Pallaverin'....

Sunday past, the 14th, was the one year anniversary of my sister's going to be with the Lord after her bout with cancer.  We spent the day at church with her husband and went to the cemetery.  She is not there, but it IS a place that we can congregate and rejoice over her victory and remember and reflect on her life and how important a part of our lives that she was.  Her memory and her love will go on with us in our hearts until we are reunited with her someday!

My darling kids sent me this beautiful bouquet of hydrangeas, peonies and lilies in remembrance of my sister.  I was so touched.  Isn't it just so wonderful when your kids are so thoughtful when they get grown?  Makes me feel like I did something right!

Here we are waiting on all that rain from the Hurricane Bill. (who in tarnation gets to name the hurricanes?  who in tarnation named it Bill - that's the dumbest name for a hurricane that I've ever heard. just sayin'.)  We are just east of the line of fire, but in the danger zone for tornadic activity should there be any.  It's been showering off and on the last couple of days, but they say we're going to get a bunch over the next couple of days.  I was actually about ready for some more rain.  This sugar sand where we live doesn't not hold water for the grass and vegetation and it was getting rather dry.  I do pray for the folks that live in those already flooded areas that really don't need any more water.  How tragic about the lives lost in the last floods here in Texas and elsewhere...

I have been making plum jelly for the last two weeks. Right now I'm up to 11 dozen 4 oz jars.  Why? Because my dear daughter is having these little jars for her wedding favors in October! Her idea. I don't know if it's saving me any money, as I still have to buy sugar and S*re-Jell and jars.  Atwoods had tons of the little ones.  I'm thinking we're going to need about 10 or 11 dozen MORE to make sure we have enough for all guests... On Pinterest, there are such cute ideas for decorating the jars - ribbon, tea-stained tags, burlap, cute printed stamps. 

You'd have to know my daughter.  We had to find a venue that NONE of her friends had used, bridesmaids' gifts that nobody had thought about, flower designs, engagement pics, wedding favors.  Everyone wants to be original - I do understand that.  Last September, I helped my daughter in law and her mom make little lavender soaps for her favors.  That was fun, too.  So, when the peaches ripen, I'll add some peach preserves to our stash!

Bella Boo getting her bath.  LOVES her bath time!

Bluebirds had made their nest in here and laid eggs. Some nasty sparrows ran them out and took the eggs out. Now the baby sparrows have hatched.  GRRR.....  they eat my chicken feed....

A stinkin' ole chicken snake tried to get into my coop/pen.  I have chicken wire all over but had to cover the whole thing with bird netting to keep the sparrows out.  If you look closely, you might can tell that Mr. Snake has trapped himself trying to slither thru the bird netting to get the wire and is stuck tight!  Haha!  Tricked you again!  Remember the golf balls?

Now, Mr. Tony, my husband was gone to work, but I've learned how to deal with these varmints.  I got the loppers that Tony uses to cut limbs with and neatly clipped Mr. Snake's head in two places.  Takes 'em a little while to die cuz he was still trying to bite. He couldn't do much wriggling because of the netting.  Easiest snake I ever kilt!  A 12 gauge hoe or a 10 gauge set of loppers will do the trick!

TIP:  If you ever see a snake crossing the road (and there's not a car behind you), speed up a little and right when you get to the snake, slam on the brakes and skid over it.  Gets 'em every time.  If you just run over snakes with without skidding, they don't always die -  they just slither off.  Gotta skid.

And I'm skiddin' on outa here.

End of an Era...

Well, the Colonel is dead.  Our big old backyard oak tree has bitten the dust. 

As I sat watching its demise, my mind wandered to thinking about the 150 years or so that this tree has lived on our little farm.  It's kind of sad if you think about it.  

We know about the last 75+ years or so when my husbands relatives lived here and built our little farmhouse.  When we first got the property about 7 years ago, there was an old, old tree swing hanging out of the Colonel - much to unsafe to use.  We took it down to prevent any young'un's from hurting themselves.

No telling what stories this old tree could tell!  Kind of like an old house, I suppose.  Tony's great uncle Claude built this little house by hand and he was not much over five feet tall.  He and his wife raised two little girls here.  The girls were old maid sisters until they died and left the farm to Tony's family.  I didn't meet them until they were in their 70's, and they went on to live and do everything together until their deaths at 80-90.  They always reminded me of the "Sisters" on the Waltons.  Probably even had some of the "recipe", too!

