Author Archives: Snickelfritz

About Snickelfritz

I am a wife, mother, grandmother, quilter, walker, reader, gardener, painter, knitter and Jill of many trades. I have two of the sweetest Labs and a wonderful husband who aides me in my addiction to fabric.

Insomnia

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Do you ever suffer with insomnia? I have in the past. When I use to clean our church, I would go in at 2:00 in the morning and work until 8:00 or 9:00. Then I would come home and take a one or two hour nap and get up and go about my day. I did that for about ten years. I really messed up , my sleep schedule.

I have always liked the middle of the night when it is quiet and I can read or watch tv or knit or quilt without interruption. But right now, I want to sleep a full night and usually I have, but for the past couple of nights I have awakened a couple of hours after I have gone to sleep and I toss and turn. So I come downstairs and check Facebook, mail and the news on my computer and have the tv on in the background. I like the ID channel where they solve murders.

The reason I have been waking up is because the muscles in my feet and legs are screaming with pain. I could hardly get my knees to unbend without terrible pain. The reason for this is that I have taken up walking with a vengeance now. I am trying to walk at least three miles a day and am working for five or six. When I am up and walking around, my legs don’t hurt at all. If I could sleep standing up, maybe things would be better.

So, here I am at 12:49 a.m. typing on my computer whining about my aches and pains. I am sure that’s why you come here to read about my complaints. But I am determined to walk as much every day as I have time for. It takes me about an hour to walk four miles. Belle or Molly walk with me. On Thanksgiving day I am walking a 5K with family members before our big meal of the day. It sounds like fun. It’s for a food bank in our city and price of entering is five cans of food and ten dollars for a shirt. I love walking in 5Ks. There is a feeling of being in something together with others and having people walking with you that gives you the incentive to continue.

I could never run a 5K. Sometimes Molly wants to run when I am walking her and she drags me running behind her, but it jars my bones. I ran a little in my youth, but never liked it much. I also use to jump hurdles, but I’m not getting this behind over any hurdles ever again! Both my sons have run in marathons and I admire them for doing so, but I could never do that. We just had a big marathon in our city that involved a train across the tracks when runners were going over the railroad crossing There was a big brouhaha and people are angry with the train officials who had said the train would not run during the marathon. Marathon runners are serious about it and anything that ruins their time makes them a little upset and I don’t blame them after putting in all that training.

I am hoping I am not starting a marathon of sleepless nights. I am reading the book Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskill. It was shown on PBS with Judi Dench as a main character a couple of years ago. Maybe I’ll go back to bed and read myself to sleep. Hope you are not reading this at 1:00 in the morning unless you are on the other side of the world and it is daytime there right now.

Good night, sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite. Bye.

Finishing Up and Starting Again

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I have pledged to myself that I am going to finish some quilts I have begun. I have a box full of them. It’s fun to pick out new fabrics and piece a brand new quilt and I could do that every month, but there comes a time when one needs to finish what one has started. So….

This week I completed a Christmas quilt I started last year. These sheep were as crazy to make as they are to herd. Every single one of these sheep is sewn together wrong except for one. Every one. And it’s not the sheep that is facing a different direction than the rest as that is suppose to be the wayward sheep. It’s the only one sewn correctly. I am sure if you look closely you will notice one big mistake I made on one. I didn’t notice it until I had it half quilted. Anyway, as a friend of mine use to tell me, “you won’t see it on a galloping horse.” Now I have to find the horse. I didn’t follow the pattern maker’s design completely. There was suppose to be a shepherd in this quilt, but I didn’t like how it looked so I made an extra sheep and this block.

I like the way it turned out. One project completed. Check.

I finished two other quilts that I cannot show because of the season coming up. Two more projects completed. Check.

I made a skirt from some fabric I have had for quite some time. You can wear it this way.

Or this way. Almost like having two different skirts. We went over to Nashville with some friends the other day and I got a couple of tops that go with this skirt. We have been to Nashville twice in two weeks and not one time did I remember to take pictures with my camera. There was so much to photograph there but I was too busy looking.

I put together this outfit and like it a lot. Another project completed. Check.

David and I took one morning and sealed the siding on our porch wall. We make a good team and finished it within a couple of hours. Now the wall should not turn grey.

Project completed. Check.

I made a couple of brooches. I have ideas for several more.

