Fall beauty and the green monster

      Looking out my kitchen window I saw that the big maple was in its full glory.  It's the last big tree we have on our property as so many have died and had to be cut down.  Glad that there are other trees all around us and it is looking so "Fally" right now. 

       David and I decided to take a weekend for antiqueing and fall foliage looking.  It all began in the little city of Cambridge City near where I grew up.  They were having an antique fair and all the shops had some of their wares on the sidewalks and there were antiques set out all around the town.  We were in antique heaven. It smelled like a county fair with food being prepared by the Amish and good smells coming from every restaurant.  The day was a perfect Fall day. 

       We spent the morning going from store to store.  Cambridge City is getting several new antique stores and this weekend was their debut.   So much to see.  I was on the hunt for chicken items to put on or in our new chicken condo.  David said if we don't get chickens next Spring, me and the dogs can use it as our playhouse! I'm having so much fun decorating it.  Am I crazy or what?

       We met one of my best friends for lunch and had a wonderful visit.  Then she took us out of town to another antique store in a little schoolhouse.  I found the neatest chicken item there.  I will have to show it to you another time.  We would never have found this antique store ourselves so were so glad we were taken there.

       We went back to town and my friend had to go home so we continued on shopping.  We found an old window with rooster pictures behind the pane and I thought it would be a great accessory for the chicken condo.  Thought it would be good pinups for my hens as we are not getting any roosters. 

      That night we ate at a restaurant called  Clara's.  It's a pizza place with a London bus inside where you can eat if you want to.  Love the atmosphere.  Anyway, while waiting for our pizza I saw a man sitting behind David who looked just like Clint Eastwood.  I could not stop looking at him.  Hope I didn't make him uncomfortable, but really, he could have been Clint's double.  David didn't think so, but he has no imagination.  Sorry, he doesn't.  He's more pragmatic than me and more grounded in reality.  I tend to dream and see things other people don't see.  My creative friends know what I am talking about.   Or is it my crazy friends, I can't remember.

  The next morning after a good night's sleep and a yummy breakfast we started back home on the back roads.  You don't have to go to Brown County here in Indiana to see beautiful fall foliage.  And you miss all the crowds.  We were the only car on the road it seemed at times.

    We crossed this little creek several times.  Doesn't this look like a painting?  

   There were some beautiful homes out in the middle of nowhere.  Passed this one and I fell in love with the color.  Almost a reddish pumpkin color with the prettiest green trim.  I could live here quite happily.

  This is another view of it.  Look at that big yard to mow.  I would have it full of trees and flowers so I wouldn't have to mow.  I hate to mow, but I'll get to that later.

   We passed the neatest little farm with several little outbuildings.  It looked like they even had their own golf range.  There was a parklike look to the surrounding land with seats set out under trees and  a spreading green lawn.   Look!  I didn't even notice all that fencing when we were passing it by. I'm just noticing it and thinking what I could do with it.  On a couple of the buildings were barn quilts.  I want to paint a barn quilt to put on the front of our house.  This is a pretty one. Anyone know the name of the design?

   Here's another barn quilt they had on another building.  Notice in the foreground the sharp points on the wrought iron fence?  This fencing surrounded the grounds.   I don't know the name of this quilt design either, do you?   

    It was a wonderful weekend, but now it is back to the real world where houses need to be painted and lawns have to be mowed.  I was going to mow the yard today, but I had a confrontation with the green monster.  The first of the summer our old mower went kaput so David went out and bought a new mower.  It was a mulching mower.  Little did I know it also mulched legs, wouldn't start whenever I tried to start it and I am afraid it will put my eye out one day.  The first time I used it, I got blisters on both hands.  It fought me the whole way.  I tell you that thing hates me.

   I put on my heavy duty mowing shoes and blue jeans.  The first time I mowed with the green monster I wore Crocs and shorts and it was not pretty.  Now I was prepared.

 

  I pulled the starter rope once.  It started. Hurray!  It died.  I pulled the starter rope again, It started.  It died.  The third time I yelled at it.  David comes home, it starts immediately and stays on.  He didn't know why it didn't stay on for me.  I know.  It hates me as much as I hate it.  Grrrrr. 

   My consolation is that mowing season is almost over.  If this mower acts up next year it will have to find a new home.  To someone who is a mechanic or to someone it likes.

