MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

I just love to see a sunrise or a sunset.  I think it comes from living in the mountains of southwest virginia.  Where I grew up, you never saw either one. Our house was in what we call a “holler” so the view was blocked by the mountains.  The sun would hit our yard about 11:00 and go down about 3:00.  I guess thats one of the reasons I love living here in Floyd.  In the summer, the sun is in our yard about 6:30 and leaves about 8:00.  Lots of sunshine, which I love.  This morning God put on another show for us to enjoy.  Thank you Lord!  School today as usual.  It is hard to concentrate on school now though.  We feel like we’re been let out of prison.  The temperatue is warm, the snow is almost gone, so of course everyone wants to be outside instead of in.  We try to mix a little of both so it doesn’t get to bad.  Jasper (young dog) had his first experience with a skunk last night.  Not very pleasant.  I tried a remedy one of the ladies from church told me about.  I sprayed him with Febreeze.  It actually helped quite a lot.  He still smells but not as bad. I don’t have to cook tonight, we are eating  at church.  Roast beef and potatoes with all the trimmings.  It has been a long time since we went to church on Wednesday night.  When the weather is bad, they call it off.   I am definitely looking forward to going tonight.  The girls are involved in TeamKids there at church.  They alternate Wednesdays doing childrens choir and handbells.  They really enjoy the handbells.  The adults are doing a Beth Moore study on the fruit of the spirit.  It has been a really good study so far, however we are pretty far behind because of the bad weather we’ve had this winter.   They have decided not to watch the video that goes with it, in order to hopefully get it finished in May.  Guess I better get ready to go.  Take care and God bless.

My, what a difference a few months can make.  Jasper was about 8 weeks old in this picture.  The other one was taken this morning.  I think he’s grown some, don’t you all?  He is drying off from a bath, waiting on the girls to break for lunch so he can play with them.  I am not sure how this happened.  I’ve never cared for animals in the house.  We now have 2 full time cats inside and 1 part time dog. 

I used to be so strong.  Oh well, it’s not too bad.  The girls really enjoy them being in.  Cold here today.  The wind is blowing pretty hard.  The fire went out last night and when I tried to build a new fire this morning, the smoke was terrible.  I eventually just took the wood out of the stove and left it alone.  I would rather be a little cool than have to deal with all that smoke.  We have the gas logs on so its not too cold.  Hopefully, we will do bible study tomorrow.  I am very excited to begin this study.  Esther is such an exciting book to study and I’m sure Beth Moore will bring out things I would never think about.  We are hopefully going down to Jessica’s this weekend.  I want to do some girl stuff.  The town she lives in has an excellent Goodwill Store.  I love shopping at Goodwill!  I guess I just love thrift store shopping in general, yard sales, consignment sales, etc.  Good deals at good prices.  Well, lunch break is over.  Time for school.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I took these pictures this afternoon after church.  This road connects to our road.  About 3 weeks ago when the first drifts came, they cleared this road.  I was told it took 12 hours to clear it.  I can only imagine how tall the snow was then, if it still looks like this 3 weeks later.  Church today was very good, communion with a fellowship meal, then a business meeting.  I went alone as Julie is still sick.   Hubby volunteered to stay home with them.  I very seldom go anywhere alone, so it felt very strange.  Julie is feeling some better though so I pray she is on the mend.   The young pup Jasper seems to be on the mend too.  Take care and God bless.

I apologize for not posting anything is several days.  Things have been a little busy here.  Julie is sick with a sore throat and head cold.  We took her to the doctor yesterday.  Thankfully it is not strep throat.  But she feels yucky just the same.  Rest and lots of liquids for her.  Also we have been doctoring Jasper’s (young dog) paw.  He seems to have stepped on somthing and run it through his paw in 3 different places.   The first day it happened he just limped, the second day it was swollen 3 times normal size, the third day it bled alot, then finally it has started ( I hope) to improve.  The swelling is down, he still can’t put any weight on it, but it looks much better.  Of course, he has been allowed to sleep on the enclosed porch, which I am thinking he likes WAY too much.  Cold temperatures here-below zero wind chills.  Wind gusts of about 60 mph.  We had to let the fire go out in the wood stove.  It was just too much smoke coming in the house, especially with Julie sick.  This is definitely on Hubby’s to-do list to fix this problem this summer. 

The pictures are of drifts in our side yard.  They are a little darker than I had hoped but you can get the idea anyway.  I estimate them to be over 4 ft.  Yesterday when we took Julie to the doctor,  the main road was pretty bad.  3-4 ft. drifts blocking one side of the road.  Lots of places had only 1 lane open.  When we came back, the road crews had cleared them.  Our road crews have definitely spent a lot of time working this winter.  Speaking of work, I guess I better get busy.  Take care and God bless.

I thought everyone would enjoy some more snow pictures.  The last picture is the pond.  I know it just looks white but it really is snowing hard.  Yes, it is snowing again.  2-4 inches.  Well, that don’t sound too bad.  We did get out over the weekend.  Went to town Saturday and church yesterday.  It felt good to get out.  Not much else happening here today.  Just school and everyday things.  We brought Jasper (the puppy-I shouldn’t call him puppy anymore) in and gave him a bath this morning.  Very interesting!  He hadn’t had a bath in a while as he has been outside most of the winter.   I was amazed at how much bigger he is.  I have allowed him to stay in today while he is drying.  He is a very happy dog, and of course Julie is a very happy girl.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I received this picture from Dave and could’nt wait to put it on my blog.  Ain’t he just the cutest thing?  Nothing says  boy more than a baseball cap and a truck.  Temperatures here have warmed up greatly.  Highs in the upper 40’s to low 50’s.  The girls have spent much time outside playing which of course Jasper (the pup) loves.  The forecast however is calling for freezing rain Thursday night and Friday morning.  Oh well, it is just the middle of January.  Grace did find a dandelion in bloom yesterday, just to remind us spring is coming.  Not much longer until we see some flowers in bloom.  We  normally have some early wildflowers that bloom here about the end of  March- blood root, colts foot, and periwinkle.   We get so excited when we see them.  Only about 6 more weeks to go.  In the mountains where I was raised, my Mom always planted lettuce, peas and onions on Valentines day.  Can’t do that here.  We have had frost as late as the end of May.  I guess I better quit dream about spring and garden food and get to work.  God Bless.