Years ago, we needed a coffee table and there was a company where you could order furniture unfinished and not put together. You built the furniture yourself and put your own finish on it. So, I ordered this butler’s table and David put it together and I stained it a rich, deep brown. It has served its purpose for many years. The leaves on the table go up and down and most little boys and girls liked to lift the leaves up and down over and over. Toy cars have been run on this table. It’s been hammered, pounded and naturally distressed over the years. David says you pay big money to get distressed furniture and we got ours for free!

I decided it was time to redo the table so I am painting it a cream color and will distress it a little or will have some children over to do it for me.

I’m putting several coats of paint on it. When I am finished with it, it’s going in my girly room.

A friend brought me this pile of luscious fabric. I am so blessed. I will use this for sure.

Miss Molly Marshmallow is growing so fast. She runs with the big dogs and doesn’t want to be separated from them. She cries when I take Belle her walk even after I have already taken her on a walk. She is doing really well on the leash. Sometimes I let her walk herself and she will carry the leash in her mouth and walk along beside me.

The chickens are molting right now and I won’t show you a picture of them because it would embarrass them. One of them is completely bare on her backside, poor girl. She stays in the chicken house and acts ashamed of her looks, but David said he noticed today that her feathers are finally coming back in. The egg laying has been pretty sparse right now as the hens conserve their energy to grow their new feathers for the winter. I still get two or three dozen eggs a week. The younger hens should start laying soon.

Fall is moving right along. Soon it will be Thanksgiving,(when I am walking a 5K that morning before dinner) then Christmas and then we will be right back to Spring again. The seasons are running together now. I love each one and especially love the cooler weather we are having right now. Hope you are having a wonderful Autumn. Bye.

The Art of Porch Sitting

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We had a porch when I was growing up. A big porch that wrapped all around the front of the house. We roller skated on that porch with skates you needed a key in order to fasten them onto your shoes.

I would swing on the porch swing while reading library books. All the lazy Summer afternoon. Back and forth. Turn a page. Back and forth. Turn a page.

I would sit on the porch swing with my girlfriend eating suckers and kicking the swing higher and higher. Sometimes my brothers would swing me so high I could touch the porch ceiling with my feet. We lived dangerously!

Back when I was growing up right after Christopher Columbus discovered America, most of the houses in our small town had front porches. David’s grandfather would sit out on his front porch at night and if my mother and I would drive by their house, all we could see was the light from his cigar as he sat in his rocking chair smoking and rocking. “There’s Mr. Henley,” my mother would say and all I could see was the ember from his cigar. Somehow that was comforting to me. To know Mr. Henley was sitting on his porch on a warm Summer’s evening enjoying his last cigar of the day. All was well with the world. One day Mr. Henley would become my grandfather-in-law.

On long Summer evenings, my mother, aunt and I and sometimes my sister, who lived down the road would sit out on our porch and I would swing while they sat in the glider and talked. The dogs would lay at our feet seeming to enjoy the company. Sometimes we children would be playing hide and seek or kick the can while the adults talked. Back then there was talk of flying saucers and every once in a while my mother would say she saw one and we would look at what was probably an air plane flying across the sky. It would send shivers down my spine anyway. Once a bat flew above our heads as we sat on the porch and we all would scream each time it would pass overhead.

David’s grandma sat on her front porch and watched the world go by. She knew everything that was happening on her street. People would walk by and say hello and sometimes stop in to talk.

Porch sitting is becoming a lost art. Too many of the newer homes don’t even have a porch. Just a little stoop or entryway, but nowhere to sit and wile away the hours. People are too busy to porch sit, it seems. I want porch sitting to come back. You see your neighbors out in their yards, mowing the lawn and you smell the new mown grass. You see the cars going by, the train chugging down the track, the mailman bringing your mail, and the occasional fire truck or ambulance going to help someone. Perhaps you would see a mother walking her baby, or a runner practicing for a marathon, a child learning to ride his bicycle for the very first time or flowers being delivered to you. I have seen all these from my front porch.

Sometimes you even see something you would hope you never see. An accident. One day years ago, a man ran into a tree in the front yard of our neighbor’s yard and I ran to call an ambulance. Before we knew it there were twenty-three police cars(we counted them) and three ambulances in front of our house. My children watched it all as they got the man out of the car and into the ambulance. I watched from our front porch. I never found out what happened to the man. I hope he was all right.

One hot summer day as I sat on our porch I saw a raccoon on the road in front of our house acting like it was drunk. Cars swerved to miss it and then they began to stop. I think the raccoon was rabid. I kept the children inside. Someone came from animal control and took it away. Oh, yes, porch sitting can become intense at times.

