August 17th

You wanna piece-a-me?

July 12th

You can see the distance from my office window.   Gently scraping more corn towards him as he eats.

Sitting up for a scratch

And checking out his underarm.  How comical.

It is not unusual to see the gray fox eating side by side with one of the cats.

A BLACK COYOTE - a rare sighting!

"The Beagle Boys", one of two raccoon families that eat at the cat food dish daily

BOTH bears in the yard at the same time

Here's an update on the blooming of the Rose Garden off the back porch.  A gift, every day

Roses - will I ever get tired of photographing them?  Nope!

MIMOSA Blooms 

on a tree down the road; Heidi's favorite "Fireworks" flowers

BEAR!

You can see the distance from the office window.  One happy bear.

FOX!  Called a "Gray Fox" though there is some red in his fur, he visits regularly to eat cat food.  Isn't he a beauty?

DAHLIAS

Update, 4/20, a cozy spot, sleepy happy kitty, 

And a smitten admirer

The bushes were so full of blooms, we've never seen them look so beautiful

WILDFLOWER

A plain Jane compared to the lilies, but this little wildflower growing in the yard was a pleasant surprise

The white are "Free Choice Oriental Lily".  The red and whites are "Maru Lilies"

We call the red one the Man-eater, it is so HUGE.  It is a "Love Story Oriental Lily".  Wow.

25 bushes of them, thanks to Glenn's hard work.

And today's "catch" by Heidi and Glenn includes plenty of shark teeth, a piece of agate, even a dolphin ear bone

Update, Tux-April.  What a beauty:

While his brave dad cuts down a pine tree in our yard

Clam shells cruelly pretend to be shark's teeth just long enough for you to bend down and pick it up

Glenn found this gorgeous yellow orchid plant (Cymbidium, King of Orchids) as a Valentine's Day gift.  Update: It continues to bloom through mid April!

Update March, high resolution photos

(February 12-13, 2010)  Only the 2nd time in 21 years in South Carolina (the last time was Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009).  A winter wonderland for 24 hours!  So of course Glenn made a ghoulish Snow Dude.

Over the next few days, Glenn re-shaped the melting snow person to a mini-dude or girl with Spanish Moss hair...next to a cat in one photo, for comparison size.  Hilarious.   That's my guy.

At least 9 cats snuggling on our porch, and one photo of Mr. Goldie; 10 cats on the rug

Camellias and huge Lilies graced our table

Young Tripp looks on, waiting for Cake Time!

It's Cake Time with Grandma

Sister Rebecca, managing the food

Thanks to Carla and daughter Lily, I attended this well performed show and dinner

Snuggling to stay warm in the winter rain, on the porch rug

Near Office Depot at the beach, gorgeous fall colors in January

Neighbor Craig and son Tripp are leveling our driveway with his dad's equipment, pounding the road flat.  We could feel this even 2 blocks away.

Glenn took Heidi to the Atlanta Aquarium on the way back from the Wehle Nature Center in Alabama.

Carla made a beautiful STEGOSAUR Chocolate DINOSAUR birthday cake for Heidi, how memorable is that?  You can even see a huge order of tagua nut in the background, waiting to be sorted, numbered, priced & photographed.

HALLOWEEN

Our helper Carla and her daughter Lily, posing with our scary Alien Mannequin Dude (with Mardi Gras hat and boars tooth necklace).  Glenn is wearing his awful wig.

On a whim, when the doorbell rang and we knew it was our neighbors, Glenn opened the door on his hands and knees, wearing the Wolf Headdress, scaring the kids half to death.  He then stood up and removed all doubt of his dastardliness.

"Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill."

A family of pirates and 1 princess, our neighbors' costumes.  Darn good too!

Amanita muscaria

A beautiful water hyacinth in our friend Dale's Florida pond.  Photo credit to Dale and Kathy.

