Category Archives: Gardening

Of Bugs, Bruises, Blossoms and Boys

Each day fades away into the next and life here at our little plot of ground is moving on. David and I say almost every day, “Where did the day go?” I really thought when you were retired or at least semi-retired the days would be long and lazy. But then, I don’t think either of us would like that too much. David says if we don’t have something to do, I’ll think of something. Don’t want to be bored, don’t you know.

This past weekend I walked a 5K MS walk with my daughter and her family and some of her friends. One who grew up and spent as much time at our house as she did her own at times and we took on a vacation with us to Mammoth Caves. She now has three children, one as tall as she, and I am feeling old.

The day started out with thunder and lightening and heavy downpours of rain. But by the time of the walk, the sun shone through and we walked all over our town for 3.1 miles. It was nice seeing some of the gardens and the older homes that are kept up so nicely. My grandsons made it the entire walk without one complaint. I told them they would get ice cream if they walked the entire walk, so after a lunch of pizza, we went over to the local Dairy Queen and got them ice cream. It was a fun day.

We see our two youngest grandsons more often because they live closer than our other grandchildren. I would love to see the others more, but they have busy lives too.

These boys enjoy entertaining us. We went with them and their parents to a walking and biking trail in Nashville. It’s about a mile round trip walk. The boys took their bicycles and practiced riding. One had just gotten his training wheels off.

Their father, in the picture, took a fishing pole and caught two fish while we were walking. Pretty big ones, but he threw them back.

A few days ago, we saw bug webs in our crabapple tree and David took his blow torch and burned them out. He said as many dropped from the tree as got burnt up. And guess where they traveled? Right to our new porch. We were sitting out there and started to see worm after worm crawling up the pillars. Ugly little things that would rear their little ugly heads and wiggle around. Suddenly, I felt a tickle on my ankle and looked down and there was one of those worms crawling up my leg! I let out a scream and swatted it off and squashed it. David and I called them silk worms, but our daughter said she looked them up and they are tent worms. They do make little tent like webs in the trees around here.

Speaking of legs, oh, I didn’t? Oh, well. I have gotten two big bruises on my shins the last couple of weeks.

This one I haven’t a clue how I got it. I am always bumping into things while working outside. This one was a doozy, but didn’t hurt.

This one on the other leg, however, hurt like the dickens and I know exactly how I got it. I tripped on a step at our daughter’s house. I was thinking there were just two steps, but there were three and I went down like a sack of potatoes. The only thing I could think of when it happened was ” Get the donuts! Get the Donuts.” I had baked muffin donuts for my grandsons and had been carrying them when I fell. They have two big dogs that were jumping all around me and I was afraid they would grab the donuts. All was saved and I survived until the next time I bruise myself which could be any day now.

Mother’s Day was quiet and nice. I got this gardenia from my older son. A Yankee candle gardenia candle came with it. Gardenias do not survive outside in our winters so I will have to bring it inside when it gets cold. I have planted it in a bigger pot and it will get bigger and hopefully bloom this summer.

David put new shutters on our upstairs windows this morning. While he was doing that, the stone masons were putting the stone on our pillars. I’m really liking how it looks.

It’s been a month, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel with the porch building. It should be done this week unless it rains every day like it is forecasted(okay, I know this is not a word) right now. We had some thunder and rain this afternoon.

I’m loving these hanging baskets I got at Smith’s Gardens.

The snowball bush is loaded with snowballs. It’s the best it’s ever bloomed since we planted it.

This Gerbera daisy is so pretty and bright. This is a wonderful flower that I over winter in my shop and get it out in Spring and it’s just as pretty for another year.

The old fashioned Irises are blooming madly and have spread over much of the yard.

Then there is the mulch. The Brown mulch.

And the black mulch. Eighty bags in all. I will spread most of this myself and by the time I am done I will be able to bench press a cast iron skillet. Ha. Really, though, I do find I can lift things much easier after hefting this many mulch bags around.

I guess I won’t be lolling on our front porch any time soon. Won’t look like this either. Bye.

Is It Spring?

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Woke up to it snowing again. Weathermen said it would only be a light dusting and would melt off quickly. I have a half inch of snow on my deck. I swept it off and down the steps to my shop and by the time I got to my shop, I looked back and it was all covered in that white stuff again.