I think about those little girls growing up here on the farm, probably playing under the shade of this old tree and maybe even climbing it! Who knows - perhaps it had low hanging branches at one time, perhaps they played dolls or had tea parties, or perhaps they were tomboys... I know our little garden shed held Claude's gardening and farming tools.  He raised crops out here, and the road was little more than dirt than runs in front of the house.  As we have gardened here, we've found bits of harness and tools - metal plow parts, bits, horseshoes, gears and stuff that who knows what it was - all buried in the dirt.  When I till my garden, there's no telling what might pop up.  One side of the garden shed used to be a chicken coop. It now stores my own chicken feed and pine shavings.

I wonder if the girls helped their mom and dad out with chores as they got older. Surely, they fed the chickens, helped in the garden, learned to can and cook and sew with their momma - of course, in the OLD ways of doing things.  I have the original pie safe that Claude built for his wife in my little kitchen still as well as other items that he built and that were saved through the years.

The Cherokee Indians were native here and roamed parts of East Texas in our area at one time. Wonder if they ever saw this old tree? Wonder if they ever had to hide behind it or in the top of it?  Our pastures have raised crops and cattle, and at one time in Tyler's early history and rose boom, our fields were covered in roses. I would love to have seen that!  Nowadays, the big product from our area is oil.  There's drilling going on all around us and has been since back in the early 1900's.

Our family has enjoyed this little farm place for the last few years.  Tony and I moved out here about 3 1/2 years ago.  We've enjoyed the Colonel shading our deck and back yard and just being such a conversation piece.  We hoped to be able to put up another tree swing for our grand babies someday, but that is not to be now.  Rest in peace, Colonel - you've seen a lot of history in your years!

This 'N That...

Hey people - y'all still with me?  Sure hope so!

Not really much going on around here. It was in the 70's here yesterday in my part of Texas, close to 80 in some parts south last week.  Our daffodils are out and the trees are beginning to get those little fuzzy things on them where they'll bud out.  But before we think it's spring --- caution!  We will probably get a couple of cold/freezing cold spells before winter has moved on.  I'm telling my fruit trees to please not bud right now. Last year's late freeze got my plum blossoms - but not the peaches.

We had a 150+ year old oak tree in our back yard behind the house.  I say HAD.  It's dead now.  I hate it like the dickens as it shaded our deck and most of the back yard.  About 4 years ago, we had a drought here with 100+ temps and no rain for months during the summer.  It took until just about now, but it's been slowly dying.  I think it was weakened, and it's got some kind of disease now.  We've had limbs cut out of it several times, but it's about to bite the dust.  It borders my garden and we try to walk around its spread mostly.  We can see some dead limbs hanging in it and it's just downright dangerous now.  The tree service is coming tomorrow to cut it down.  I'm looking forward to seeing how they're going to do it!  It's huge!

It's so sad - we had lots of trees die in the woods on our place and we've taken to not walking the trail or riding our Mule through there either.  The dead ones are falling across the path and just waiting for a strong wind to knock more huge branches and tops onto our heads. My guys need to get in there with chain saws and take care of some trimming and burning...

I've been painting some when I'm not keeping my little grand baby.  I don't have time when she's here and I'm not pulling out the turpentine and paint thinners for her to breathe.  When it's just me, I open the windows by the spot where I paint and turn on a fan.  If it gets chilly I just add a sweatshirt or light jacket and keep painting.

Here's my latest....

This painting is from Turner Falls, Oklahoma.  Went on a painting trip a few years ago with some fellow artists - as you can see, this is not a painting of the falls, but of the river that leads to the falls. We went at just the right time to see the autumn colors. It was beautiful and I have plans to do more paintings from that trip!

Baby Bella-boo is growing and changing every day! She is so precious!  I love being a Mimi, maybe even more than being a mommy!  The kids bring her and let Tony and I enjoy her for a day or so here and there - AND it lets them get out and go on a date! Win-win for everybody!

