Daily Archives: October 14, 2024

October Love

Autumn is my very favorite season. As I grow older, the hot Summer weather is just not for me. When I was young, I would lay out in the sun for hours on end baking. I always had the nicest tan, but not sure I was doing any good to my skin, but then I didn’t think about those things. So when the cooler weather of Autumn comes I am always so grateful. October is the epitome of the Autumn with the glorious foliage on the trees, the brightest blue skies and a little nip in the air. So far we haven’t had too many of those days yet, but this week it is supposed to get cooler.

David has taken the month off from work and he has been busy finishing up some of the chores outside. He cleaned out the chicken house and since we no longer have any chickens, our last one dying a few weeks ago, he spread cedar chips in it for Molly to lay in. She now has two dog houses. I will show you her brand new, insulated one later on. I am getting my flowers that I want to save into my greenhouse and cleaning up the flower beds. We put back up the shutters the painters took off this Summer. Our house is dressed outside for Halloween and inside, too.

Here is our fireplace mantle all dressed up.

I have gathered these fenceposts toppers at the Country Neighbors sale we go to every year. A group of ladies open their homes and shops four times a year and sell seasonal things.

These lights flicker and look like a fire on the hearth. I have had that jack-o-lantern for years. I still have some of the masks our fifty year old kids use to wear on Halloween!

And the pumpkin garland, years and years old, too.

I really need to make my little lady some clothes. Here she is almost bare in front of Jack Pumpkinhead. And his little brother!

As the nights are getting cooler I wanted Mollie to have a warmer place to sleep at night. She has two old doghouses she can choose from, but we are giving the pups them so she needed a new house. David spent a couple of days building her one. He insulated all over to include the floors.

Here is Molly proudly sitting by her brand new house. It’s up off the ground and will protect her from the elements. I still will bring her in my shop when the temperatures get too hot or too cold. Molly is ten years old this year. Seems like only yesterday we went to get her and she was a tyrant of a pup. She has turned into a sweet dog except with Lucy and Sugar which is why she has separate accommodations. She tries to beat up the pups. I don’t know what brought it on, but we have to keep them separated.

I believe she likes it although David did see her coming out of the chicken house today.

We have taken a couple of road trips while David is off. Driving the back roads of Indiana has become our favorite thing to do. You see so many different and sometimes odd things, too.

Doesn’t everyone have a teepee in their back yard? In Indiana some people do.

These one room schoolhouses are scattered all around our state. Back in the 1800’s and early 1900’s children in the country went to these little schools. Many walked to them although there were horsedrawn “schoolbuses” that would pick some up. Some people use them for storage now and some have even made homes out of them. In fact, when David and I were in our house hunting days, we looked at a renovated schoolhouse. We liked it, but it smelled like cat which turned us off so we didn’t buy it. We pass it now and then and people are living in it still.

When I took this picture yesterday, I thought this was a turkey, but looking at it now I believe it is a turkey buzzard that eats carrion off our roads. We have both in our state. We see wild turkeys all the time and vultures fly in our skies every day.

One day we drove over to Nashville to visit our daughter’s family. Our youngest grandsons are not so little any longer.

Our youngest grandchild. He had a mop of curly hair, but his mother told me today he buzzed it all off in her bathroom and left hair all over the floor! He did clean it up later after his parents discovered it.

His older brother has a mop of curly hair. None of us know where the curly hair comes from. We all have stick straight hair. But he is a handsome lad.

Here is one of our granddogs. They have two goldren retrievers. I wrote a story about the third one who has since died, about the time he was caught in a trap in the woods and they never found him for weeks and he got loose and walked to a road where he was found. It’s in one of my older blogs.

My daughter also gave me two big bins of fabric she didn’t need. Like I needed more fabric like a hole in the head but I took it and have found some nice fabric I can use and I will give the rest to a local charity where some other sewer can find it. I have already used some of the fabric in a quilt I am making.

We went to look at a house that is for sale just a couple of lots past ours.

Someone had carved this man in a tree. Hoosiers are so talented.

Someone was very talented. Anyway, we saw the house and I wasn’t impressed.