I feel sorry for the workmen who are working on our porch right now. Out in the cold, shoveling all the dirt that was underneath the old porch and hauling the dirt away or spreading around. Meanwhile, I am in my warm house, drinking a cup of tea and looking out at them.

If you should come to my house right now, you would see that my house is rather dusty. It is because things like this on going on.

Sawing cement blocks and they are going to have to saw the old porch steps because David tried a sledge hammer on them the other day and it just bounced off. Bub says the older cement gets, the harder it becomes.

The foundations for the rock pillars were laid.

Stone will be put around these.

The old cement floor of the porch had to be jack hammered and then began the digging up of all the dirt that was underneath.

The wood awaits beside the house for the new porch. It’s so exciting. Years ago David, our daughter, and I went to Monterey, California to visit our son who was in the Air Force and was out there at language school learning Russian. We took a day trip up to San Francisco and stopped at the Winchester House along the way. The Winchester House belonged to the man who invented the Winchester rifle. When his wife became a widow, she began to believe that the ghosts of all the people who were killed by Winchester rifles were coming to haunt her house. So the building of a very weird house began. She had carpenters hired year round to keep adding to her house. She had windows in floors, doors and stair steps to nowhere. She was afraid that if she stopped building, the ghosts would come.

I would like to be like her only in the case of getting things built all the time. I love to watch the process of a project coming together, especially when it is something I have envisioned coming to fruition. I always thought I would have loved to buy old houses and have them brought back to their former glory.

I have seen our old house go from a 1950’s model into a 2014 model, but still keep its old look. It’s been a labor of love and I know I will never stop work on it until I no longer can. I have a lot of painting and staining to do after the carpenters leave. That makes me happy. I love to paint. That’s something else I probably would have loved to do. Be a painting contractor. I have painted every one of the rooms in our house two, three and four times. I read a magazine article one time where a woman who loved to paint said that if her husband would allow her, she would paint her house every year. I am kind of that way. David knows exactly where I will go as soon as we go to Lowes. The paint department. My only problem is choosing colors. I have made some big boo boos through the years like our Pepto Bismal colored bedroom one time. Right now, I like all the colors in all our rooms, but I am going to change the living room color after all the carpentry work is done and all the cracks are filled.

But Spring is slowly coming into the garden. We have many different types of daffodils.

Remember in the Walt Disney version of Alice in Wonderland where the flowers sang and talked? This daffodil reminds me of them.

Other things are blooming or getting ready to burst forth.

A bush cherry. I actually didn’t plant this one. The birds did from seed from another bush in the yard. They do such great gardening for me sometimes.

Baby lilacs that will be much bigger and smell so good in just a few days.

I can’t remember what this plant is called, but it also is getting ready to bloom. Its leaves stayed green all winter.

I can’t wait to landscape around the porch when it is finished. I have already bought a pink flowering almond bush. The one I have now didn’t do too well through the winter and is in the path of the destruction and not faring too well. It might come back with some pruning and tender loving care.

Bonnie, what is that white stuff on your nose?

“I’m just gonna bite someone if they don’t play with me!”

Oh, no you won’t, Belle.

Here’s to Spring snows and flowers that bloom anyway. Bye.

Awake and Ready

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Now that the weather is getting better and the sun is shining, I am not feeling as sleepy as I have been. Being out in the sunshine is good medicine and I certainly got a lot of good medicine today.

As I have told you, we are building a new front porch on our house and we are having to move several flowers. Like about one hundred or more flowers. Flowers it took me years to plant in the front garden and now they have to be moved in a few days before the builders get here. My body has had a workout today digging up flowers, digging holes and replanting the flowers. We cut down the rose on the rose arbor because it never did very well. David planted it by the fence in hopes it will grow on it. I am going to sow some morning glory seeds at the base of the arbor and soon it will be covered with morning glory vines.

I have loved our old porch. Many people have entered our house via this porch. My mother sat on this porch and watched our children ride their bikes. David and I have sat out here and talked and watched the world go by. We’ve thrown firecrackers from here and watched our grandchildren hunt Easter eggs from here. One summer our sons and a neighbor boy sat on this porch all summer playing with Legos. I have sat on this porch and timed my children to see how fast they could run around the house. That was before we had fenced in our back yard. I have looked on the porch for packages I have ordered. Sat with my dogs and passed the time. Don’t mind me if I get a little teary eyed when they start tearing it down.