Documenting some of the semi-wild cats we enjoy here

Gold & white cat   

Our surprise Siamese Snowball   

Her brother (neurological problem, holds his head to the side)

New litter of 4 kitties

A tiger with white boots & nose from another litter 

Gold male cat, he is panting from the heat, as the cats have gotten their winter coats from a few cool nights, and now are too warm.  Weather is still in the high 80's during the day.

Believe it or not, Sept. 25th Glenn found berry bear puke with a baby bear footprint right in the middle of it, over near the deer corn.

A mama black bear and twin cubs visited the yard Sept. 26th.  (We had to deal with reflection on the sunny window, apologies).  

Some sound caused one cub to go up on his hind legs for a few moments.  False alarm.

Mom and cubs decided to take a tour of part of the yard to be sure there was no danger.

You can see where mom's front left foot has been broken, and healed crooked.  A permanent limp that does not look comfortable, also causing her to slow down.  A detriment if she needs to get away from danger with her cubs.

Mom tipped some of the corn out of the deer dish so all 3 could feed at the same time

This twin scooped corn between his paws and was NOT going to share

Another stroll on Myrtle Beach Sept. 21.  The weather is still in the 80's.

Heidi found a great Squalicorax tooth, they both found lots of sand shark points, and a few whole small teeth.

This wayward little turtle was tootling across our driveway towards the conservation forest, a LONG ways from water, when we spotted the cats looking at something in the yard and we discovered it - an Eastern Box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina), also called Common Box Turtle.  The hinged plastron (lower shell) that he is able to move up against the upper shell to protect his head is a marvelous ability.

In reading about it, I found that the male has a concave (lower shell) plastron to facilitate breeding on top of the female, which has a flat plastron.  So this is probably a female.  We took her down the road the other way to a small stream so she could have more of a chance of a good turtle life:

A pink flowering Fasciata Bromeliad on our porch we enjoy every day.

A hummingbird outside my home office window.  Through August we have hundreds of sipping visits a day outside Heidi's office window to the 2 feeders there.  Ruby throated males, females and juveniles visiting constantly. 

Glenn found a tiny red mushroom in our yard.  We can only identify it as a new mushroom of the Amanita muscaria species that turns into the red mushroom with white spots that we also find in the yard (other photos amongst the About Us photos).  YES, it is poisonous.

Two bears have been coming nightly up until the fire April 22; there has also been considerable construction going on nearby.  Since then we have not seen the bears, and worried they were either dead or had relocated to another area.  The bears usually start coming during the day starting in late May/early June.  They had not done so.

Friday July 17th one bear finally came during the day, we were so glad to see him!  It is the bear with the injured back leg, the skin & muscle had been stripped from the right rear leg back in March (we don't know what did it), we did not know if he could survive.  He did!  We estimate he is a 2 year old around 300 pounds

He ate well, took a bath

He's had his bath (you can see how wet he is), now it's a mouthful of cat food for dessert, going down on his elbow to do so:

he explored the latticework where the cats are, though they are not prey to him..

The damaged leg joint is stiff & fixed, and he swings the leg in an outward arc to walk.  You can see it is healed but thinner from lost muscle, skin & fur, and weaker. 

He looked up this tree several times on his hind legs at his full height.  He must have seen something we did not, then went on his way.

Nine cats showing in the 1st photo (the 3 mothers are off to the left), and six kitties at the milk dish in both photos.

Frank, normally a cautious, serious sort of guy (but really a kid inside) shows his other side when he comes to Myrtle Beach

May 1, it was a beautiful day to walk on the beach.  A little windy, about 75 degrees at the beach (closer to 82 inland), 

but the tide was out and there were numerous hermit crabs to watch skittering through the tidal pools.  What fun!  

MYRTLE BEACH FIRE

(photo credit to Tom Murray, Sun News, of a Loris firefighter at Nehemiah Green's home on  Willard Road, 12 miles from our home)

Azalea, myrtle blossom and yellow jessamine vine, early April, in our yard, a welcome sight:

Friends Harry and Linda visited again from Canada, a warm change from the record snowfall where they live

Raccoon eating happily from the cat food

Two of our "wild" cats have had kittens, they are old enough to explore through the lattice work and are now drinking milk from the dish.  Their antics are always entertaining.

