Monthly Archives: May 2015

Windows, Chickens and Flowers, Oh, My

Been busy around the old house the past few days, or is it weeks?  I’m not sure, time is flying so fast.  I have to keep my shirttails tucked in to keep them from flying, time is going so fast. Did I say time is going fast?   In my Bible study this week I learned that time is not going, it’s coming.  There is something really big coming our way.  The Bible speaks of her time coming, his time coming, the time came.  I find that fascinating.   I don’t really worry about time.  We all have a certain amount of it on this earth and we should make the best of it and give God the glory and love one another.  That is really all we can do.  We cannot change the weather.  We cannot change time.  We really don’t have control of much of anything when you really think about it, but if you put it all in God’s hands, it will all work out for the good(to those who love Him.)

Whew, I didn’t mean to get all theological on you, but that’s how I am.  Things have been happening around here.  We called our ever faithful contractor to replace more windows.  This house has so many windows and they all have been in the house since about the fifties, I believe, so one by one we have been replacing them with brand new insulated, double paned windows  when we save up the money.  This time we replaced our big window in our dining room.  Our contractor said we saved the hardest window for almost last.  It had to be rebuilt, repainted and replaced.

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Here it is taken out.  Nice breeze today.

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We have a nice view.  Well, when the trucks and ladders aren’t there.

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Reframing it. These men are pros.  They have worked together for years and work like a well oiled machine.  They almost know what the other one is going to say before he says it.

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New windows at last!  I was a little afraid that by replacing these windows we would lose some of the old woodwork around it and change the look, but now that they are in, it looks just the same, except we don’t have those awful, old, ugly storm windows on them any longer.  They will be so much easier to clean.

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I couldn’t wait to get some curtains hung.  See my new ladder.  It’s mine.  I picked it out and I will be the one using it for painting walls.  It’s sturdy, not like our old wooden one that rocked when I climbed on it and swayed with each movement.   This one stands strong and firm and I love it.  Really.

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I am using lace curtains this Summer, but I have bought new insulated checked curtains for this Autumn and Winter.

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After the windows were in, I painted our dining room.  A soft grey.  Sometimes it looks cream colored and other times really grey depending on the light.  I like it.  I was getting tired of the yellow walls that I really loved when I painted them a few years ago.  I’m fickle like that.  David and I went to Hobby Lobby this morning because we(I) wanted to get some flowers to put in my chicken feeder that I received as a Christmas gift last year.

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Remember when I wrote about this surprise gift that appeared on our front porch?  I didn’t know what it was or who it was from.

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It was this really nice, antique chicken feeder.  I told my friend who gave it to me that I was going to design a room around it, and I have.  Here it is, Shannon.  Look what you made me do.

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I sent away for these chicken posters.  The flowers I found at Hobby Lobby had feathers in them!  How appropriate.  Now the feeder sits in all its glory.  I love how this turned out.  Hanging the pictures was fun(not.)  David measured and measured and measured again and one of the pictures kept looking lower than the other.  I measure things with my eye and kept telling him they were not level with each other.  He measured and measured and measured again and finally decided our lopsided old house was the problem so he let?! me eyeball the pictures and we finally got them almost level.  As a friend use to tell me, “You will never notice it on a galloping horse.”

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I love these pictures.

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He could be the husband of one of my barred rock hens.  Wish I could have a rooster.

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We rehung this picture our daughter gave us last Christmas.  Kind of goes with the theme of farm and chickens.

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I have been picking these the last couple of weeks.  My favorite flower.  The peony.

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I have tried to get a little of this in, but haven’t got much done on the doll quilts lately.  I am hand quilting them as I get them pieced.

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I saw this purse on a blog, I wish I could remember which one and got on Fat Quarter Shop and ordered the pattern.  The Abby Bag.  I hope I can find time to make it.  Of course, I will have to make my granddaughter, Abby, one some time.

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Just finished reading this for the second time.  I got this book either at an auction or an antique store.  It’s about a woman who was left behind at her family’s cabin in Alaska one winter when her husband couldn’t get back to get her.  She went through many trials and tribulations like being in a landslide and breaking her arm and hurting her leg right off the bat.  Besides that, she was expecting a baby and had to deal with that and give birth all by herself.  It is a true story and when I read it, I realized I don’t have it hard at all, although I would really love to live in Alaska.