  
     I will leave you with a beautiful sunrise I saw the other morning while walking.  Glad I don't have to mow the sky.  I can just enjoy it. Bye

  

'Tis the season

  'Tis the season for.....

  
Planting daffodil bulbs.  All pink this time.

 

 

 

    Frying donut holes.....

 



   and stacking them high.  These are sugar and cinnamon.  Also made glazed.

   ....building bonfires and sitting out in the chilly air and loving the smell of burning wood.

 'Tis always the season for stinky dogs.  What do you think about that Belle?

  "Psssssst!"  Oh, well, what can you expect from a spoiled  chocolate lab who gets to eat fresh donut holes as soon as they are fried?   Bye.

Don't you love it?

  Sometimes things happen in the most serendipitous ways.  A ho-hum day can become suddenly thrilling.  A boring afternoon can turn into a once in a lifetime experience. Don't you love it when that happens?

   I lead a pretty average life.  I can't take too much excitement at one time or I will go bonkers.In fact, I had a disease when I was younger and lost the sight out of my left eye and my doctor told me I would need to try to live a stress free life.  How does one do that?  Just living causes stress at times, but I do try to stay away from stressful things.  I like quiet and peace and having time to do my own thing, but, yet, I like people around me and laughing and kidding and even some hair raising things to happen sometime.  Not that that many hair raising things happen to me, thank goodness but I have had a few.

  I hope my grandkids aren't reading this now as they already feel a  little scared about staying in our house.  I really don't know why. It's an old creaky house so perhaps that is why. My youngest grandson told his mom after an overnight stay at our house that he didn't like that bad man who lived there.  Since my husband is the only man who lives here and my grandson loves him, I could not understand who he meant, but I have had some odd experiences in our house.

   There was the time when I had gone to bed I heard my husband come upstairs, open our squeaky bedroom door and walk across the room.  I laid there with my eyes closed as I was about to go to sleep and kept waiting for him to get into bed and he never did.  Finally, I got up and went out to the stair  landing and saw the lights were still on downstairs and I called to David.  He answered and I asked him why he went back downstairs.  David said, " I was never upstairs."  Okay, that set the hair on the back of my neck standing up.

  There was the time when my daughter was young that she woke the whole household up screaming that there was a man in her room.  David and I jumped out of bed and ran to her room and turned on all the lights and looked everywhere. My Mom and Dad were staying here and were sleeping downstairs and heard the commotion and asked what was going on.  My daughter had a fever so we thought maybe she had been imagining things.  We stayed in her room until she went back to sleep.  Now she tells us she was having a scary dreaam about bugs that night. Hmmmmm. Could my grandson have experienced something like she did?


   Then there was the time soon after my father passed away, I was once again in bed.  Someone who I thought was David came into the room.  I saw only  a shadow.  This person stood over me and I felt the greatest love toward me at that very moment.  Then he disappeared. I have always thought that it was my Dad coming to tell me good-bye.  My mother had a similar experience when my grandfather died and she said he came to the foot of her bed and touched her foot. 

   I won't even tell you about the ghost cat I have seen numerous times.  I don't believe in ghosts, but something weird happens occasionally in this house.  I have never really felt afraid, but I do wonder at times.  Since this house is almost one hundred years old, alot has happened in it and who knows what could be going on.

   Anyway, that is not what I started to write about.  Not at all.  I was talking about things that happen to us when we least expect it and makes our days happier and more exciting at times.  This weekend was one of them

   We are babysitting our daughter's pygmy goats for a few days and it entails a half hour drive to their house.  I really was looking forward to it because I just love farm animals as I am a farmers' daughter at heart.  Lightning Bolt and Jessie are so cute.  I will have to post some pictures of them. I meant to take the camera today, but forgot.  They stand up on their hind feet and put their front feet on my legs and beg for food.    I want a pygmy goat, but we live where it isn't possible.  We fed and watered them and let them out of their pen to eat on the weeds and trees around there.  They seem to especially love sumac.  I took them an apple cut up and they sniffed it and turned their noses up at it so the dog ate it!  Just enjoyed being at my daughter's house as they live in Brown County and right now the trees are so beautiful.