The front of our house is going to look so different. I love those old white pillars.

I don’t know how many times I have painted these pillars. They need a new paint job now, but, they won’t be here in a few days or weeks. I thought about saving one, but thought it would be dangerous if one of the grandchildren leaned against it and it fell over, so the pillars are going.

I got a package from the UPS man while I was working outside. I decided I would wait until I had all my work done before I opened it. Anticipation. I kept thinking about that box all morning and part of the afternoon. I knew what was in it, you see, and that is what made it even more exciting.

I love getting packages like this. Especially when it says this on the side…….

Can you believe I just discovered this company? A friend of

mine showed me some fabric she had purchased while in Tennessee and I fell in love with it and knew exactly what I would do with it should I get some. I searched for it online and every fabric site I went to said “sold out” of this particular fabric until I got to this site. Yay, they had it.

Isn’t it absolutely the cutest? It’s called Quaint Cupcakes. It has a little bling in the fabric.

I am loving this.

With the doilies and all, it’s just so pretty. I know what I am doing with this.

But that wasn’t all I purchased. I have a new designer I am liking right now. Michael Miller. He designed this fabric.

I love the vintage look of this. Yes, I know what I am doing with this, too.

He designed this and I really wish I had bought more than one yard of it. It is the most beautiful fabric I think I have ever seen. There are so many possibilities for this, but, I wish I had bought more. Hmmmmm.

Oh, this is going to go in several quilts. I know it. Looks like old love letters. French. Roses. What could be better?

This is one of those fabrics that can work its way into any number of different quilts and make them special. Do I wax too lovingly about fabric? I have always loved fabric, from the green cotton polyester suit with the matching printed blouse I made in home ec in junior high, to the red dotted swiss dress I wore to the Ruth Lyons’ television show, to the pink dotted swiss I kind of stole from my mother’s stash and made a bathing suit once while she was gone for the day. Oops, got in a little trouble for that!

Yes, I love fabric. Friends make fun of me for saving little bits and pieces of my fabric.

Right now I am cutting over two thousand two inch squares to make a quilt. The smallest square I will cut and save is a one and a half inch square. I plan to one day sew all those tiny squares together into a quilt and it will be a catalog of all my fabrics I have used through the years. But right now the two inch squares need my attention.

They are being sown into these blocks. I will need many of these for the quilt I am making. I love doing this. Fabric just makes me happy.

If you are a Downton Abbey fan, you probably know there is now Downton Abbey fabric. I made a skirt out of this fabric and then I put together a Downton Abbey outfit.

Complete with hat. I loved wearing this. I wish women still wore hats like this all the time and dressed up more when they went out in public. When you look at old pictures, both men and women are wearing hats and they always looked dressed up. Now people wear pajamas in public. Pajamas!!! If you are one of them, well, I will just keep quiet, but I am frowning while typing this. David says people come into the Ralph Lauren store all the time in pajamas. Really?????

Anyway, I do love textiles and have practically all my life. I remember most of my clothes I had growing up from the plaid dresses with big sashes I wore to school, to the sleeveless blouses I wore in the summer, to the blue jeans and sweatshirts I wore when I rode my horse. I notice what people are wearing all the time. I tell people when I like something they are wearing.

Changing direction a little(a lot.) Walking the other day I heard the sandhill cranes. I always hear them before I see them. Put your tongue to the roof of your mouth and hum while fluttering your tongue and that is kind of how they sound. They have a very distinct call. There was one flock and then there were two and then a third flock came from the south. They go up to Camp Atterbury where there is a lake where they land and you can go up there and climb a platform and watch them. I have never done it, but I have always wanted to. They swooped and circled above our house for quite some time. A true sign of Spring.

Can’t believe March is almost over. It’s my birthday month and it is one of my favorite months. I always hate to see it go knowing I will have to wait a whole year before March comes around again. I found this poem in a little, old poetry book I have had since I was a girl and it was old when I was a girl.

Happy April. Easter is less than three weeks away. Bye.

When the Frost is on the Hot Tub

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When the frost is on the hot tub,

And the dog lies in the shop,

And the leaves are looking hoary,

As from the trees they drop.

