Monthly Archives: May 2020

Do You Have a Doppleganger?

Do you have Doppleganger?  Do you know what a Doppleganger is?   A Doppleganger(I just love typing that word) is someone who looks like you.  Your twin sort of from another mother.   I have had several in my life.  When we first moved to our present home over forty years ago, we looked for a church and found one. It wasn’t long before I was told there was a woman in town who looked just like me.  That was interesting.

She evidently attended my new church, but had not been there for a while. I watched for my Doppleganger every Sunday and one day, she appeared, but I didn’t know it. You see, we all think of ourselves as looking one way and the world sees us in another way so when I was pointed out my Doppleganger I thought no way did she look like me.  She did have blonde hair and was short, but that was all I saw that looked sort of like me. But after that, I kept looking at her trying to see something others were seeing in her that looked like me.

I went to the library not long after we moved here to get a new library card and it was not long before one of the librarians told me she had seen someone who looked “Just like me” come into the library.  This Doppleganger I never saw and I was wondering if it was the same lady who went to my church.  Crazy.

Do you remember the model Twiggy back in the sixties?  Now in no way was my body like hers, slim as a rail. I had more curves and you might even call me a little chubby, but my boss where I worked said I sure looked like Twiggy.  And I guess I did a little in my pictures. In the face.  Funny how that works.  And in one of my younger pictures I look sort of like Princess Diana.  If I can find the picture, I’ll put it here.  I know that sounds crazy and I’m bragging, but I’m not.  It’s just that in one of my pictures and how I am posed, I look like Princess Diana.  I don’t look at all like her now. Of course she probably wouldn’t look like she did back in her younger days if she were still alive which I wish she was.   I still miss her.  I was one of those who got up extra early on her wedding day and watched, enraptured, the pomp and circumstance of the whole thing and then days afterward I looked for anything about Diana I could find on the TV.  Just wish she and Charles could have made a go of it, but I don’t think the love was equal in that relationship, sadly.

Anyway, back to Dopplegangers,  I put some pictures online a few years back while we were traveling and one of my friends told one of her friends that I looked like one of their friends!  Well, when I saw who they were talking about I asked David if I looked anything like her and he said, “Absolutely not!”  But her friends saw something in me that reminded them of her.

Right now with all the mask wearing it would be hard to see your Doppleganger if they were standing right in front of you.   Do you have a Doppleganger?  Are you happy they look like you or are you a little distressed about it?   Everyone has a twin, they say.  My grandson has a picture of his best friend’s grandfather when he was young and he looks exactly like my grandson.  I almost fell on the floor when I saw their two pictures together.  Twins!  I mean exactly alike.   There has be to a family relationship there somewhere down the gene line.

If you have a Doppleganger or just haven’t seen yours yet, keep looking.  Your twin may show up one day.  Bye,

 

A Walk Through My Garden and Other Things

Some people say the time is going slow for them during this quarantine time. I have to say time has been absolutely flying for me during these beautiful Spring months. Where has March, April and May gone?  My three favorite months are almost a thing of the past for another year.  I’ve tried to enjoy each day as it comes and goes. It has been a cold Spring, so I’m hoping warmer days are coming.

I’ve knit several pairs of stockings,  pieced four quilts and almost have one of them quilted and bound.  We’ve painted a bedroom and organized another and can finally see the bed again after David stacked all my quilts on an old trunk and in a closet.   I’ve planted tomatoes.  I bought twenty packets of flower seeds which I don’t know why I did because we have very little space in the garden for any more flowers.

We started raising more chicks. Here they are huddled under their heat lamp despite the fact we bought this…..

A heater that simulates a mother hen.  If you’ve ever felt the underneath of a chicken when she is setting you will know just how warm it is.  Anyway, the chicks can get under this and feel like they are underneath a hen. You can actually buy feathers that fit on this to make it feel more like a hen, but we didn’t go that far.  The cone on top is to keep them from trying to sit on the heater and pooping all over it.  You can just see the corner of the cone on the above picture.  The chicks were just getting use to the heater and still were under the heat lamp, but I’ve seen them all go underneath so I know they are using it.

