Garden

Here are just a few shots of our garden. We hope to soon enjoy squash as you can see the bloom on it. This one tomato plant will be an early one. The others are not near as big. Yesterday was a beautiful day here in Floyd. Hubby and I finished getting the garden out. We planted a few more tomatoes and beans and corn.

Later in the evening we got a good rain. I guess God knew our seeds needed a drink. The girls and I are working on cleaning the house today and washing clothes. My house is a little behind as we have been doing up the beef. Our total is 80 quarts of canned beef and 88 bags of hamburger. Pretty good I think. Tomorrow is bible study day. We are studying I Corinthians. Little Samuel will be here in 4 more days. Unless he decides to come before then. We all can hardly wait to see him and hold him. God is good! Also hopefully David will have my computer back in operation soon. I really miss it. It’s sometimes hard for me and Hubby to coordinate on one computer. His free time is usually my free time too. Well, my time is up. The wringer is calling my name. Take care and God bless.

June 3, 2010 3

Memorial Weekend

I have no picture to post today. I just wanted to let everyone know I was still around. David is working on my computer this week so hopefully I will be back in action soon. Things have been very busy here this past week. We were blessed with a beef. Billy had butchered him for someone and they did not want the meat. He was an old bull-about 10 years old and weighed about 1800 pounds. My friend Vicki and I have been working all last week to process it. We are cutting some of the meat in chunks and canning it. We are making hamburger out of the rest. We are about half done (I think). George and Quentin-Vicki’s hubbie-will be helping us tomorrow. I will let you all know the total of cans and hamburger we get when we finish. We went to visit Jess yesterday. She is scheduled to have her labor induced June 7th. Little Samuel will soon be here. We took the cradle down and it is all set up and ready. Just needs a little one in it. Continue to pray for them. We took the long way home today and stopped at a little picnic area. It was very pretty with lots of overlooks. We then stopped at this little store in Meadows of Dan and they were having a craft show. Lots of cool stuff to look at, lots of new ideas for me to work on. Of course, we took the camera case down to Jessica’s however the camera was not in the case. So I have no pictures to show you. Oh well, that’s pretty typical of me. Enjoy your Sunday and God bless.

May 30, 2010 0

Wood

An almost empty wood pile. Remember how this looked last fall. I would show you the picture but all my old pictures are still sleeping on my computer, which is “resting” for a while. Anyway, last fall this shed had 7 rows deep of wood and 2 rows on each side. All gone. We used almost all of the wood last winter. Saturday, we all worked on the wood pile. George and I used the splitter and the girls stacked it up.

This is what the pile looked like. We have about 1/3 of it split and stacked in the building-three rows deep. We want to have more wood this winter than we had last winter. Just in case, it is another hard winter. It is better to be prepared. I want to take a moment to complement my girls. They worked very hard Saturday and did an excellent job stacking the wood. Thank you, Julie and Grace.

Another picture I know Jess will love. The girls found this lunar moth on the building the other day. Very pretty. They enjoy finding pictures for me to use. Rather chilly here today. Upper 40’s for the temperature. Lots of rain. We had a really hard rain last night while we were at church. We do our Sunday night study in the basement. Water started coming in through the basement door. We had to stop our study and get busy-quick. The outside drain could not handle all the water. Thanks to mops, a shop vac, and a sump pump we finally got it all dried out. I’m just glad it happened while we were there. It would not have been fun to discover all that water on Wednesday night. Imagine what damage it could have done. God is good. Of course, after all that hard work, the food tasted extra good. Time for piano lessons. Take care and God bless.

May 17, 2010 5

Growing Up

Look how much the baby geese have grown.

Learning how to follow in a line.

They have grown so much. I guess I didn’t realize how fast they would grow. They wonder all around in the fields and even sometimes in the yard. Very cute.

We also have other new babies. The girls found these yesterday in one of our outbuildings. I’m not sure who their momma is but they are very cute.

Fog came in this morning. If you look very closely you can see the geese on the pond. Now you can’t even see the pond. Very foggy. Very dreary but good for the plants I put in the garden yesterday. Yesterday was a very busy day. When I was young, my mom would use the term “wash day”. I understand this term better now. On a wringer washer, doing lots of laundry literally is a full day of work. I filled up all my clotheslines twice. LOTS of laundry. Included in this full day, I also put all the vegetable plants we had purchased in the garden. Hopefully we are done with frost. Last night was Team Kids at church. Next Wednesday is party night as this will be the last week until fall. Tomorrow we will finish up our Esther study by Beth Moore. This has been a very good study. I highly recommend it. Our Ladies Friday Study will be doing I Corinthians by John MacArthur next. After that, I want to do Beth Moore’s study on Revelation. Is anyone familiar with it? I have looked at it at Lifeway but I would like to get feedback from someone who has done it. Our Corinthians study is 12 weeks so I have a while to decide. Better get busy. Take care and God bless.

May 13, 2010 2

Cutting Wood

Here are a few pictures of the wood pile we have been working on. During the past winter, Marvin decided to have some logging done here on the farm. They wanted to clear out a new pasture land. After the logging crew was finished, they piled up all the unwanted wood. The pile is smaller now than it was at first as several truck loads have already been removed.

This picture shows better how tall the pile is.

This is the pile of locust wood that has been moved to the side. Billy is using this as fence posts for the new pasture land.