David and I have been doing a lot of porch sitting this Summer. Our new front porch is made for sitting and watching. We watch the hummingbirds feed, a bird building her nest, the trucks going over the railroad tracks. We watch friends and family pull into the drive for a visit. We watch when they leave and sit and talk about our visit. You don’t have to do anything special to learn to porch sit. Just sit on a chair, a swing, a rocker or whatever you have to sit on and start to pay attention to the world around you. It’s pretty amazing what you will see. The people you might meet. The friendships you might cement. Give it a try. Bye.

Oh, Frabjous Days!

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The halcyon, golden days of Autumn are upon us. Summer ends tonight. It seems like a dream that happened long ago. So much happened and yet, I felt we should have done more. Picnics, walks, auctions(not one) were in our plans. I did the walking. Two 5ks under my belt. Now that the weather is cooler, I know I will walk more. Especially since I have another dog to walk.

Speaking of dogs….

Molly Marshmallow is growing by leaps and bounds. She doesn’t nip at our heels as much anymore and has learned to sit for her treats and has been on a one mile walk with me. She is learning to behave on the leash. That said, she has managed to do some damage.

Let’s just say Molly tripped me up a bit and I fell on the steps and got bruised. It looks worse than it is. I was just glad I didn’t land on her when I fell.

Miss Belle has been doing a good job training Molly not to bite. Let’s just say Molly has yipped a few times after nipping Belle on the nose. Belle would have been a good mother.

Getting several of these butternut squashes from the garden. Since I don’t eat them very often, I will store them and cut them up for the chickens this winter.

We’ve picked nine of these from the garden and there are another nine or ten still ripening.

It was nice to be able to decorate our porch with our own pumpkins this year. The best year I have ever had for them. Usually, if I am lucky, I will get one good one to grow. It’s all that chicken poop, I’m telling you.

Tis’ the season to burn candles. Our house smells like this right now. Delicious. Makes you think I’ve been baking all day.

I’ve made twelve of these mini loaves in the past two weeks. It’s pumpkin bread and it’s addictive. I will not be making it again for a while. I cannot walk that much.

Into each life some rain must fall and we had to bite the bullet and buy a new furnace this week. Our old one was eighteen years old and would have cost half the cost of a new furnace to repair. Funny, when we replaced our first old furnace eighteen years ago, it had been in our basement since the 1950’s. Now we are told a furnace’s lifespan is about fourteen years. They sure don’t make them like they use to.

I managed to fit in a porch party before it got too cold. Our Sunday school class came for a candlelight dinner of lasagna, homemade garlic rolls, salad and angel food cake with Cool Whip and strawberries. A good time was had by all I think.

This gal brought some of the best salad dressing I have ever eaten. She gets it in Georgia. Her husband, the fellow on the right, plays softball in Florida every year and they go down there often and she found the dressing in a store on the way. I am going to ask her to buy me a case of it the next time she goes!

I love fixing food for people. Everyone cleaned their plates.

These are friends and he is our Sunday school teacher. Last time I had everyone over, I fixed fried chicken. He went in the hospital the next day with a heart attack. I felt so bad, but I think it was going to happen anyway. I haven’t heard anything bad yet since this meal, so I think he survived my cooking once again.

I have been going through some old National Geographics that we have had for years dating back to the seventies. I quit taking it years ago, but after looking through them, I think I want to subscribe again. Anyway, I had been looking for one particular one for years that had an article about Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland. So funny, but when I brought a few in from our shed where they were stored, the very first one I picked up was the one I had been looking for. Eureka!

I so enjoyed reading about Lewis Carroll or Charles Dodgson which is who he preferred to be called.

He remained a bachelor all his life finding himself more comfortable around children than adults. He made up whimsical stories and nonsense poetry for them I have always loved his poem Jabberwocky. The tongue twisting lines were fun for me to read as a child. He made up words, frabjous being one of them meaning wonderful, elegant, superb or delicious.

Alice in Alice in Wonderland was based on this little girl who was Dodgson’s neighbor, Alice Pleasance Liddell.

I will leave you with Autumn garden scenes.

Hope you are having a frabjous day. Bye.