And you hear the chickens cluckin’

As they scratch the cold, hard ground,

Chuckling to each other

About all the worms they’ve found.

The gardener plows the garden,

While the wife takes in the seeds.

To supply the family next year,

With all the food it needs.

The sky’s as blue in heaven,

As all the seven seas.

And the chill winds

They are blowin’,

Chasing squirrels among the trees.

O, it brings a chill to people,

That is felt down to their toes.

So they hop into the hot tub,

To ease their bodies’ woes.

There’s something kind of pleasant,

To be soaking in the tub.

It’s getting to it without freezing,

Now, that’s the only rub.

The bubbling of the jets,

As they beat against your skin,

Makes your toes curl up tightly,

As you wear a happy grin.

Then you know you have to exit,

And wonder what you’ll do?

“It’s cold out here,” you’re thinking.

It makes you cry, “Boo Hoo!”

But at last you feel the warmth again,

As you run into the house.

Then you jump in bed and snuggle up,

Like a furry, little mouse.

Good Night.

Fluffy Bottoms

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When God created the heavens and the earth, he decided to put animals and birds on the earth to inhabit it. I have always thought God has to have a great sense of humor because of some of the creatures he created.

Who but God would think up a duck-billed platypus? I did a report on them in elementary school. I was so interested in them and have always wanted to see one in real life. A creature with the bill of a duck, webbed feet, fur, a paddle tail like a beaver and it lives in the water.

How about the octopus? A bulbous body with eight long legs and the legs have suction cups. Suction cups!!!

Then there is the ostrich. A gangly bird with a long neck like a giraffe and it hides its head in the dirt when it is scared. It lays the biggest egg of any bird except maybe the emu. I’m not sure about that.

How about a zebra? Looks just like a horse, but is striped and acts more like a mule. Yes, God has a sense of humor. Looking at some of mankind I have to believe it also. He has made us all different for a reason.

When God created chickens, and by the way, the chicken came first, not the egg, He really used His creative juices to make a wonderful bird. Here is a bird with eyes kind of like a dinosaur’s. Remember when the t-rex first appeared in Jurassic Park and looked in the car at the two children sitting there cringing in fear? Well, I think a chicken’s eyes sort of look like that.

Picture this head a hundred times bigger than it is peering at you through a window. Don’t you think it would freak you out??? Since chickens are so small, they are not scary at all, but they do have kind of scary eyes. And they don’t miss a thing.

Penninah can out stare me. She doesn’t blink.

When I sit down, these two begin to sneak around me, pecking me when I least expect it. Doesn’t hurt.

They try to get behind me and before I know it, I feel a peck on my back. Therefore, I don’t turn my back on these girls.

These Barred Rocks are beautiful. If you could get close enough to them, you would see teal colored feathers under all the black and white. I was surprised when I first saw it. God surprises us even in the little things.

But besides the beautiful feathers and strange eyes, chickens have fluffy bottoms. They look like little powder puffs.

The Buff Orpingtons have especially puffy, fluffy bottoms. The better to keep their eggs warm if they were to set on fertilized eggs to hatch them.

It’s hard to snap a picture of Freedom’s fluffy bottom. As soon as I get my camera ready, she runs. But she, too, has a fluffy bottom.

I guess because chickens spend so much time with their bottoms up in the air pecking at anything they can find, it’s nice their bottoms are cute to look at. Next to a baby’s bottom, I think chicken bottoms are the cutest.

Look! This one is even in the shape of a heart.

I really don’t spend all the time looking at chickens’ bottoms. There are other things in my garden to catch my attention. The morning glories are at their peak right now.

I will leave you with one especially pretty bloom. Bye.

A Gathering of Quilts and Seeds

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We spent a night in the beautiful hills of brown in Brown County this week. We stayed at our daughter and son-in-law’s beautiful house in the woods. You have to drive a long, long drive to get to their house. It is surrounded by trees and this time of year it is so beautiful there. Have I used the word beautiful enough???

I broke my camera and cannot use the zoom on it so you will have to use your x-ray vision to see the pygmy goats in their pen. They can get out in the larger pen and I did let them loose and had a hard time getting out the gate because they wanted to come with me.