  After we got done we drove home and on the way we passed a little fall festival along 46 where they were making sorghum, had ponies to ride, had every kind of pumpkin imagineable to buy, there were mums and soup beans and crafts  and wonderful smells and everyone was having a good time.   I had not thought about stopping there when we passed it, but David steered the car in.  I picked out three mums and David said, "Is there anything else you want?"  and I said, "A pumpkin,' and he said, "Now you're just getting greedy!" and we both laughed and I picked out a pumpkin.  Have you seen the peanut pumpkin that looks like it has peanuts all over it?  I didn't get one, but it is really weird looking.  That is what I mean by something serendipitous happening.  You could be just driving down the highway and come across a festival and it makes your day much more fun.  I love things like that. When David and I travel, we have more than once come upon a celebration of some sort in a little town and joined in and it has always been some of the best times of our vacations. We even saw Ronald Reagan in New Orleans because we just happened to be walking on the route he was on.

   Look for the unplanned happiness in your life.  There really is alot to be happy about when you start looking.   A grandchild's hug, a dog's lick, a pygmy goat's baaa, a tree blazing red in the Autumn sunshine, a festival, seeing your favorite president.  Here's to serendipity.  Bye.

An Old Man and the Sea

  I love being around water. Any water. The ocean, a lake, a pond, a pool.   Doesn't matter I just like water.  This past Sunday we spent an entire afternoon on Lake Monroe with some of my favorite people, my daughter, son-in-law and two youngest grandsons. 

   We went to church Sunday morning and then we packed a lunch and off to the the lake we went. 

   With the worthy captain at the helm we were off.  The sky was blue, the water shining in the sun and the landscape along the coast was beautiful.

  With the wind in our hair, we sped across the lake looking for a good place to stop and eat our lunch. Being out in the sharp autumn air made for strong appetites.  In other words, I was starving before we finally stopped to eat.  Being out in the fresh air always makes me hungry.  How about you?

     Did I say the sky was blue?  It was for most of the day.  It seems the sky is a more brilliant blue in the Autumn when you contrast it with this....

   the beautiful Autumn foliage.  Lots of reds and oranges along with trees that were still a bright green. 

     We passed John Mellecamp's beautiful home up in the wooded hills.

  "Feed me," said the Old Man and so we ate ham salad and egg salad sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies and fruit bar cookies and apples and chips and pretzels.  It all tasted better than any seven course dinner you can eat at the finest restaurant.  Not that I have ever eaten a seven course dinner at a fine restaurant.  Wait, I did once in Washington D.C. and the food was so sparse they practically starved us Hoosiers until we told them where we were from and they brought us more food.  True story. It seems the manager was from Indiana and understood our plight.

    Little boys and boats and water and fishing go together well.  My grandsons know their way around a boat and know how to bait a hook.  They were especially engrossed with the minnows in a pail on the boat.  They kept getting them out and showing them to us. 

     Alas, the day had to come to an end and it was back home for us.   We made a short stop at our daughter's house to see the new pymy goats that have joined their menagerie.  They are so cute and will eat just about anything. 

       I will leave you with a picture of  Bonnie, our black lab.  Labs are very social dogs and our dogs stay around us and as close to us as they can.  When we are outdoors, that is easy, but when we are inside and they are outside they have to find other ways to get as close to us as they can.  This is Bonnie laying as close as she can without being in the house.

  When Bonnie lays on the deck she always has her paws on the side of the house or on the screen in the door.  Guess she feels our vibes that way.  Just love her. 


   Hope you get to enjoy this beautiful season.  This one will only come once in your lifetime so don't let it pass you by.  Bye.
    

Raising the Coop

   Things have been happening around here.  David and I have been trying to paint the house ourselves, but we are learning our bodies won't always cooperate with what we think we can do.  I don't like getting too high up on a ladder anyway and I really don't like David to get up on one.  I have seen him fall off a roof and fall off a ladder and I don't want to see it again.

    Therefore, we decided to hire someone to paint the front of the house for us.  A young, vigorous man who can run up and down a ladder like a monkey.  I can't wait to see it get done.  This old house has been painted several times since we have lived here, but we usually paint it the same colors, a chocolate brown and an evergreen green for the trim.  Someone once asked us if we were trying to make our house look like a cabin and I took that as a compliment as that is exactly my aim.  If I can't live in a cabin, my house can still look sort of like one. 