Smells

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Have you ever been somewhere that you smell something and it takes you to a memory of the past? That happens with me quite often. It happened today as I was walking Belle. I smelled fish and water from the gravel pit near where I was walking and suddenly, I was in Traverse City, Michigan. You know how it smells around large bodies of water? That is how it smelled to me. It smelled like Traverse City which sits on a bay of Lake Michigan. We went to Traverse City for our honeymoon and for years afterward we would take the family up to visit David’s grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. We haven’t been there in a long time. His grandparents and aunts and uncles have passed away and his cousins have moved away.

When we honeymooned there we were poor and ate most of our meals at Burger Chef. Anyone remember that fast food place? Remember the Big Chef sandwich? At Traverse City they served the hamburgers on homemade buns that were so delicious. At the time we were there, the Cherry Festival was going on. The streets were crowded and vendors were set up all over town. We ate I don’t know how many french fries sprinkled with salt and vinegar hot out of the oil from the vendors. We walked all over, swam in the cold water and spent one night on David’s uncle’s boat. We watched fireworks over the bay. It was a wonderful time. I felt so free and happy. I was married to the man of my dreams and we had the world at our feet.

Another thing I smell that brings back memories is a bologna sandwich. I can smell one of those and be back in the cafeteria at Greens Fork School. Sometimes I took my lunch and mother always sent a bologna sandwich, chips and a fruit of some kind. I bought my milk at school. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like the food in the cafeteria. The cooks there were the best. They served delicious homemade food to include macaroni and cheese, cinnamon rolls, mashed potatoes and green beans. All made fresh in the cafeteria kitchen by the three or four ladies who worked there. We had no one telling them what to fix. They were all mothers and knew what we kids liked to eat and what was nutritious. You could smell what they were cooking throughout the school and by lunch time your stomach would be growling so loudly and you felt you would die if you didn’t get something to eat.

Smelling cedar takes me to Christmases past. I have always loved Christmas. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, but they always managed to have a wonderful Christmas for all us kids. There were always lots of gifts under the tree. We always went to church to celebrate Christ’s birth. Our church had an advent wreath and every Sunday before Christmas a family would read something from the Bible and light one of the candles. One Christmas, one of our sons played baby Jesus and was carried down the aisle by a teen-age girl playing Mary. I was so scared she would drop him, yet so proud he was in the play. She didn’t drop him and he didn’t cry. I think he slept through the whole play.

Sometimes I smell newly turned soil and I am back on daddy’s farm sitting on the tractor with him as he plowed the fields. I loved being with my daddy although he did give me the name “Snicklefritz” which means a mischievous child. I spent as much time with him as I could when I wasn’t playing or in the house helping mother. He taught me a lot about farming and the care of animals. I am so thankful I grew up on a farm and had the parents I had.

When I smell baby powder I am back with my little babies, diapering them. I used cloth diapers and had to go to the laundromat to wash them every week, but I loved the soft, fluffy diapers that I pinned on my babies’ bottoms. Now I also think of newly washed puppies when I smell baby powder because the dog shampoo smells like that.

Do certain smells bring memories to you? Hope they are good memories. Bye.

All Things Bright and Beautiful

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We had another super moon the other night. The Harvest moon. David took my camera and a tripod to the porch and took some amazing pictures. I really did not know that the moon was so colorful.

Gorgeous. Magnificent. Shiny. Bright.

It began to change colors. Pink. Who would have thought?

Wait a minute. Now it’s becoming a darker pink. Almost red.

Golden. Or cheese. I’m not sure.

This is not Mars. It is our moon. Beautiful, huh?

It’s beautiful, no matter what color it is.

Speaking of beauty. These beauties have been showing up in our garden. David and I sit out on our porch swing and watch them flit from flower to flower.

The flower compliments the butterfly or vice versa. Is this a Monarch or a Viceroy? Anyone know?

Bees are a buzzin’ on the flowers.

They really like the orange zinnias.

Now just for some cuteness. I never get tired of seeing this.

Bonnie and Molly. Molly uses Bonnie like a jungle gym.

Bonnie is voicing her objection to the biting of her head.

“I just love you to pieces, Bonnie.”

“Don’t you think I’m adorable? ”

“You just think you’re adorable,” says Belle.

Molly has the prettiest eyes.

I just love her. Bye.

End of Summer Daze

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Before God takes His big paintbrush and paints the scenery with golds, reds, oranges and yellows, I am basking in the last few days of Summer, enjoying the cooler mornings and the sunny days. Enjoying the burst of color in my garden as the flowers seem to know that soon the frost will come and they will be gone. The bees and butterflies seem extra busy gathering nectar. The hummingbirds feast at the feeders preparing for their long flight south. I always feel a little sad when they leave.