Yep, you can see that our little grand-daughter hasn't a stitch of hair.  My kids didn't either.  I rather like little onion-headed babies myself!  She's got a purdy head, too, so it just doesn't matter!  Plus- it's fun to kiss and rub her head - funny how baby heads have wrinkles in the skin.... (giggle-giggle) gobs of  baby hair is highly over-rated if you ask me - it usually falls out anyway.  And then you have to stick it down with spit if you get a baby with shocks of stick-up, little gorilla-lookin' hair.  But those are cute, too!

OK, that's all I got today, guys. Gotta rustle up somethin' for my Hongry Man for supper! Bye!

Merry Christmas!

Just taking a minute to check on all my wonderful blogfriends and tell you Merry Christmas!  Things have been hectic this past weekend with two of my kids coming in and us all squeezing into our tiny farmhouse, including 3 dogs - Bug under the Christmas tree, Gypsy the farm dog, and...

TANK (or the Tankster as we are wont to call him) or the Big Galoot or Doofus or ... or ... Tank is my daughter's dog - he keeps her company in college and they have all kinds of fun together. I was lucky to get a picture of him without two strings of drool hanging from the corners of his mouth!  Gotta love Labs!

Anyway, it's a tight squeeze. I've given up on trying to keep any semblance of order in our house until the melee of Christmasing is over with.  I've decided NOT to stress over it, just go with it, have fun with it, and clean up the mess and doghair when the holidlays are over with. (there'll be enough doghair to stuff a small pillow...)  To top it off, I was in the midst of preparing supper yesterday evening and my mom and dad were coming over, and OUR WATER WENT OFF.  Oh JOY TO THE WORLD!  The wonderful things that happen in the country!!!  So we just loaded up all the food and went to Mom's house!  I threw everything into a laundry basket and off we went!  It's back on now...Good - we can flush.

The guys in my family are doing the "guy thing" of chopping down dead trees, of which we have many after the drought we've had in the last couple of years.  It's dangerous to walk in the woods when there's any wind.  We've had several trees fall, and branches are falling daily. Luckily the weather's been nice the last few days - expecting a few storms tonight and cooler temps the rest of the week...

Adam runs the chain saw, Dad does the scooping and putting wood on the burn pile, and Tony does most of the grunt work.  My daddy LOVES to get on the tractor, so Tony is so sweet and lets him do that.

In other news, my Kiwi kids, back a few months from New Zealand, decided  that their next big adventure was to move to Denver.  They found a 3-week house-sitting job in a nice lodge home in the mountains overlooking Denver, went up and found jobs and moved up there over the Thanksgiving holiday.  They both love skiing, snow and their latest activity as of yesterday --- dogsledding!  These two  kids are SO adventurous - they were made for each other!  Dogsledding pictures to come soon!

THIS is what I've been working on for the last couple of months.  A sawmill blade 30" across for a friend at church.  His teenage son asked me to paint a train engine from Union Pacific at the Mineola TX depot on this blade for his dad.  His dad was raised in Mineola and has worked for UP for 30 years.  It was a big job because of the surface of the blade and one I do not care to repeat EVER.  But I was pleased with how it turned out and more importantly - THE SON was pleased.  Glad that's over with!

Well, my friends, I pray that you all have a Merry Christmas with your families, friends and loved ones and that the Lord may bless you richly with wonderful new memories now and in the coming year!  May the beauty and awe of this most holiest of nights scatter your stress and mess and draw you unto Him and His unfailing patience and love. 

Sending warmest wishes from Sand Flat Farm!

AUTUMN HAS ARRIVED IN EAST TEXAS!

Fall is HERE!  Usually, autumn comes to our area softly and quietly, just kinda sneaks in.  Well, this weekend, autumn came slamming through here with solid rain for two days and North winds 15-25 mph.  It's 62 degrees outside at 8:27 pm.  We haven't seen these temps since probably March or April at the latest.  Last week, we had highs in the 90s, and sure, it'll warm up into the upper 80's this week, but WOW!  It's been nice!  Even Bug (the chihuahua) at 13 years of age has been tearing around here like a mad nanny goat enjoying the cooler air.  She's been so frisky!

Only thing was, this morning at 6:00 am while we still in bed, the power went off.  Bleh.  The only reason I would know is that my box fan went silent all of a sudden.  I guess the wind and rain shut something down. It also shut down the pump or generators at the water supply out here.  So we had no electric, and just a tiny trickle of water - I guess whatever was left in the lines - at least we could use the toilet - took forever to fill back up but at least we didn't have to go outside and find a tree.