No, there were not ducks floating in water before us. That’s our Jeep ducks David has collected. People put them on our Jeep’s doorhandle. The house is what I think is called Industrial Farmhouse style. I have seen several houses like this all white with black trim and the siding is metal or aluminum. The garage looks larger than the house. They want $650,000 for the house and a few acres that go straight downhill behind the house. Knowing what our daughter and son-in-law paid for their house and what we paid for our property right beside it, they are trying to make a lot of money to pay for another house they built nearby, plus this one and have money left over. I can’t imagine anyone paying that much, but if they do, our property is worth a whole lot more than we thought!

We have some houses ready for occupancy. David put these up the other day and I have enjoyed watching birds checking them out. It may be too late in the season to start a new family, but maybe they are looking for next year. We have one birdhouse the birds had about four families in it. I got these birdhouses at some of the Country Neighbors sale.

This birdhouse has been used over and over.

This is a guest cabin by our property. I peeked inside it one day and it is really cute and cozy inside. If you want to stay in a cabin in Brown County this would be a nice one, up a hill where it is very quiet and peaceful. It’s not my cabin so I am not trying to advertise it.

Now this is a house. We saw it on our drive yesterday. I love everything about it. I like the dogtrot between the house and garage. The house of my dreams is divided into two sections with a dogtrot between. The livingroom, kitchen and a bath in one section and a master bedroom with a bathroom and laundry room in the second. That is what I want my retirement home to be like. All on one floor, too. Not much to clean, but just right for two.

One of the backroads we took this weekend. The trees are just starting to turn. By next weekend they ought to be at their peak.

You can see how the trees are turning. It’s both sad and glorious at the same time. But isn’t it always sad to lose one thing to gain another?

We have the Hoosier National Forest in southern Indiana where thousands of acres are set aside for woods and animals. We drove through miles of it and even took a short off the main road up a hill trip that ended in a dead end and we had to turn around, but it was a nice drive. I love the peace and quiet in a forest.

We forded and little stream where there was no bridge. Lots of little streams and rivers in southern Indiana. We followed a river for a time, but I don’t know what one it was.

Suffice it to say Indiana has some beautiful views. You don’t have to go to Nashville and the Brown County State Park to see beautiful views. Just drive off the main roads. We could drive for miles and not see a car. Maybe I shouldn’t advertise it too much or it will get crowded on the back roads.

We are a state full of people of faith also. Little churches dot the countrysides and always there are churches in the small towns. Most of the churches are well kept and I hope are full on Sunday morning. We all need to pray for our nation. We are in big trouble and we cannot allow the next four years to be like the last four. That is as political as I will get on here right now.

Bye the way. This is one of our ducks! Don’t you just love him!

Made this quilt in the last couple of weeks. I joined a group on Facebook where we try to make one of Kathleen Tracy’s small quilts each month. She has designed a lot of quilts and written several quilt books and I have made probably dozens of her quilts. They are so much fun to make. I am working on two more right now. If you want to join, it is not too late. Just type in Kathleen Tracy and it will take you to her blog or Facebook page or the page for the quilt challenge. If you want a quick and fun project you will find it there.

Something else I have finished this week is a painting of my sister and brother-in-law. You can send a picture to Masterpiece Paint by numbers and you can get a paint by number set with that picture and all the colors you will need to paint it. I usually order extra paints because I always get really low on some of them.

This looks funny close up, but the farther away you stand to look at it, the more lifelike it gets. I can’t show that to you here, but trust me. Up close it looks like a bunch of splotches of paint, but looks just like them when you step back. I can’t explain it, but it has happened with every paint by number I have done of family members. I painted all my grandchildren last year. This year I want to do couples.

I think I have told about everything I need to tell so I will leave you with my dying garden. We are supposed to get our first frost next week so David and I have been moving the flowers I want to keep into my greenhouse and cleaning out pots and getting ready for the cold. My flower beds won’t last much longer so here are a few pictures of what is left for the season.

Saying good-bye to my garden is both sad and relieving. I have spent hours watering it all and now it will be put to rest. I have gotten a lot of seeds from all these flowers to plant next year and I am already planning my garden and David is making it bigger for me.

Have a wonderful October. I will try to get back to you before election day. Bye.