Anyway, for me it’s almost a vacation to go there. We babysat our two youngest grandsons and had a fun time with them, then when they went to sleep, I sat out on their back deck and looked at the stars. They seemed so close and crystal clear out where there are no city lights to dim them. I think I saw a star explode, if that is possible. There was a bright, flash of light and then it dimmed slowly. Planes flying across the sky were more visible in the night sky. All that could be heard were the cicadas in the trees. Complete silence except for the passing of cars way down the hill. Oh, and the baaing of the pygmy goats.

I have given my daughter several quilts in the past and she has hung them all over her house. Here are a few.

I like how she used a tree branch to hold it. I believe this is a Country Threads pattern. We use to sell these in our store.

I really love this quilt, but it looks better in her house than it does in mine, although I would like to make another one.

I had this log cabin fabric and it worked perfectly.

This block makes me thing of Alaska.

Kind of a blurry picture, but this is the double wedding ring I made for my daughter when she got married. I have since made two more. They are really easier than they look.

I called this Cardinal in the Pines. Do you see the cardinal?

As I tucked my grandsons into bed I saw the quilts I had made them for their beds.

I made this Double T quilt because my grandson’s name starts with T.

I also completed piecing a quilt from some quilt blocks a friend from church gave me. Her mother or grandmother had pieced the blocks a long time ago from old fabric and feed sacks.

I really loved how this turned out. Kind of Christmasy I think. It made a pretty big quilt.

I love the old fabrics in it. This could have been someone’s dress at one time.

This fabric looks like fabric from pajamas that my brothers use to wear. Just a side note. When my brothers outgrew their pajamas, guess who they were handed down to? Yes, I wore my brothers old pjs. Funny thing was, I liked it. The fabric was always so soft because they had been washed so many times and besides, I very rarely got new pajamas when I was younger. I was a tomboy, though, so it didn’t bother me.

More pajama looking fabric. The blocks were very uneven and I had to do some trimming to make it all come together, but I think it turned out well.

This time of year I gather seeds from flowers for next year’s garden. I order zinnia seeds from Wild Flower Seeds out of Texas. I usually get a pound of seed and I can have flowers all over my yard that way. I like to mix the old seed with the new to get several varieties of zinnias.

I go through the garden picking off seeds like this and storing them until Spring. I use to help my mother gather seeds when I was a girl. I enjoyed doing it and Mother always had a beautiful garden.

I gather lots of Cleome seeds. These flower actually reseed themselves, but I like to spread them all over. They are an old fashioned flower that has been around for a long time. David does not like them because they always grow around the pool and lean over and drop their seed in the pool. I did not plant many this year and I still had lots.

This would be several packets of seed for several dollars so I save by gathering the seed.

I gathered them in this little china cup from a tea set I bought at Walt Disney World one year.

Well, I have done nothing this morning but drink coffee, watch the news and quilt so I have got to get up and get moving.

Here’s to Brown County, saving seeds and quilts that make a home cozy. Bye.

Autumn Decor and Dibs and Dabs

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I love Autumn. I love the word, Autumn. I love the colors and the way the sunlight seems golden. I love the cool nights when we throw the windows open wide and sleep deep sleeps in the cool, crisp air. I love the almost too perfect days of blue skies and golden everything.

I also love to decorate for Autumn. I have always felt our house was built for Autumn because it always looks it best this time of year.

I love that Halloween comes in October. There are so many festivals and harvest celebrations in the Autumn. This is the front table of my shop. Those pumpkins are my very own pumpkins that I grew myself this year. David made the wooden pumpkin.

A few years ago we traveled to New York to the finger lakes district and went through several beautiful New England towns. In one shop in one of the towns they were selling wooden jack-o-lanterns. They were kind of expensive and David said, “I could make them.” And he came home and made two for me and one for each of our kids and I painted them. They light up at night. I tell David he could make these and sell them.

These are more of my pumpkins. I am already planning to grow pumpkins again next year. I really like the white ones. There is a scarecrow sitting just opposite these pumpkins, but I forgot to take a picture of him. I’ll show you later.

See how golden everything looks in our house? I picked these hydrangeas and sedum and lamb’s ear to make a dry flower arrangement. Okay, you don’t see the golden? My picture just does not do the light coming in our house justice.

I strung a garland of leaves I made across the kitchen window.

Just a few things I have made to decorate for Autumn.

The Autumn sedum is especially pretty this year.