They look like whack-a-moles poking their heads out of the lattice work.  Total of 6 showing in the last photo

Another wonderful walk on the beach with my Curmudgeon Glenn, one of me at the 2nd Avenue South Pier, and a wicked shell that just MIMICS a shark tooth, cruel:

The bush had the most blooms we have ever seen, though a freeze a week later killed them off, we thoroughly enjoyed them while we could:

One of the first azaleas, a double color:

Life's simplest pleasures, a Rainbow Foam car wash with a cotton candy smell (the color changes as it comes out of the nozzle), it is more than just a car wash to us.  A kid's delight, I hope I never grow up:

An orange sea anemone as seen on a mirror, a jellyfish, and a pink anemone (these 3 photos compliments of Carla Ellenbecker):

A random photo of a housing development on Highway 90 showing some of the snowfall

Here's Glenn at the Fresh Catch Seafood Restaurant, where we ended up watching the inauguration till 12:15 p.m., heading home to find the power on again and watching the rest of the festivities on our familiar large screen TV.  A memorable inauguration, but not in the way we planned!

Our

The camellias began blooming around December 20th:

Around Christmas, a flock of seagulls settled on the parking lot at Walmart in Conway

And one tree stump gnawed by the beavers looks like an elephant!

A pygmy octopus that washed up on the beach, Bob & Laura preserved it in alcohol for their collection. 

Friends and customers alike sent us Headline newspapers from their state or country (some whole newspapers), with the historic Barack Obama Presidential win.  One of our favorites is the headline "The Planet at the "O" Moment" from Romania.  We read every one, relishing not only the historicity of it, but also the news and perspectives of the other countries.  We thank you one and all for your generosity.  These will be cherished mementos of our U.S. history.

Below is a picture of most of them.  The papers are from: 

And here are photos of the same group, by sections so they are more easily read, if you wish to:

North Myrtle Beach, SC

We enjoyed a sumptuous Thanksgiving buffet aboard the Big "M" Casino boat, the weather was in the high 60's, a perfect day in South Carolina.  The boat trailing us is a much smaller casino boat.

Glenn's last shot was of a seagull as we were docking, with the rosy glow of a beautiful sunset coloring the photo and the seagull on the piling.  A fitting ending to a nice day, though we went on to have dinner at a great Mongolian Grill called Empire Fire north of Barefoot Landing shops.

Our most recent painting, acquired for Heidi's birthday, from artist Sandra Ragan who did our other sunset paintings.   Sandra named this one "Heaven's Autumn".

What a breath of fresh air, I can feel the soft grass on my back as I look up at the trees and hear the wind.

A MUSHROOM BIRDBATH!  Okay, it's for a really tiny hummingbird or munchkin bird, but that's what it looks like!

Baby spiders, just hatched, in between our front porch steps:

Fourth of July, our flag is waving proudly

Every afternoon we have a big thunderstorm, here is the view off the back porch of the cameo building and the dinosaurs in the back yard through the torrential rain pouring out of the eave troughs

One of our wild kitties, enjoying the coolness of the swing

Our fat, well fed raccoon family eating the cat food under the umbrella that keeps it dry.  Glenn took these photos from his office window with the zoom lens

We have known of a mother black bear and 3 cubs that have been visiting our side yard every night.  Now they are visiting the yard during the day!  

The young male (we think it's a male because he's bigger than the other 2 cubs and usually feeds separately.  Here he is standing guard at the crossover path at the ditch:

It looks like the bear is smelling the flower, when in reality the hibiscus bush is considerably closer to the camera:

And taking baths in the bear pool...together!  One cub entered the pool, then mama, then another cub..I don't know why the side of the pool (which is a boy's plastic car bed) didn't split.  We'll have to write the manufacturer and tell them how sturdy it is!

Then exploring a short ways beyond the hibiscus bush "barrier" before realizing they were "out of bounds"..