   Anyway this old house is getting a facelift.  I've been painting the shutters and the trim I can reach.  I really love to paint and wish I could reach the whole house, but I know my limitations.

   Another thing we are doing is building a chicken coop.  Next spring when Rural King brings out the baby chicks we will go and pick out five of them and bring them home to their new luxurious home.  David is building this coop like it is for the richest chicks in the world.   I figure we will be paying about five dollars per egg when the chickens start laying if we factor in the building materials and food.  But, hey, they will be fresh eggs and if you have never had a really fresh egg from free range chickens, you really haven't had an egg.  The eggs in the store have such pale yolks.  I remember the eggs on the farm and the yolks were always a bright orange. 

  First David laid the foundation and put chicken wire under the floor so critters could not come up from underneath and get the chickens.

  

      Next he added the floor and started framing the coop.  See that brown dog in the foreground?   She has been keeping a close eye on the building going up in her neighborhood.   .

   "This looks like a mighty fine doghouse," says Belle to herself. 

  "Is this for me?" thinks Bonnie.  Uh, Oh, I smell trouble a brewin'.

  "It's my house."  "No, it's my house."  Girls, this coop is not for dogs.  Your new neighbors are going to be chickens.

  "Did you say, chickens?"  said the big bad wolf?  I've got some "splainin' to do.

   Okay, Bonnie and Belle, you are getting new neighbors next year. Chickens.  They are not for you to eat or chase.  You will be nice to them and protect them from critters.  Understand???

  "Okay, Mom.  I'll be the best chicken protector you have ever seen."

  Meanwhile David and I have been scavenging antique stores for a door and a window for the coop.  We found this one at Vic's.  It has really neat old hardware.  I have already sanded it and painted it and will show it to you later.  It turned out really well.

 
  Found this window where Yellow Brick Road use to be which is now a flea market.  David taped it for me and I have already sanded it and painted it.  Will show you it when it is placed in the coop.

   A chicken coop needs ventilation and we found this punched tin star at Yellow Brick Road also.  I have painted it and it will go in the side of the coop.  Can't wait to show you the finished project.  It's going to be so cute, I am begining to rethink using it for chickens. Not really.

  I have been thinking about names for my chickens as all my pets have to have names.  I want to use Biblical names and have Dorcas and Tabitha already picked.  Maybe I will have a contest to name my chickens and give away a dozen eggs when they start laying for a prize. 

   Hope you all have a wonderful day.  Cluck-cluck.  Bye.

Witches and pumpkins and a big fat toad

   Whoops, didn't mean to scare you right off the bat. My blog today is about decorating for Autumn.  Doesn't this little guy just scream Autumn to you?  He doesn't?  Well, he's part of my decor so get use to him.

   I love Autumn and I especially like decorating for the season.  Our old house looks its best in the Fall when the leaves are brilliant colors and the light seems golden.  The rooms seem to glow and I begin to get the nesting fever.  I love the colors of Autumn, the browns, golds, yellows and oranges set off by a brilliant blue Autumn sky.   I love the cooler temps and having to wear long sleeve shirts and jeans once again.

  

     Once the calendar changes to September I start getting all the Autumn decorations out. I begin with a candle that makes me think of baking and cold evenings eating a nice hot meal.  I got this candle in Cambridge City at the Log Cabin and I love the way it smells.  You don't even have to light it to smell it in a room. 

   Next I throw some Autumn pillows on the sofa and a quilt on the back.

  A table runner and a box I painted with some little pumpkins and votive candles inside.  I tried selling this box at a yard sale a few years back.  Glad it didn't sell.  I use it every year.

  A few pumpkins and some of my Halloween figures on the mantle. 

  Love this little witch and the book just suits her to a T.

  Jack Pumkinhead.  I read this book when I was a little girl.  Part of the Oz books that I collect.

 

    A Fall themed quilt or two on the walls and I am almost done.

   What's a rabbit doing on the mantle with the Halloween figures, you may ask?  Or you might not.

      He's dressing up for Halloween as Uncle Sam, you see.  Here's his mask.  So of course he fits right in with the decor.

