A Little Decorating

As our morning low was 37 degrees, the girls and I decided it was time for a little fall decoration. Now at this time in my life I am not a lot on seasonal decorating. I have no idea why. I love to look at other people decorating and I think it makes the home look so good. I guess I’ve just gotten lazy about it.

On our enclosed front porch, we have two tables. They are now ready for fall.

Inside we did the mantle. That’s it-that is the extent of our fall decorating. Not too much. Easy to take down but enough to make it look a little different.

Hubby is working on the other two chairs today. Hopefully, they will soon be finished and we can get it all painted. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

September 17, 2013 5

A New Chair

I thought I would show you all a new chair design Hubby is working on. I have requested 4 of these to use with an outside table we have. After years of use, the bench chairs we used with this table finally gave out. I think these will look very nice.

Just a few flower pictures. It won’t be long until these will be all gone. I have a fall flag hanging under the goldenrod but the wind was blowing it too much for me to get a good picture of it. You can see Shadow sitting at the stoop in the background.

As you can tell, this little arrangement is in the green swing area.

I almost pulled these up earlier in the summer because they are right in the doorway. Every time I would go out the kitchen door, I had to walk around them. Now I am so glad I didn’t. I think they are very pretty and they have decided to behave and fall over in the other direction.

We went over to a friend of ours yesterday to collect some wood pieces he had that he didn’t want. Some of it will be for burning, some will be for making toys. Hubby usually finds all kinds of things to do with scrap wood.

That’s about it. Not a lot going on here. I hope you have a great day and God bless.

September 11, 2013 3

Around the House

Today, I thought I would show you all a few pictures from around the house. These are the cosmos flowers we planted at the lower garden. I am amazed at how tall they have grown!

These are marigolds. Vicki gave me the seed. Ain’t they pretty! I love the different colors in them. I have already been collected seeds from both flowers to plant next year.

I wanted you all to see these carrots we pulled the other day from one of the raised beds. I have never had success raising carrots before but I think maybe the raised beds helped.

Here’s a picture of the lower garden. See how tall the cosmos flowers are. Underneath them are tons of marigolds. I definitely know not to plant them together next year.

This is the upper garden and the raised beds. I really didn’t know if I would like using raised beds or not, but I think they are pretty good for certain types of veggies.

Last week we re-purposed this gate. It was a gate we used at another house probably 12 years ago. We took it apart as some of the boards were no good. We built another frame and used the gate boards to make another gate for the chicken lot. Remember how we used the old crib springs for the gate.

Well, we have never really been happy with this gate. For one thing, it is not wide enough for the wheel barrow to fit through and for another thing it keeps falling out of the hook that is supposed to hold it up. So we built another one. Much better and way more convenient. The new gate is really close to the feed building. You see all the corn shucks piled up. We cut those out of the garden yesterday and plan on giving them a little at a time to the chickies for a treat.

We are canning pintos today. We canned 12 qts yesterday and will be finishing up a 10 lb bag today. I smell them cooking so I better check on them. I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless.

August 27, 2013 4

A Beautiful Sunrise

Hubby took this picture for me this morning. I thought you all might like it. It was very beautiful. Today has been a gorgeous day here in Floyd. Temperatures have been in the low 50’s. Lots of sunshine!! Amazing. Need I say, I LOVE it.

Not a lot going on here other than just enjoying this warm weather. I have finished another apron and have started another one. I need to get a few supplies though before I do any more. I plan on going into our little town tomorrow. I want to go to Schoolhouse Fabrics. I think I have mentioned it before. It is an old 3 story school house that has been converted into a fabric store. 3 levels of material and any thing else a person might need for sewing.

Tonight’s supper is chicken alfredo with homemade garlic breadsticks. We are having homemade cinnamon rolls for dessert, thanks for the idea , Cary Ann. I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

December 30, 2011 5

Teapots, Sugar bowls and Creamers

I thought I would share a few pictures of my teapots, sugar bowls and creamers with you all. I think I have told this story before but some of you may not know it. This sugar bowl and creamer belonged to my mother. She told me when she was a very young girl, a man came by the house peddling his wares. He was riding a horse and carried his things to sell inside saddle bags that hung down each side of the horse. He was showing his things to sell to my grandparents and my mother saw this set. She asked if she could have it and my grandfather said yes. This was a rare treat as few things were ever bought at her home. This was the first item to go into her “hope chest.”