Maybe hard times is what hones us and makes us stronger.  To live a life of ease and relaxation all the time would be a complete bore to me.  I like action and hard work and doing things myself even if they don’t always turn out so well.   Anyway, if you ever get to read this book, I think you would enjoy it.  It was also made into a movie.  I’d like to find it.  I saw it a long time ago.

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Just wanted to show you something my Sunday school children made last Sunday.  They did all the cutting out and gluing and putting on stickers and I brought home the squares and tied them all together and will take it back to show them next Sunday.  We should do as the words say, “Love one another.”  Bye.

 

Marjorie’s Almanac and Opie Taylor

Ah, May.  The time when flowers are fairly bursting into bloom.  When gentle breezes and sudden showers make the world green and glorious.  I came across this little book a good while back.   These books came in the mail back in the sixties and one would be sent to you every so often as long as you subscribed.  I didn’t get very many of them, but this one was a favorite and had some favorite poetry called Marjorie’s Almanac.

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There was a poem for every season.  This one was my favorite and I memorized it and can say it even now.

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I do think Maytime is pleasanter than March although I do like March too.   One of the poems for Autumn is very politically incorrect in this day and age of speech control, but at the time it was innocent and did not demean anyone, but it would certainly be looked at differently today.  I will not show it here, but I have it memorized also.

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Green things are growing everywhere you pass.  Even Molly Marshmallow likes it so much she does this……

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Picks one of my biggest and brightest irises and brings it up to the back deck for me.  Such a thoughtful puppy!

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Glad I got a picture of them before they became Molly munchies.

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See how proud she is of herself for picking my flowers?

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I’m thinking she belongs in jail.  She looks good behind bars.  Don’t you think?

She has brought up dead birds, moles, broken toys, pieces of board and other things to share with me.  She will soon be one year old and I am hoping that this chewing and destroying will come to an end sometime.

This past Sunday after church, we headed to Danville, Indiana where they were celebrating Mayberry Days.  If you don’t know what that is, I will explain.   Back in the sixties there was a television show called The Andy Griffith Show.  It starred Andy Griffith, of course, and was a bout a sheriff in a small southern town called Mayberry.  The town had a lot of quirky, funny people.  People like Gomer, Goober, Earnest T. Bass, Aunt Bee, who was Andy’s aunt in the show, Opie, Andy’s red headed son, Floyd the barber,  Howard Sprake,  Barney Fife, Andy’s deputy sheriff and Ellie May,(correction. Thelma Lou was Barney’s girl friend. Ellie May was a Clampett.) There were lots of others, but these were the main characters.  Anyway, Danville has a Mayberry café in town and every year they have a Mayberry day.  The only reason I knew about it was that this year our grandson was entered in the Opie Taylor look alike contest.

Several boys and I guess a man or two entered the contest and they had to go and be in a parade on Saturday and be judged.  Sunday they announced the winner.

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This man played Barney Fife, and if you ever watched the show, you would not believe how much he looked like and acted like Barney.  He was kind of the master of ceremonies at the event.  Here he is getting ready to announce the Opie look alike winner.  We all sat there on pins and needles. (We adults already knew who had won because the parents had been called the night before to be sure the winner would be here.)   Barney took forever to announce the name.  My grandson sat there in suspense.  Then, suddenly Barney said, “And the winner of the Opie Taylor look alike contest is…….. Adler Grey Craig!”  Well, we all screamed as Adler went up on stage to get his prizes.

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Here he is talking to Barney Fife.  It was almost surreal to see those two together.

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Adler received a really nice gold trophy, one hundred dollars and free meals at the Mayberry café for one whole year.  That was pretty nice, I’d say, for a boy.

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He became kind of a celebrity as he had his picture taken with several people.  Here he is with Aunt Bee.

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This little boy was also in the running and they got a picture together.

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Here are the actors who played Gomer Pyle and the mayor of Mayberry.