The squirrels are gathering nuts and other food for winter. This one is pretty plump. Looks like he/she has been eating very well. I put out cobs of corn and the whole cobs disappear. Somewhere in some tree a squirrel has a lot of corn stored away.

Of course we always have candy corn or candy pumpkins out. David is the only one who eats them. I don’t really like them. Does that make me bad?

I got a Yankee Candle catalog this week and was astounded that they had a candle scented like turkey and stuffing. The catalog has scratch and sniff places in its pages and this candle smells very strongly of sage. They also have Sweet Potato Pie scent and Cranberry Sauce scent. I don’t know how they do it, but the scents are very close to the real thing.

A few weeks ago David laid a cement pad just outside the new door in my shop and two of my grandsons and David and I put our handprints in it.

Our other grandchildren will have to put their handprints on with paint and then I will seal the cement for all eternity or until the cement falls apart or I fall apart, whichever comes first. It startles me that my grandsons’ hands are almost as big as mine.

I haven’t posted any pictures of our dogs for a while. Please excuse Belle. She forgot her manners and stuck out her tongue.

Here’s to Autumn, pumpkins, cool evenings, and naughty pups. Bye.

Strawberry Shortcake

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Back in the early eighties when my daughter was a little girl, a doll came out that she fell in love with and, to tell the truth, so did I. Maybe I fell in love with it even more because once the other dolls came out, I was determined to get them all. I still love them and have had so much fun looking at them again. It was Strawberry Shortcake and soon after came Apple Dumpling, Blueberry Muffin and others. These dolls were played with, so some of the pieces are missing, but I did keep all their boxes. Here they are.

Here’s Miss Strawberry Shortcake with Custard, her polka dotted kitten. Can’t you see why I just fell in love with her? Someone told me I looked like Strawberry Shortcake at church the other day. I took it as a compliment. Some of the kids call me Miss Cake anyway.

This is Blueberry Muffin. She is the only doll who did not come with a companion animal. Poor girl.

This is Lime Chiffon…..

and Parfait Parrot.

This is Raspberry Tart with her monkey, Rhubarb.

I think Rhubarb is especially cute.

This is Orange Blossom with her butterfly, Marmalade. How sweet are they?

This is Apricot. She is suppose to have a bunny called Hopsalot, but somehow Hopsalot has gotten misplaced or lost. I need to see if I can find her. I don’t throw anything away, so hopefully she is in a box or toybox somewhere.

This is Cherry Blossom with her goose, Gooseberry. How appropriate.

This is Crepe Suzette with Éclair, her poodle.

This one had no box and looks like a boy. He has grapes on his straw hat. If anyone knows his name, please let me know.

Ah, the Purple Pieman. He was kind of mean if I remember correctly. His parrot is named Berry Bird.

He must have shaven since I last saw him as his mustache is missing.

As you can see, there is a hole in his head where the mustache should be. A long curly mustache. I wouldn’t have thrown that away.

I also found this butterfly and think it was part of the Strawberry Shortcake collection.

There is a place to put something or someone on his back, but I don’t know what.

If anyone knows about this butterfly, please let me know. I think all these dolls were made in Cincinnati, Ohio by Kenner Toys. They are probably made in China now.

Now on to other things.

David was in the military for thirty-six years and over ten years ago he retired. He took a few months off and then when the new Ralph Lauren store was built up at the outlet mall he applied and got a job. He has been working there ever since. He started out taking out the trash, moved up to full time, became an assistant manager, went back to full time and is now working part time for them. The other day they celebrated him being there for ten years. He is the only original staff member from the very first hiring left. They put up these signs all over the store to include the rest rooms and even the refrigerator.

He enjoys working there and they appreciate that he shows up on time ready to work and has never had a sick day off. He even asks to work more. He gets most of his clothes there at very good prices. He’s always watching for a sale.

The chooks are flourishing and enjoy tomatoes from the garden.

We have picked several pumpkins from the garden. It’s been a very good year.

Here’s to adorable dolls and an industrious husband. Bye.

A Birthday and A Busy Weekend

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It was a busy weekend. We had two of our grandsons overnight and they helped their grandpa around the house. They learned how to lay cement and they helped him clean out a shed. They were a great help and he said he would gladly have them help him again. I will have to show you the concrete pad they laid right outside my shop door. We all put our handprints in the cement and I wrote our names and the date so we will remember this day.