 As the days grow cooler, I bake even more than usual.  Today I made a strawberry rhubarb pie.  Got the rhubarb from Appleworks orchard if you live around here.  Wasn't too expensive and if you add strawberries, there was enough rhubarb to make two pies.  I made one and froze the rest of the filling for another day.  Had to bake this for almost two hours to get the rhubarb done, though.

    Back to the toad.  I got him for a Christmas present one year.  I asked for him.  I think he is so cute and he sits in our livingroom all the time.  David says he feels like he is watching him.  I have never kissed him because I already have my handsome prince, but if you would like to come on over,  maybe he will bring you the man of your dreams!.   

   Here's to patriotic rabbits, pies and big-eyed toads.  Bye.

Come Autumn

  I don't know about you, but I feel like we have had an endless Summer.  It started in April after that one week of Spring, remember that week?  The days were cool and breezy and you felt alive and ready to spend all your time outdoors.  Everything was green and then.....HOT started to happen.  No in between days of cooler temps and rainy days.  Nope, just hot take your breath away hot, plant withering hot, run your air conditioner on high.  That kind of hot.  Days spent running up your water bill watering all the plants you planted and the garden you had so much hope for hot.  Wishing you could take a long walk, but know if you try you will be a wilted piece of lettuce before you walk a mile hot.

   I use to love hot weather.  The hotter the better.  I would baste myself with suntan lotion and lay out in the sun for hours turning my skin into a piece of leather by the end of summer.  Everyone said what a beautiful tan I had.  Now when I look at the wrinkles I think, "You were so dumb."    I do not like to spend alot of time in the sun except to garden and when it is hot I don't do much of that. 

   Now Autumn weather is upon us.  The garden knows it.  It is picking up steam again and bursting with bloom and vegetables.

 

 

 

This is a cucumber plant that I thought had died a couple of times.  Now with a couple of showers it is going wild, growing over our chairs and up a bush beside the deck.  David has picked several cucumbers from it.  Remember the giant one I wrote about?  He found another one just as big the other day.  He can't eat them fast enough so I made a brine out of vinegar, sugar, dill, garlic salt and salt and cut up some cucumbers in it and let them swim in it for a while and they taste pretty good.  I usually don't eat many cucumbers.

 



 

 

  When I planted tomato plants this spring I thought I only planted a couple of cherry tomato plants.  Turns out I have several scattered around the yard and right now at this minute they are going crazy.  I have hundreds of these hanging on the vine.

 

 

 

  With many more ready to ripen, I really don't know what to do.  And I just know these are going to reseed themselves and I am going to have thousands of these plants in my garden and yard next year.  Sounds a little scary.  Kind of Little Shop of Horrors scary. 

 

 

 

  The Autumn Joy sedum is blooming now.  Good thing since it's Autumn Joy.  The bees absolutely love it.  I haven't seen so many bees in years.  They were swarming this plant and I was afraid I might get stung, but they were too interested in gathering nectar to pay attention to me.  Find the bees in this picture.

 

 



 

 

  Mr. Bumble Bee likes it too.  My mother sang a song to my brother and me when we were little about the bumble bee.   Buzz, buzz, Mr. Bumble Bee, Sing a song for you and me, In your coat of black and yellow, you make quite a fancy fellow.   I always think of that when I see a bumble bee.

 

 



 

 

 

  Is that Miss Bonnie eating plants in my garden?  Naughty pup.

 

 

 



 

 

 

  And proud of it, aren't you girl?  You are so cute.  You can get away with anything.

 



 

 

  Meanwhile,  in my shop I completed all the twenty-four inch blocks for this quilt.  I love the colors and how easily this went together.  I don't know why I keep starting new projects when I have so many I need to finish. 

 

   

  This may or may not have something to do with the big project I am working on.  I just love these little jars of paint you can buy at Lowes in any color you want and they are only three dollars.  Since I have discovered these I am collecting alot of different colors because I am always painting something and these are just the right size for most of my projects.  

 

   One last thing.  My grandson, Tristan made me and his other grandmother necklaces.  He thought of it all by himself and made them for us.  Thought that was really nice for a four year old. 

 

 

 

  Here's mine.  I think it's really pretty.  I am proud to wear it.

 

 

 

  Here's to Autumn, cooler weather and creative grandsons.  Bye.