Here is Mama bear that came alone this morning.  She has apparently broken her left front ankle which has a large lump on it (or a snake bite), we have noticed since she began coming, as she limps but can put weight on it.  We hope it heals without an infection, we will continue to worry.

Day lilies that grew like weeds, 5 feet tall!

Hibiscus:

One of the flourishing flower beds:

Mimosa blooms, resembling an exotic Fourth of July fireworks, from a tree down the road:

June 23, 2008  The Texas Rose (a species of Hibiscus) began blooming yesterday.  The blooms are as big as dinner plates.  We have been awaiting their arrival.  Many more to come, the stems are over 5 feet tall with a dozens of blooms on each of the five stalks.  A testament to Miracle-Gro, I'm sure, and Glenn's loving hands:

Here's my tough big guy:

Little  Miss Bitty Kitty checking out the sprinkler head:

Mama boots, with her  litter and a couple of her mother's (Big Mama's) litter.  Boots' litter is 2 weeks older than Big Mama's litter:

Big Mama lapping milk with the kitties:

Big Mama, acting lovey, and another female we call Mrs. Black who did not bear a litter this year, thank goodness!

Update 6/14/08  This kitty has now disappeared, the casualty of one of the many predators in these woods.  We are glad we had some time to help a young creature, however long her life. 

Fat & sassy raccoons (there are 5 or 6) share the space under the storage building, and the cat food amicably with the cats.  The umbrella keeps the food dry..another pampering by Glenn:

Friends Frank, Cathy, their kids Josh, Noah and baby Danielle during their annual visit, posed under Mr. Cave Bear, and photos from the Fresh Catch Seafood Restaurant down the road

Beautiful hibiscus blooms at the new Market Commons (the old Air force base area of Myrtle Beach)

And our own azaleas blooming:

then they explode into real bloom!

and our early wildflowers:

Candy striped amaryllis:

More roses, more vivid each year it seems:

The hyacinths, azaleas, irises and crocuses have been out for a couple of weeks already, here in South Carolina, here's one of our hyacinths..

January 1, 2008

Open letter from Glenn:

It is with a very distinct amount of pleasure that I make my following intentions known to our loyal customers, friends and fellow business associates.

I have reached a point in my life where I have had the pleasure of building a very successful business.  My ever-growing curiosity over the past 38 years has led me to the far reaches of the earth, pursuing my dream of finding the strangest, most bizarre oddities that you see on our website.

These past 11 years, Heidi has been involved in my business. Early on, our businesses were combined, creating another whole dimension encompassing many beautiful categories of things we have found from new travels together.  

So I have decided it's time to hand over the reins of this partnership to my lovely and capable wife Heidi, making her the sole proprietor of Where on Earth effective January 2008.  

I will continue to support Heidi, but in a much different role.  This change in management will allow me more time to pursue other creative choices.  Working on gator skulls and cameos and restoring our cave bear skeleton is like putting together model planes and cars that I never got to play with as a kid, now I can do so with even less distractions...

One weekend's work with cameos & eyeglass loops: 

I hope you will join me in further support and interest in Where on Earth as we continue our travels to find the unusual, as well as educational endeavors.

As a sign of her mutual interest, she has taken a quantum leap in the new direction of the future of Where on Earth.  Heidi has made her first sole selection, a large addition to our outstanding collection.  It is with admiration and love that I share with you and showcase - Direct from Romania - The Romanian Cave Bear Collection (link below)

Cave Bear Fossils

A baby named CHERISH

A tiny resin baby by Camille Allen that my Glenn purchased for my 53rd birthday.  This is the 3rd baby Glenn has purchased for me from her collection (the other 2 can be viewed on About Us page 2, Sept of '05 section).  It does describe his attitude towards me.  What a treasure Glenn is.

Even she can only take so much, she finally leaves, and they are puzzled

and a lovely white wildflower sprouted nearby:

Glenn came home with a 50 pound watermelon.  It took the two of us a week to eat, but eat it we did!