We have tried to pack in as much as we could this Summer, from a trip to Chicago, a trip to Cincinnati and short trips antiquing. We got our new puppy and two new chickens. We connected with family and friends we don’t see very often. It’s been a good Summer, but I do look forward to cooler days.

My little Sunday school class had a party to celebrate the year and the children who will go up to a new class. We had cupcakes and cheese puffs and balloons.

This little girl will go into the kindergarten class. I’m going to miss her.

I’ve had this little boy in our class since he was tiny. He is now a big kindergartner. I’ll miss him too.

This little boy is so funny and will be staying with us for another year.

This little girl always has the cutest clothes on. I have taught her since she was two. She’ll be with us another year and I am glad.

As I took pictures of the class the children kept showing me things to photograph.

This is suppose to be a cheese puff butterfly!

I bought some more fabric. Surprise, surprise!

It’s all going in a new quilt I am piecing. I am tending toward pastels and pinks lately. Years ago I would never have chosen these colors. David says I have had different phases in my fabric buying from dark Confederate colors, to polka dots, to pastels. I guess quilting is kind of like painting when you choose colors. It is very hard for me to work on a dark quilt right now. I need bright, happy colors.

I couldn’t resist this fabric and I am going to make an apron from it.

We got out the kiddie pool for Molly. She loved it. I think she is going to like water more than our other dogs. She tries to drink out of the hose while I am filling her bowl. Now I have three dogs at the back door begging for treats. Molly sits as soon as I come out because she knows she gets a treat when she sits. She doesn’t always get one, though.

Molly is growing so fast. She is almost twice the size she was when we got her. I think she will be bigger than Belle. They play really well together now and Belle hardly ever growls at her anymore. I think there is going to be a challenge on who is the alpha dog with those two.

I finished all my sister-in-law’s books and got this book from the church library. I like Max Lucado as he writes in such an easy manner and explains the Bible in terms anyone can understand. Do I want to be like Jesus? I try every day. I fail sometimes and other days I do better, but my goal is to try to be more like Him every day.

We went up to our grandchildren’s house Saturday. I had promised my younger grandson that when I got a new camera, he could have mine. Well, I got my new camera so we got a new memory card and batteries and a charger for my old one and took the camera to him and the look on his face when we handed it to him was priceless(wish I had taken a picture.) He and I took a short walk and he snapped pictures around the neighborhood. I think he likes his new camera. David thinks he will be a photographer.

Here he is showing his sister his new camera as he snaps her picture.

Love this boy. He’s growing too fast.

This is one of their family cats. He looks like he has a mustache. Very distinguished.

We decided to go up to Pendleton for lunch.

They were having some kind of festival going on and the streets were crowded and parking was at a minimum. By the way, I love that shirt that lady is wearing.

The fragrance of funnel cakes was in the air.

These were the menus at the restaurant we went to.

Loved the ceiling and old looking lights.

Waiting to be seated. I love this grandson’s red hair. I think I need to be a redhead again.

We ate our lunch and then after we were finished we began to walk around when suddenly my stomach felt queasy and we had to leave. I felt so bad that I ruined the day, but David took me home, I took a bath and went straight to bed and I felt queasy for a couple of days. We really have to go back there soon as their antique stores looked really good.

The gardenia one of my sons gave me for Mother’s Day finally bloomed. The plant has grown a lot and I will have to over winter it in my shop. The flower smells wonderful. I don’t know how big these get, but this one has tripled in size since I got it.

I am hooked on silent movies. Crazy, huh? There is something about them that draws me in. I think these are movies my mother or father may have gone to the theater to see when they were young.

This was about World War l. My mother was born just before the first World War. This man was getting a tooth pulled here. The script on screen read:

This was kind of a comedy, love, drama movie. It took place in France where a soldier fell in love with a peasant girl. Anyway, I enjoyed it. I love old Charlie Chaplin movies and they make me laugh much more than most of the so-called comedies now. Nowadays the comedies go for the gross and crass and are not my cup of tea.

Mornings are misty and cool. Happy Autumn. Bye.

Accidents Will Happen

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See that adorable face in my header up there? A face everyone would love? A face that melts your heart? An adorable, little puppy face that just makes you want to squeeze her?