Soon the chicks will be big enough to join the big girls.  That one in the front is the talker who demands her cracked corn even to jumping up and pecking the bowl of it I am holding.  She is very demanding.

The chickens have been providing us with a lot of eggs.

They all usually lay in the same nest even though they have five to choose from.

Because we have very little room left to plant my seeds, we are using these boxes which are really the steps of our old back deck turned upside down. Just the right size to plant flower seeds in.

This is my dog gardener. At least she thinks she is. She has dug up some of my flower beds. I think she was looking for moles. I can’t get angry with her about it because I always have called the back garden the dogs’ garden.  Mostly they keep the moles and snakes out for which I am very happy.   They’re good dogs.

Now the garden is busting out all over. My very favorite flowers, the peonies are starting to bloom.

Isn’t this so pretty?

I can never get enough peonies.

The snowball bush is, alas, almost gone for another year.

It was so loaded with snowballs the branches were bent down.

It covered one whole end of our porch.

David’s grandmother gave us a start of her snowball bush years ago and from that we now have two snowball bushes.  I always think of his grandmother when I look at our snowball bush.  She was a gardener, too.

Now the snowballs fall like snow all over the ground.

Makes me a little sad to see them gone for another year.  I hope whoever lives in this house after us will get the joy out of the snowball bush that I do.

The honeysuckle by the pool house is blooming the best it’s ever bloomed. The hummingbirds love this.  David saw our first hummingbird on this  bush this week.

A hollyhock I found in an abandoned house’s yard one year.  It keeps coming up although I forget about it from year to year until it appears.  Last year it had so many flowers on it.

David’s grandmother’s poppies bloom every year and are spreading all over.

Then there’s the iris. What can I say about iris?  I’ve planted hundreds of them through the years and they keep multiplying and spreading. It’s one of my top five favorite flowers because they are so easy to grow. We mow them down every year and they keep coming back year after year.

I have several shades of purple.

 

David found these in a little woods by the place where he worked and dug up a few and brought them home to me and they have multiplied over the years.

Soon the Day Lilies will be blooming. There is always something growing in my garden.

Someone asked me years ago if I do a lot of weeding and I told them that I don’t.  I just plant a lot of flowers and plant them close together. They smother out the weeds after a while. I do have a lot of Creeping Charley in my yard, but it compliments my plants so I leave it alone.  Some call it a weed, but it has the cutest, little blue flowers on it and it keeps the soil moist beneath the plants so it’s doing its job.  It is from the mint family. Mint is very invasive. I saw where Creeping Charley was actually for sale on some garden pages. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you don’t care if it creeps everywhere. It’s nearly impossible to get rid of so you either learn to live with it or it will give you high blood pressure.

Sometimes I miss things in my garden if I don’t walk around it every day.  I had forgotten about this salvia. It is so dark and brilliant a color. It just glows.

Paired with purple and yellow Iris, it makes a stunning picture in the garden.

I could go on and on about the flowers and I haven’t shown half of them so I will save that for another day.

Molly says, “Hello.”  She enjoyed having David home for six weeks. Ralph Lauren opened his stores again this week, so he’s back to work.  I miss him.   Before, I was use to being home alone for days while he worked, but I got use to having him home so I was not happy to see him go back to work, but he loves his job and it keeps him busy and active.  So I had to get use to being alone again and I will.  Hope you all are finding things to keep you busy and occupied during this quarantine.  Many are not use to having so many hours in a day to fill that isn’t a job. Me, I’ve never had any problem finding things to do. I can honestly say I have never been bored in my life. There’s too many wonderful things in this world to discover and enjoy.   So I hope you are  discovering a wonderful world around you whether it be your family, your garden, your hobbies, books or anything else.  This time will pass and will become part of all our histories so we may as well enjoy it. Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My New Sweet Tweets

I talked myself into getting chicks this week.  I know they are something else I will have to take care of, but since my flock is slowly diminishing, I decided it was time to add a few so the egg supply will continue next year.  I had certain kinds I wanted to get, but when I got to Rural King I saw that they didn’t have the ones I wanted so I chose two new kinds.  I got three Blue Barred Rocks and three Buff Orpingtons that are not buff colored, but will be black when they are grown. I looked them up and they look like they will be big, fluffy birds and good layers.  The Buff Orpingtons I have now are yellow and fluffy and good layers.