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Gomer and Goober did an act.

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Floyd the barber and Barney.

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There was a Mayberry band and they played a couple of original songs.  One was about a rooster which got me laughing so hard tears were running down my cheeks and my stomach hurt and one of the guys on stage said I was shaking like a bowl of Jello and another guy offered me his red handkerchief, but I was laughing so hard I just wanted them to ignore me.  You had to hear the song.

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Danville has a really nice museum and we got to look through it a bit although we really went there to see Aunt Bee.

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There she is in her kitchen.

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Her famous pickles were on the counter. If you were a fan of the Andy Griffith show, you will remember when Aunt Bee was making pickles for the county fair and how many Barney and Andy had to eat.  One of the more memorable shows.

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Barney was handing out tickets and David got this one for walking too fast on the sidewalk.

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We learned that all the characters who were there that day came from all over the United States.  Only two were local people.

 

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Nostalgia was everywhere.  I even saw an old Farmall  tractor like my daddy use to drive on the farm.  All in all it was a fun day and I am so glad we went.  If you are near Danville Indiana this time next year, you really ought to stop on by and visit the Mayberry festival.  There is a Mayberry café that serves really good food and all the televisions around the café show the Andy Griffith show continuously.  It is open year round.

Here’s to good times and good memories. Bye.

Flowing Along

My very favorite month, April, came and went so quickly I hardly had time to turn around.  I wait for twelve whole months for the flowering crabapple to bloom and the lilacs to come out and now they are all almost gone.

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Now it’s time for peonies,

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and irises,

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and snowball bushes.  I have planted three more of these.  This one came from David’s grandmother’s garden years ago.

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Right outside our back door so we can see it as soon as we get up in the morning.

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The garden is almost all planted. Pumpkins, Indian corn, sunflowers are planted and tomato plants and cucumbers will be planted today.  I have cut back on vegetables and added more flowers.

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Our little patch of rhubarb has provided us plenty for pies.

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So yummy.

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I made this sponge cake for the Bible study that meets at my house.  It took eight eggs which made me thankful we raise chickens.  One of my friends made cucumber and egg salad sandwiches so I said we were having high tea.  It was all good.

Speaking of eggs, or, rather those that lay them.

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The hens give me endless entertainment.  Abigail is looking at me as if to say, “Why does Colonel Sanders get away with murdering all those chickens?”    Shhh, don’t tell her I love Colonel Sander’s fried chicken.

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This is chicken scratch, or as I like to call it, chicken crack.  The hens are addicted to this stuff.  They recognize the bowl in which I bring it to them.

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See, they are all crammed against the gate waiting for the crack.

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I set the bowl on top of their nesting boxes and first one hopped up.

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Then two.  Beatrice and Dorcas are always first in line.

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Then there were three.  Abigail came up for her fix.

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Then Ada says, “Where’s mine?”  It was getting crowded so I began to throw it all over their pen.  Chickens are funny.  They can be eating in one place with plenty of food, but if they see another one eating at a different place, they all run there.  I like to play games with them.

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First here.

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Then there.

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Then all in one place for a short while.

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Ada was not happy with me taking pictures.

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She disappeared behind the door.  She is so pretty.  She should be posing.

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Teal feathers are really standing out.  From afar she looks all black and then you see these feathers.

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Abigail has such pretty markings too.  There are so many kinds of chickens and I wish I could  have one of each, but my little plot of land could not sustain them.

Speaking of dogs.  Oh, I wasn’t?  I saw in the paper that there were chocolate lab puppies for sale.  David thought I was just kidding when I told him and told him I wanted one.  But, alas, I cannot have a fourth puppy.

We are still trying to raise this little lady to be a good, well behaved dog.

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What is this, you are asking?  This is a clean, fresh t-shirt that I put on one morning and went outside to start the day.  What you are seeing is Molly’s paw print, in perfect  outline, smack dab in the middle of my nice clean shirt.  Such is life when you have a puppy.  I have taken to wearing aprons when I go outside to protect my clean clothes.

Here’s to crack eating chickens and dog printed t-shirts.  Bye.