And here they are sitting nice and pretty on the shelves Hubby built for me.

Today is cloudy here with a coolness in the air. I think we are supposed to get cooler temps this weekend. We went over to clean the church yesterday. It was our last week of cleaning until next September. The men at church have been working on putting a roof over the entrance to the basement. Grace got a few pictures of them hard at work.

They got quite a lot done and they are working there today as well. I hope you all enjoy your day and God bless.

September 30, 2011 4

More Space

Saturday we got the chickens more space in their lot. They really seem to enjoy having more room. We put the additional 5 hens in with our hens. It will take them a while to get used to being in there. You see the coup at the far side of the lot. That is what they have been in since they were bought by the man who gave them to us. They don’t really understand the concept of being able to run about. When we turn them all out in the evening, those 5 don’t really know to go outside. I’m sure they will figure it out pretty soon though. The small coup you see in the front is just for emergency use. In case we need to separate a hen from the rest of them for a short time.

Yesterday, we made salsa. We ended up with 16 pts. The Horn’s came over for a while in the evening. We ate supper, talked, picked a few blackberries and talked some more. It seemed like it had been a long time since they had come over. We had a really nice evening and even got a little rain. God is good! Our temperatures have definitely been cooler this week. This morning it was 60 degrees when we got up. There is a slight feel of fall in the air. Humidity is not near as bad. That always makes it seem cooler.

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

August 11, 2011 5

An Old Leather Project

This is a picture of an old leather book bag I made when I was in college. It is roughly 35 years old (I guess I am really telling my age now). As you can see, it gets a lot of use. I’m not even sure what the stain is at the bottom but its been on it for a very long time. I used to work a lot with leather. I have made purses, moccasins, walets, lots and lots of belts. Hubby also has done lots of leather work. He more than me actually. He used to run a leather shop, back when we were younger. He made a knife sheath for our old pastor about 2 years ago. Other than that we have not done leather work in many years. We do still have our tools though. We have talked some about getting them out and working some with the girls. Teaching them how to make things. Leather is just so expensive but I think it would be lots of fun.

This is a picture I did. Once again, many years ago. I won 2nd place in a craft fair with it. Looking at these reminds me of how much fun working with leather is. Well, so much for my walk down memory lane.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

January 21, 2011 5

A Finished Project

I finally have Grace’s quilt finished. I started it last year after I finished Julie’s. Gardening came upon us and I had to put the quilt away until winter. I now have made all 3 girls a wall hanging/quilt that I sewed by hand. I am not very skilled at sewing things by hand so these will probably be the only ones I do.

Temperatures are still cold here. Actual temperature this morning was 10 degrees with a -10 wind chill. When the cold wind blows here it is very difficult to keep the house warm. The wind seems to find its way inside in places we never thought possible. Anyway, our wood stove is working overtime. I am very grateful to have this stove. It certainly puts out a lot of heat.

I am working on a new apron and hopefully will be able to show you all a picture of it soon. School as usual today. The ladies are coming tomorrow for bible study and it is my turn to make dessert. I am thinking of making a buttermilk chocolate cake. I got the recipe from a blogger friend and it has become a favorite of ours. I like buttercream frosting with ours. It reminds me of a cake that was served at school when I was a kid. They called it wacky cake. I do not like chocolate very much but this cake is really good.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

January 13, 2011 4

Beets

Here’s a picture of the beets I canned the other day. I pulled 1/2 bushel of beets. Pretty good for the first time I ever raised beets here at the farm. From that 1/2 bushel I canned 9 qts. This will taste really good this winter with pinto beans and cornbread. The other jars are pureed tomotoes. The tomatoes were the yellow striped variety thus explaining the color in the jars. I had forgotten how much work goes into canning beets. Quite a lot but as you know most things worth having require work. Today was homecoming day at church. We had a really good day. Lots of people showed up, good music, good preaching, good eating. The temperatures are still cool at night here with beautiful sunshine during the day. Wonderful fall weather. I think I will take my Daniel bible study and my bible and go out and enjoy some of this wonderful weather God has decided to bless us with. Enjoy and God Bless.

September 13, 2009 1