Hubby sharpening his chain saw. This has to be done frequently. I wanted to show you all the wood we have cut so far but I didn’t get the picture yesterday and it is raining here this morning. I’ll save that for another post. Last nights low was only in the lower 40’s so hopefully we are done with chilly nights. I have several vegetable plants I want to put out in the garden. I’ve just been waiting for the danger of frost to pass. I’m not very good at remembering to cover them up at night so I usually just wait. School today as usual. We are getting close to being finished with language. It is always exciting to finish a book. I was hoping to do some laundry today, however if I do, I will have to dry them inside. I might just wait until tomorrow, not sure yet. The pile is pretty big today, it will be even bigger tomorrow. I better get started on my day. Take care and God bless.

May 11, 2010 4

New School Books

We received our new school books for next year. This is always an exciting time for us. We love looking at them to see what the next year will be about. Of course, about half way through them they will not be near as exciting. Oh well, enjoy the moment, right. Temperatures have been rather chilly here. 30 degrees this morning with scattered frost. Hopefully no damage done. We spent the weekend at Jessica’s. Saturday was her baby shower day. She received many nice things but of course I forgot my camera, so no pictures. Her mother-in-law got her a really nice bassinet. She is going to use this upstairs in the bedroom for a while. Then they will put up his crib. We also celebrated Hubby’s birthday while we were there. Hot dogs with all the fixin’s and birthday cake. We had a great time. As usual, though, it goes by too quick. When we came home last night, it was pretty chilly in the house. We hurried and built a fire. We still have one going today but I think it is going to warm up nicely. The sun is shining and it looks beautiful outside. Hubby and I are going to get another load of wood while the girls stay here and work on school. Dale-a friend from church- is bringing over his wood splitter this evening to let us borrow. Thank you Dale and thank you Lord for provided us with such good friends. We are truly blessed. Enjoy your day and God bless.

May 10, 2010 5

Grapevine

Our grapevine is looking very good this year. Last year we only had a few grapes, thanks to a late frost. Hopefully we will have much more this year. When we bought the vines I thought I was getting blue concord grapes. However these are green in color. They taste like concord grapes though and make great jelly-it’s just green instead of purple. They seem to be hardy and very productive and that’s what counts.

My mint is doing very well this year. I have to keep a close eye on it though as it loves to take over the garden. I think I will make mint tea today. I make mine by using 2 cups chopped mint leaves with 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil and remove from heat. Let sit for 15 min. Sweeten to taste and refrigerate. This will make 1 qt. of tea. Delicious served cold with ice.

This mint is called pineapple mint. Very colorful. It makes a beautiful border and very good tea as well. Sometimes I mix the two mints together. I love making fresh tea. Today is my friend Vicki’s birthday. We are going over to her house for a cook out and to help her celebrate. I think I will take some fresh tea for her to try. The girls have started the housework so I guess I best help. Take care, enjoy your day and God bless.

May 6, 2010 0

Irises

I think irises are very pretty. These were given to us by a friend at church last year. When we planted them, we were not sure they would live but I think they look pretty good. Today has been a beautiful day here in Floyd. Temperatures in the mid 70’s with a gentle breeze. A beautiful day to hang clothes out on the line. Today Hubby and I set up the wringer washing machine for us to use. We had it set up and ready last fall however the line froze and burst so Hubby had to do some repairs. We are ready now. The girls and I washed 3 loads of clothes on it today. It was hard to keep them focused on school because they wanted to help with the wash. I’m sure this thrill will wear off before summer is over but we’ll see. It is a little more work than the automatic machine but more fun to use. I am very thankful to have it. Yesterday, I made some strawberry-rhubarb jam. I used some of the strawberries we got Saturday in N. C. and the rhubarb came from our patch. This is the first thing we have canned for the year. I am looking forward to much more. I really enjoy canning our own food. It is a lot of hard work but I think it is worth it. At least I know what’s in the jar I’m opening for supper. Well, I have much to get done. Take care and God bless.

May 5, 2010 1

Baby Geese

Here’s a picture of the baby geese. We have 6 of them. Ain’t they cute! I have been hoping to get a better picture of them but so far this is as good as it gets. We have been really busy around here. I had to take Grace to the doctor Thursday. She fell and we thought she might have broken a bone in her foot. Thank the Lord, it was not broken just a sprain. She is feeling much better today. We went down to Jessica’s today for a short visit. We fixed hamburgers on the grill for lunch. There is just something special about sharing food fixed on the grill with family. I love eating outside and today was a beautiful day for it. We also went down to a pick your own strawberry patch that is close to her house. We got 4 gal. for us and 2 gal. for our friend Vicki. We ate 1 of our gal. on the way home. They were delicious! When we got home, we went up on the hill above our house and starting cutting wood for this winter. We got 1 truck load cut, brought it down and unloaded it. Many, many more loads to go but it is a start. We will split it later. So of course, all of me is tired. Hubby is mowing and I am ready for a shower. Take care and God bless.

May 1, 2010 3

Grundy

Here are a few pictures Grace took on our Grundy trip. This picture was taken from Granny’s yard looking down on the road.

Looking down the “holler” from the yard.

Granny’s azalea bush in full bloom.

Snowball bush. We had a great visit. It is a very different type of terrain there than it is here. Lots of mountains and lots of trees. Almost everything is built on a hill. I enjoy going back to visit but I prefer living here. Take care and God bless.

April 29, 2010 1