Sunday after church we headed to my hometown for a birthday party. It was my sister-in-law’s seventy-fifth birthday. She was married to my oldest brother, Jack. There were relatives there I hadn’t see in ages. And I mean ages. They all got old on me overnight, it seems.

This man is my oldest nephew. I remember when he was born. But when I was talking to his sister, I asked her where was Doug, and she said, “He’s right here! ” He was standing beside her. He use to have red hair. I gave him a big hug because I haven’t seen him since my mother died in l994. He’s not suppose to be this old. I remember babysitting him when he was a boy.

This is my sister-in-law, Carroll, who was celebrating her birthday. She always remembers to send birthday cards to me and David. Her cake was so pretty and good, too.

Of course pictures had to be taken for posterity and this is Carroll with my two nephews, Doug and Tom(who I did recognize) and my two nieces, Cindy and Sandy. I really remember when my niece, Sandy, in the brown shirt was born. My brother was in the military and gone on duty and Carroll went into labor and called my mother so Mom packed up me and my brother and went over to Richmond where we picked up Carroll, Doug, Tom and Cindy and rushed to the hospital. I was only a few years older than Doug, but Mom told me to stay in the car with all the kids while she took Carroll into the hospital. Carroll almost had Sandy before she got into the hospital. Mom came back to the car very soon after and said I had a new niece. She couldn’t believe how fast her new grandchild had come.

A picture of my brothers and sister. That’s my “baby” brother in the red shirt. All the others are older than I. They were all shocked at my red hair except for Joanne who I had already told.

This is my brother-in-law, Clyde, who is married to my sister. He had a kidney removed in July. If I had had a kidney removed in July, I would probably still be in a fetal position laying in bed and having David wait on me hand and foot. Clyde is tough. He’s already mowed his yard. He can’t stand to be sitting doing nothing. Keep him in your prayers that he will make a full recovery and be able to keep his big garden next year. He really hates that he couldn’t plant one this year. He and my sister provide a lot of food for the people at their church. My sister puts me to shame with all the food she cans and preserves every year. Clyde is a special guy.

My sister doesn’t like her picture taken so, being the bratty younger sister I am, I kept snapping one after the other of her. She laughed.

These are cousins of David’s that came to the party. I haven’t seen either of them for ages either and we had a nice visit. They are both retired. Carolyn use to be a school teacher. A very good one from what I always heard. Wally is a card and likes to joke around. They are both special people too.

David and I drove back roads to get to my hometown and along the way we saw some neat barn quilts.

By the way, have I shown you the barn quilt I painted for our house since we don’t have a barn? Here it is:

I thought it would look good with our chocolate brown house and in the Autumn it will blend in with all the Fall colors.

On one of the back roads we came upon this. Something you won’t see on the interstate.

Not exactly sure what town this was near as we were just wandering around, but this bridge was built one year after our house was built. How neat is that?

I will leave you with a picture of some of the last of the roses of the summer. I love these roses. Yellow with just a tinge of pink on the edges.

Here’s to birthday celebrations, family and taking the back roads. Bye.

Where Am I?

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What has happened to the time? Where am I? Is it Summer still or is it Autumn? I don’t know. I just wrote about Spring and planting the garden and enjoying the warm weather and now I am so looking forward to cooler temperatures, falling leaves and wearing sweaters, sitting by campfires and drinking hot chocolate.

The chicks were tiny little balls of fluff only yesterday and now they are laying an egg every day. A dozen every two days. One hundred and eighty eggs a month. I can’t use them fast enough. The dogs get one in their dog food every other day. I boil them, fry them, scramble them, make egg salad, bake cakes and cookies and still they keep coming. The hens are like little laying machines now and the eggs are getting bigger. The thrill is still there, though, every time I go out to the coop and find the pretty brown eggs, some still warm from the hens’ bodies.

We got an automatic chicken coop door opener today. We are hoping we can go away once in a while and not have to worry whether the chooks are able to get out during the day and are safely shut in at night. The company that we ordered from included a free gospel of John in the box. Was a very nice thing to find. The company is called Fleming Outdoor if you are interested.