Well, I’m just saying to all of you that have managed to raise a puppy indoors, I applaud you. Molly is caged at night for her safety and David gets her out every morning before he goes to work and then just leaves her in the shop until I wake up. Then first thing after I get out of bed I let her out and she does what she has to do and then she is left out with the big dogs to play.

So far so good. Not many accidents in my shop.

This morning it was pouring rain and David didn’t leave her out which I am glad for, but…….

Let’s just say I slept in a little this morning. Okay, I slept in a lot. I don’t like to get up late because I feel like I have wasted part of the day away in bed, but this morning with the rain pattering on the skylight and feeling all cozy and snug in bed I slept. And I slept. Something I haven’t done in years. Once I woke up and through sleepy eyes I saw that it was nine- thirty. “I have got to get up,” I told myself as my eyes closed again. Then, the next time I looked at the clock it was ten-thirty and I jumped up and ran downstairs to let Molly out of my shop. I was afraid of what I would see when I opened the door. My fears were well founded.

Molly had had a poop and pee party all over my shop. Whether it was from frustration, anxiety or revenge, she sure did a number on my shop floor. I was so glad at that moment that I had cement floors and no rugs in the shop.

I let her out and began the clean up, pouring bleach everywhere and spraying disinfectant. Then I realized I could hardly breathe so I turned on the air conditioner and fan and left the shop for a while. Later I came back and scrubbed the floor with soap and water. I am going to go over it with a wet swiffer in a little while.

Meanwhile, Molly was all, ” I want to play and bite your heels,” something we are trying very hard to train her not to do. She is out with Belle and Bonnie now. I know, I know, this is what you should expect with a puppy, but I really didn’t know a puppy could go so many times in a matter of a few hours. I won’t let it happen again.

Other than that, Molly is such a good addition to our dog family. She is sweet most of the time. Once in a while she turns into the Tasmanian Devil and tries to nip and bite and goes all growly and vicious, but we don’t let her get away with it. She is learning to sit for treats and she loves her treats. She can smell them before she sees them and gets all excited.

I hope your day started better than mine. Bye.

Road Trip

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Before I tell you about the road trip David and I took yesterday, I have a few things to show you that are going on around our house.

Molly is holding her own with the big dogs. As you can see here, she is not at all intimidated by Belle, even when Belle barks right in her face. She hangs out with Bonnie and Belle pretty much all day now. She doesn’t like being in the shop. She wants to be where the action is. I love her little tail that curls over her back. This is her, “you’re not scaring me,” stance.

We are training Molly to walk around the pool, not get in it. So far, so good. She walks right up to the edge and then walks away. I still cage her at night as I am afraid she will fall in the pool and get drowned.

The birds are busy eating sunflowers. I am going to plant more next year. We have had dozens of birds including several pairs of goldfinches eating on the sunflowers.

See the chickadee at the bottom of the picture? It’s hard to get their picture as they grab a seed and fly off to peck it to get the good insides.

I believe this is a female goldfinch as she is not as bright yellow.

While sitting at my sewing machine in my girly room I saw a lot of action on the top of my shop. Cardinals were going in and out of the gutter getting seeds or bugs or something. Then I saw this one.

A rather henpecked orange cardinal. Yes, it was orange against the reds of the other cardinals. I think this may be a young one. He looked kind of sad.

Then another critter came to eat.

There must have been something really good in the gutter to make all these birds and squirrels come to dine.

“You lookin’ at me?”

Chomp, chomp, chomp.

David and I took a road trip. We headed to Danville to eat at a special restaurant I had read about.

We landed in Mayberry at the Mayberry Cafe.

Barney’s police cruiser sat outside ready for him to jump in to catch another criminal.

All the televisions inside the cafe ran Andy Griffith shows continuously. The food was good too.

We sat at Opie’s booth.

We walked around the town square and saw this little guy.

While driving to Danville we went through Bargersville and Mooresville. We found a couple of really good antique stores. Did I buy anything? What do you think?

I found this cute chalkware chick and a child’s old watering can. I will use these for Easter decorations next Spring. Never too early to plan, you know.

We stopped at this antique store and it was full of treasures.

I got two yards of this beautiful fabric for four dollars. A good deal. It’s already hanging out on the line drying after I rinsed it to get the dyes set.

I collect American flags and found this 48 star flag at a very good price. I have several 48 star flags and one 49 star flag which is kind of hard to find as the 49 star flag wasn’t around very long. Some day I am going to hang all my flags all around my house outside just to see how many I have.