Sometimes I wonder at the intelligence of this pup we have brought here to the farm.  About 2:00 this morning, I hear what I think is the coyotes going through.  This is not uncommon as we have quite a few coyotes here in Floyd.  Then I hear Shadow(old dog) barking like crazy.  Still not uncommon as he does not allow the coyotes to come to close to the house.  After this my sleep induced brain makes out another sound.  Jasper (young dog) in great distress.  I open the upstairs window but cannot see him, however, his distress is getting louder.  Hubby gets up and we quickly run outside to see what is going on.  Jasper has somehow managed to get in the pond.  However, he cannot get out because of the ice.  He is whimpering so loud and struggling to get out of the water with his front paws, however they can’t get any traction on the ice.  We have no idea how long this had been going on before we were awakened but he seemed to be pretty tired and definitely very scared.  I run back up to the house and get a long pole.  George uses it to break the ice on the edge but it was frozen so thick he couldn’t do much good.  Finally he has some success.  He takes the pole and pushes Jasper down the edge of the ice until  he gets to the closest place to the ground.  The pup is still struggling to get out but can’t.  I lay down flat on the ice and stretch forward and manage to grasp a front paw and pull him out.  He was extremely grateful and extremely cold.  We brought him into the house and dried him off as best we could.  As a special reward for all his hard work (and ours) he stayed in the house the remainder of the night to warm up.  I think he liked that part.  Here is another picture showing more details.

This entire adventure took about 1 hour.  We are very thankful for the warmer temperature last night.  This would have been terrible with below zero temps.  We are also thankful Jasper seems okay, as we have all come to love him.  Well, that was our night.  God Bless.

Every day the weather permits the girls try to take Jasper on a walk.  They want to teach him how to walk on a lease.  They call this their P.E. class.  They walk to the top of the hill on the tractor road.   As you can tell, the kitten goes too.  Sometimes, however, Dad has a real P.E. class for them.  Anyone who has ever moved much wood knows what a workout that can be.  It was a beautiful day for working outside.  A litte windy, as usual, but warm with lots of sunshine.  The last two days, however, have not been so nice.  Lots of fog and wet.  Oh well.  The girls were probably glad for the fog.  The splitter was loaned to us from a friend at church.  We are very thankful for the use of it.  Splitting wood by hand, I think, is a young man job.  The older we get the harder it is to do.  So thanks again, Dale.  We appreciate it.   Hubby is gone today with other church members to shoot some clays.  The place, I think, is called Primland and that’s about all I know.  They go there quite often.  George has been looking forward to going with them for quite some time.  They seem to always have lots of fun.  Tonight is our Halloween Alternative at church.  We call it Christfest.  Lots of fun.  Dress Up-kids and adults.  Lots of games and candy.  I will try to get some pictures to post so you all can see what fun it really is.  I pray everyone enjoys the children tonight and that everyone will be safe.  In my Daily Bread devotional today, it talks about children tonight filling their bags with candy and then it asks “What are we filling our vessels with?”  Think about it tonight every time you drop candy in a child’s bag.  If we are not filled with the Holy Spirit, we leave room for other things to fill us.  End of sermon.  God Bless.

I thought some of you might be wondering about the name of my blog.  I have a small business that I run  out of my home.  I make aprons, lap quilts, crochet dishcloths, afgans, and prayer shawls.  I have made enough  to buy the school books for this year.   I think that’s pretty good.  I have about 50 dishcloths made up to sell but I only have 3 aprons left.  As soon as Hubby gets to repair sewing machine I have to get busy with more aprons and lap quilts.  I enjoyed my long weekend with Jess and family.  We got a lot done.  George and Dave laid the tile on the bathroom floor and Jess and I painted her craft room.  She chose a bright yellow and she is thinking about going with bright red curtains and accessories.  I think it will be gorgeous.  I love yellow walls.  It makes the entire room so cheerful.  I also got lots of MawMaw hugs and a few kisses.  He’s stingy with his kisses.  Jasper (our puppy) had lots of play time with his brother, Buddy ( Daniel’s puppy).  It’s getting time to cook supper so I guess I’ll have to come up with some ideas.  Tomorrow I think I might try to can our beets.  I’ll post pictures if I do.  God Bless.

I must be getting soft in my old age.  What was I thinking?  We went to visit my oldest daughter this weekend.  She wanted to get our grandson a puppy.  We found some free and I suppose Dad and I gave in to the excitement of the moment and brought this guy home.  He completely enjoyed the ride home(over 1 hour) in Julie’s lap so I suppose this means he likes to ride.  He is lab and shepherd mix.  We already have 1 large dog (chow and retriever mix)

He is an excellent farm dog and we want him to train Jasper to be a good dog also.   Other than the puppy we also got some new clothes  for the girls while shopping with Jess.  Dad and David did some more remodel on Dave’s bathroom.  Walls are sheetrocked and shower stall is built.  Pictures of this can be found on Dave’s blog www.dlbates.com.  We also received some much needed MawMaw and PawPaw time.    I wanted to let everyone know my husband also has a blog he has started working on www.gdjg55.com.  Check  it   out.