I am still getting tomatoes. The cucumbers finally stopped producing, thank goodness. We got hundred of cucumbers this year. I have Roma tomatoes just coming on and one cherry tomato plant that is starting to produce. I love this time of year. We can eat from the garden and the chooks. We haven’t gone to the grocery as much lately for some reason. David said the other day we hadn’t made a big grocery store run for some time. Don’t know why. We seem to be eating pretty well.

I am sewing on Tuesdays with a friend. I need to get into another Bible study soon, but I just haven’t felt like studying for a while. I have taken Bible studies for years and needed to take a break, but I have one in mind I am planning to do. The new Beth Moore.

I also need to get into my walking again. I kind of slowed down when it got so hot and have had a hard time getting myself motivated to get back to my five miles a day. I’m hoping with the cooler weather coming, I will start again. I really love walking, but find the first mile is the hardest. After I can get past that one, I feel like I could walk for hours. I also need to find a new walking place as where I walk there are so many trucks, trains and automobiles. Sounds like the name of a movie. I read blogs where they have beautiful hills and valleys and fields and quiet roads on which to walk and wish I lived in such an area. I guess I could drive somewhere to walk, but somehow for me that defeats the whole purpose of walking. When we go on vacation to North Carolina, I am hoping we find a lot of nice walking areas like we did when we went to Alaska. I walked to Alaska I always say, because every day we found a park or safe area for me to walk and I would walk my five miles. I even walked five miles a day on the boat going to Alaska.

I need to get new glasses, but am too lazy to go to the eye doctor. I hate going to any doctor. Both my dentist and my family doctor are wonderful, don’t get me wrong. I have a doctor’s appointment this week for a check-up and a dentist appointment the week after. I don’t know why it spoils my whole day when I have to go have anything done with or for my body to include the hair dresser. I am sort of afraid what my beautician is going to say to me when she sees my red hair. I refreshed the color yesterday and still love it. Anyway, I feel so out of control in a doctor’s office because I am afraid he will find something wrong which would mean tests and more time spent in medical offices. I think my fear comes from when I was a little girl and my older sister would tease me about the big, long needles the doctor was going to use on me. She use to scare me to death. I grew up in the time when you had to get multiple polio shots and it seemed to me that we were always going to Dr. Barton’s office to get yet another polio shot. Then I developed a very stiff neck and my parents were afraid I had gotten polio. Thankfully, it wasn’t, but polio was scary back then.

I feel like I am in a kind of limbo right now between seasons and what I want to do. I need a goal so I am going to think of one and put it up on this blog so that I will have to meet the goal. It will probably be about walking distances or something like that. Or maybe I will try to finish a quilt a week. I have so many quilt tops that need to be quilted and bound. Or maybe I could pick an author and try to read all his or her books. Right now I am reading a really good Jodi Piccoult book. I have read some others of hers and liked them. I would like to find a book with about a thousand pages. The book I read about Deitrich Bonhoeffer had over a thousand pages and I loved every one of them. It was such an inspiring book, but sad also.

I am finished with American television for the most part. There are very few shows I like and the reality shows just turn me off. We have Netflix and have been watching British dramas and comedies and those people know how to write a good story. We are watching “Doc Martin” right now about a surgeon who becomes sick at the sight of blood and goes to a small British town as a GP. He is rather gruff and abrupt with his patients, but they don’t seem to mind. I laugh out loud at some of the things that happen to him. The townspeople are rather quirky and I like quirky people.

Have I rambled on long enough? I felt like I should come here before people decided I had given up blogging. I haven’t. I have so many things I want to blog about, but it takes time to upload the pictures and then write the blog and I have been kind of busy. I have children’s stories I have written I went to put on here. Oh, no, I am not finished blogging. I have this need to write whether anyone reads it or not. I am hoping I am making a kind of diary for my children so they will know their mother a little better.

Here’s to rambling on and on and people kind enough to read it. Bye.

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Snicklefritz

So glad you came. Come sit a spell and read about the tale of my life.

Category Archives: Gardening

Of Bugs, Bruises, Blossoms and Boys

Is It Spring?

Awake and Ready

When the Frost is on the Hot Tub

Fluffy Bottoms

A Gathering of Quilts and Seeds

Autumn Decor and Dibs and Dabs

Strawberry Shortcake

A Birthday and A Busy Weekend

Where Am I?