I spent some time with the grandkids yesterday.  Jess had to go with Donna (David’s Mom) for some doctor appointments. 

This post is mostly pictures of them and our day together.

After spending time at their house, we decided it was time to come to the farm. 

What better way to have fun than walking on the tractor road.

Or running on the tractor road.  Whichever you prefer.

Some of us though prefer to walk.

A view of my house from where we were walking.  John Luke learned how to throw rocks in the puddles.  It was SO much fun watching him.  However then it took us forever to finish our walk because he wanted to pick up every rock and go back and throw it in.  I love living here.  God is so good.  

Yesterday the girls and I spent some time cleaning house.  Julie then weedeated the chicken lot while Grace and I worked in the garden.   However it can’t be all work and no play.  While the girls were having their own chill time, I decided to work on this.  This little treasure was given to me by Jessica.  I was going to paint it but with all we’ve had going on,  it just got pushed to the back of the building.  Then the other day when we were digging the planer out we rediscovered it.  
Doesn’t it look so much better?

So I decided to give it a home.   I found the birdbath at the dumpster.  Our friends, the Horns, gave Julie the little rabbit and my friend Bev painted the rock for me.  I love it.  I think it looks cute sitting there with the pineapple mint.  

Have a great day.  God bless.

Grace checked out a book at the library a few weeks ago.  She wanted to learn how to draw birds.  This is one she drew this week.  She used colored pencils.  I think she did an excellent job.  

Another one she did.  She drew this one for a friend of ours for his birthday.   

I took this picture yesterday as I was walking back from the mailbox.  

Our butterfly bush is blooming. 

Remember these rocks.  The other one is down below this one so it didn’t show up in the picture.  Several years ago, I asked Marvin to bring them down for me to put in my yard.  They had been scooted over to the side of the road maybe when the road was made.  I’m not sure.  But I would drive by them and think how pretty they were.  Then one day it occurred to me they would look pretty in my yard and so here they are.  Marvin said it was the first time anyone asked him to bring rocks to their yard.  Usually people want them took out.  But we love them.  

I took this picture while I was cooking supper.  We had chicken and zucchini on the grill, green beans from the garden, cucumbers and watermelon.  Delicious!!

Enjoy your day and God bless.

About two weeks ago, we went blueberry picking with our friends, the Horns.  If you have been reading my blog before then you know the Horns well.  Our girls and their kids are very close in age.  We picked our berries at Mabes Berry Farm in North Carolina.  Its about an hour and a half from my house.  We had a great time.  The berries were very plentiful.  We picked 4 gal in about an hour.  

Then it was time for the fun stuff.  You know, a picnic.  The lady who owns the farm was so nice and gave us directions to a really nice place.  Hanging Rock State Park.  It was a beautiful picnic area.  It had lots of trails.  We didn’t do any of them but hope to go back again when we have more time.  There is supposed to be two waterfalls on this trail.

  I hope you all have a great day.  God bless.

Yesterday was a day of learning and doing.  A friend of mine had these pieces of wood.  She wanted to plane them to take off the old stain.  

Now in all my years of helping George there were a few pieces of equipment I never operated.  This planer was one of them.  He was always the operator.  I was the one who caught the board as it came out.  

We are not however the kind of women who would let something like that keep us from trying.

So we dug out the planer and got started.  We have two other helpers here.  One is Kelly’s mom Retia who is taking the pictures for us and also helped pull the boards through and Kelly’s daughter 

who decided to rest for a few minutes.

 And here is the finished product.  I think we did a great job.  They were beautiful pieces of wood under all that yuck.  She is using them on a wall in her new house.  I can’t wait to see how they look.  

It was a fun day.  We learned something new, laughed a lot and made some new memories.  God bless.
 

The girls and I went to Radford yesterday after church.   We went to Rural King to get a cooking grate for our campfire.  After that we spent some time at Goodwill then did a picnic lunch at Bisset Park.  It is a beautiful place down next to the river.  They had a memorial set up for the veterans.  It was very nice.

After that we decided to take a little hike.  They have great trails there.  We all agreed the trail we were on reminded us of trails on Jekyll Island.

One of the things we saw was this tree.  It had this hollow place in it so you know we had to go inside.

Then of course, we had to take pictures.

Here are few more pictures I took along the way.

Quite a few sycamore trees in the park.  A tree you hardly ever see in Floyd.

Our canopy overhead while we walked.

It was a very nice little walk and we hope to do it again soon.

Oh yes, this is the cooking grate we went to get.  We had bought the triangle thing on a previous visit to Rural King.  I saw the cooking grate then and wanted one.  The girls went in together and bought it for us.

That’s all for now.  I hope you have a great day and God bless.

The girls and I had a FUN day yesterday.  We had first planned to work on one of our outside buildings.  More details on that later.  Anyway, instead of working we decided to just do something fun.  The first place we went was A C Moore.  It is a art and craft store.  If you have one in your area we highly recommend it.  

Grace has been wanting to learn how to paint with watercolors.   She has been saving her money from odd jobs to purchase what she needed.  Yesterday she got all these supplies.  They had books there on how to learn to watercolor but she wants to check the library first.  

Eating out at a place we never eat at.  Olive Garden.  Thanks Steve and Bev for the gift certificate! After that the girls spent some time in Toys R Us and I went to Lifeway Christian store.  Of course no trip to town is complete without the dreaded Wal-Mart stop.  It was only a few minutes stop though as we only needed a few things.  

I want to end this post with happy birthday wishes to this beautiful woman.  My daughter Jessica.  She is the glue that holds together her wonderful family.  I apologize for the quality of this picture.  I didn’t have the picture in my phone so I had to take a picture of a picture.  However I knew it was the one I wanted to use.  When I look at her in this picture I can see and feel the happiness and joy in her life.  It seems to me to be radiating from her.  I love that.  GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME!!! 

This is a picture of our sunroom.  We love this porch.  I’m sure some of you may remember it.  I talk about it a lot and spend a lot of time here.  We have did a lot of work out here this spring hoping to make it look better.  The curtains really keep out a lot of the heat.   Here is a post from several years ago if you want to read more about it.  /www.merryheartcrafts.com/2011/03/25/project/
These plants are sitting inside the cradle Hubby made many years.   I wasn’t sure how to repurpose it but I think it looks great here on the porch.

He also made the aidarondack chairs.  My friend Retia helped me made the ottoman.  It was her idea.  It is an old wooden crate we had in one of the buildings.  I painted it red and then we tied the cushion to it.  It is so soft and comfortable.  It’s like putting my feet on a cloud.  I love it. 

Well that’s all for now.  The girls and I have a fun day out planned.  God bless.