I have never been in Avon and we were passing through and I saw this quilt shop and we had to stop.

I just got a few pieces for a quilt I am working on right now.

We so enjoyed our drive on the back roads of Indiana. My state is so beautiful in the summer even though it is so hot. Everything looks lush and green.

The fields are getting ripe for harvest. It is said our corn crop is great this year. I am glad for the farmers and I hope they fill their barns and silos and make a good profit on their crops because some years can be very poor for farmers. We have had just enough rain to make everything grow well.

It saddens me that the old wooden barns are disappearing from the landscape. Someone said once that most children don’t even know what a haymow is. It’s to store the hay. It was a great place to play when I was a girl. It’s where mother cats hid their kittens among the hay bales. It’s where you swung from the hay hook suspended high above. The hay hook that would hook the bails of hay and then they would be swung into the haymow. I have so many happy memories of the haymow on my daddy’s farm. We played basketball up there also when there wasn’t hay in the way.

I will leave you with a picture of the calendar I bought the other day. Everyone should keep chickens. I highly recommend it. Bye.

HOT!!!!

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Okay, it’s almost the end of August here in Indiana and it is hot! We had the coolest July on record and now Summer is coming back with a vengeance.

I use to love hot weather. I would lay out by our pool for hours baking in the sun. The hotter, the better. I am sure I did some real damage to my skin, but I did use Oil of Olay on my face all those years and still do and it has helped keep some of the wrinkles at bay. But I loved the hot weather and dreaded the winters. Now I am exactly the opposite. I dread the hot weather. I feel like all the strength is sucked right out of me. I don’t feel like doing anything outside except water and feed the animals and then it’s straight back into the air conditioning. Just a few years ago, we didn’t even have air conditioning and I remember the last Summer we didn’t have it was miserable. We spent most of the time in the pool. Now it’s too hot to even go out in the middle of the day to the pool.

Now I know I could live in Alaska gladly. Even the winters don’t daunt me anymore. At least when I don’t have to drive on the icy, snowy roads. I told David we could move up there and get our food stored up for the Winter and never have to go out and in the Summers we wouldn’t be so hot all the time. If I could get my family to move up there, I would sincerely think about moving. There are no swimming pools up there except at motels though, so we would have to give up that. I could, gladly, for glimpses of the mountains and the water and all the wildlife.

Today it was so hot at church. The air conditioning was going, but I felt hot and tired and wanted to get home and get in front of a fan with a cold glass of water. But I didn’t do that. After David and I ate a quick lunch, I took Belle for a one mile walk and it just about killed me. Even Belle kept looking at me like, “Are you crazy trying to walk in this weather?” I haven’t walked five miles in so long because it’s been too hot for me and I really miss it. I am so looking forward to cooler temperatures.

Okay, I have whined enough and got it out of my system. Sorry I subjected you, my dear readers, to that. But you just have to whine and let off steam once in a while. I am not the stoic kind. But I will change the subject.

Have you read any good books lately? I am finishing up “The Swordsman,” by my sister-in-law, Terry Craig. It’s really good. It’s one of a trilogy about what could happen if there was a plague and wars and other catastrophes all around the world and what happens to Christians during this time. Terry is very imaginative and writes a really good story. I am so attached to the main characters right now and hope she will write another book about them some day. I read it a little each night before I go to bed which might not be a good thing because there are some troubling things she writes about that could happen and I see happening now. But I don’t want it to end. Have you ever read a book like that? One you hate to finish? I get so engrossed in the characters in some books I almost feel like I have lost a friend after I finish the book. Terry’s previous book that I read, The Sojourner,” was one of those that I didn’t want to put down, but I didn’t want it to end either. You can get her books on Amazon if you are interested. Terry did not pay me to write this!!

Fall is fast approaching and we have plans to do some fun things when the weather cools down and we feel like we can leave the puppy for a day with the other dogs. Molly has been staying out most of the day with the big dogs and they have pretty much accepted that she is not going anywhere so they might as well like her. She has almost doubled in size just since we got her. She eats all the time. Today she tasted mashed potatoes for the first time and almost ate the bowl. She is so sweet and I have been slowly teaching her about the leash though she doesn’t like it very well. I want her to be a good walking companion like Belle is. When the weather cools down I am going to take up walking and get back to at least five miles a day again.

Hope you are having a great weekend. We are just being lazy today and that is fine with me. Bye.

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