So then I had to name them, of course. My last six were named after ladies in my Sunday School class and this bunch are named after more ladies in my church and one is the name of another friend.  They will be Miss Wilma, Miss Shawna, Miss Nancy, Miss Erika, Miss Lori, and Miss Mary.   Now I have to decide who is who.

Before I introduce you to my new birds I have to tell you how much fun it is to have chickens.  After you’ve had them for a while, they get to know you and mine meet me at the gate every day and I have one that’s a real talker and will talk her head off until I get them some chicken scratch. She seems to be the spokes chicken of the bunch.  She also is demanding. She will jump up and peck the bowl with the scratch in it or grab hold of my coat sleeve in order to get to the scratch.  I believe she is hooked on scratch.  It’s like crack for chickens.   Which is why they only get a little of it every day.   Chickens can be as friendly as you want them to be, but you have to work at it because they usually are, well, chicken.   I don’t pick up the chicks too much because I don’t think it’s good for them, but you do have to handle the chickens a bit to get them use to you and to not run from you. I find that once I’ve caught a chicken and held her and stroked her feathers for a little bit, when I put her down she seems negligent in wanting to run away from me. I think they like being petted even though they fight it at first.

Having chickens means you have to get out of the house and take care of them which is good during this quarantine time.  It’s nice to get out in the fresh air and walk to the chicken yard and see my girls all waiting for me.   I like watching them as they scratch and peck around.  Free range chickens have to be the happiest creatures alive. They only live for that next bug, piece of bread(which they love also) or handful of scratch. They haven’t a care in the world unless a predator, like a hawk, comes around.   They are on a time clock with the sun, out at dawn and in by  dusk.  Anyone who thinks chickens are hard to care for aren’t doing it right or have never had chickens. Other than cats, they are the easiest pet of them all. They just need feed and water, don’t have to be walked or played with and will supply you with all the eggs you need.  Mine have never had any health issues except for one lame one I had who lived a happy life despite her handicap.   Sadly, I think a hawk got her or the other hens had a pecking party, I will never know for sure.  And yes, chickens can be vicious to other chickens especially if one has something that makes it weak in the eyes of the others.  I’ve never had that problem before to my knowledge.

So, anyway, here’s my new babies. Snug in their dog crate coop until they are big enough to go in with the other big girls.

I guess I’ll never get over how cute baby chicks are.  My daddy raised chickens on the farm and every Spring, we’d drive to the post office and pick up two boxes full of fifty chicks each and carry them home in the car listening to their peeps all the way. I loved getting chicks day.  We’d take them out to the brooder house, a little building specifically for keeping baby chicks, where there was a big heat lamp in the center of the ceiling. We’d let the yellow chicks out and they’d all rush under the lamp in one big clump. Daddy would fill their water jars and their feeders and then leave them to settle down.  I would go out to the brooder house several times a day just to look at all those baby chicks.  Sometimes I was naughty and would try to scare them and laugh when they’d all run in the one big clump to the other side of the room. My daddy would not have been happy if he knew I did that.  Baby chicks can trample each other if there are enough of them.  But they grew and grew and one day sprouted feathers and then were allowed outside with the older chickens and there were no more baby chicks until the next Spring.

This is a Blue Barred Rock. At least that’s what the sign read on the trough the chicks were in.  It doesn’t look blue to me right now, but maybe it will change.

They’ve got little fluffy white bottoms and white chests.

The lighter ones are the Buff Orpingtons, but again I’m not sure what these will look like or whether they will turn darker.  Sometimes it’s a mystery what you are getting from Rural King.

So now I begin the adventure of raising new chickens again. They will be in this crate for a couple of months at least until they are large enough to make it with the big ladies.

Molly sits outdoor of the cabin where we are keeping the chicks and whines while I’m in there wondering what I’m doing and not including her.

Belle could not care less.

Have to show you what one of my sons sent to me for Mother’s Day.

Good with a nice cup of coffee.

He’s a good son. I’ll keep him.

Here’s to baby chicks. Everyone should have some, sometime. Bye.