

I can remember gathering the seed from the blooms when I was a kid and putting them in an envelope so she would have seeds for the next year to plant. It is always a trip down memory lane when I walk by that particular house.

Morris has come up with a new "cave" for his afternoon naps and it is under the sofa.  He has a 4" high space between the floor and the bottom of the sofa to crawl in and then it is higher right under the sofa once he gets under there. It is really funny to watch him slither under there. The first time he went under there was when it was thundering in the evening and that was the closest place to get under since he was on my lap when the thunder hit.  I guess he liked it since he disappears under there during the day now.

I'm still on the trail of my Great-Grandfather Jefferson Arnold. Yesterday I found his muster rolls for the time he was in the Arkansas First Infantry - 1st Battalion in 1862 on the Union side. I also found some history on that particular unit but haven't had time to analyze the info yet. I spent so much time on Larry's genealogy because it was so interesting with his ancestors role in settling California.  My side was pretty boring until I found GGF Arnold and that opened up a very interesting chapter on my family.  Of course, once I get on the trail of something like this I spend hours and hours on it but that is what's fun about being retired!  Yesterday I took a step back to spend some time organizing what I have found. There is a wonderful Arkansas state genealogy library in Little Rock and I wish I knew then what I know now about my ancestors. I spent several afternoons at the library when we spent the summer there in 2011.  It's only a 414 mile drive, or 6 hours, to Little Rock from here........