We did alot of nothing today.  Some napping, reading, snacking - couldn't cook anything. At 5:00 pm, we wound up going to my folks' house to shower and do my hair for work tomorrow.  Then, after doing that, we got a call from friends that the electric was back on.  I knew that would happen.  Didn't get to church today because there was no water or electricity to get ready!  It's amazing how much we depend on it.  AND I had baked a beautiful, moist, rich homemade chocolate cake with fudge-y icing Saturday to take to our lunch fellowship today!  Shoot!  Oh well......................

Oops - looks like we've already made a good dent in this cake.  Actually, I did carry my daddy several pieces.  He loves his desserts!

I'm getting quite a few eggs now and have been taking 2-3 dozen to work with me each week to sell... Helps pay for feed...  I now have 10 hens.  I got me a white leghorn last week.  I didn't have a white chicken.  It's all about color - plus I decided I needed another white egg-layer.  Tony just shook his head...and rolled his eyes.

Also, I forgot to announce that I entered my plum jelly in the East Texas State Fair and I got a BLUE RIBBON!  YEA ME!  Thank you Mammaw!  She would be so proud!

See that 'un there in the middle with the blue ribbon?  It says Vickie on it.  That's my plum 

jelly!  I'm sorry I'm tootin' my own horn but hey... I'm very excited!  I will hang my ribbon proudly on my pie safe where all my jellies are stored!

Just one  more pic of my little garden shed... The garden's been long gone.  I'm just SO glad we made the decision 4 years ago NOT to tear it down.  It was falling over sideways, but between hubby and his friend they got that sucker jacked up and straightened and repaired and saved this rustic little shed.  I absolutely love it!

Well, that's about all today, my friends --- I am still alive and kickin' - just been SO busy around here. I've been hoppin' around readin' in blogland  - just not commenting much.  Take care - I'll be back soon!!!

Back At The Farm...

Hey there!  Just stopping by to say hi!  All's well on Sand Flat Farm...

Chicken update.  I have 9 hens.  Twice this week I have gotten 9 eggs in a day.  Is that amazing or what!  I would think that it would not happen often that all of one's chickens laid an egg on the same day.  Different chickens breeds lay at different rates.  I doubt that ANY chicken lays every single day.  You who've had chickens longer can tell me if that's true or not. (I'm sure I will be corrected if I'm wrong! :- )))))

Just LOOK!

Have you EVER seen any eggs more beautiful???  I know I'm silly - the chicken-thing is still new and I still love going out to collect the day's eggs.  Of course, Tony and I can't eat this many eggs.  We give some to son and his wife, her parents, my parents, and eat quite a few ourselves, and sometimes have a dozen or two left to give to friends.  Thanks for indulging me...

Gypsy says hi!  She's got her a big ole hole dug around at the back of the house.  It had gotten so hot, so I would run water in the hole to cool the dirt.  Gypsy LOVES to lay in her hole!  

The hay's all in. I don't know if they'll get another cutting or not - depends on the weather perhaps.  Hay was much better this year.  Still could have been better, but we got some late rains that helped the ranchers and farmers out some.

I love to watch the raking.  You know, these ranchers and guys that actually take care of the hay have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in their equipment.  You should see some of the machinery that our hay guy brings over to our place!  It's amazing!  

Well, girls - gotta run - work tomorrow.  Painting later this week! YEA!  I need to put up some of my little paintings I've been doing over at my South Light Art Blog  click my button on my side bar if you're interested!   I also added a link to my website where you can view more paintings of mine.  Take care - see you soon!  Keep yer dress down!

# 273 of 300 Ways to Catch a Snake (and other foolishness...)

When you live in the country, you're gonna run across critters.  Critters abound out here and if you don't like critters, then don't live in the country.  Critters are different from your good buddy pets.  Critters eat your garden, dig holes everywhere, come in the house even when they're not supposed to and are a general nuisance. We're always trying to get rid of critters - mice, rats, gophers, armadillos, moles, skunks, hogs, possums, 'coons AND last but certainly not least - SNAKES.

Now I don't cotton to these kinda critters too much myself, but they're not going to keep me from loving my little farm and enjoying every minute I'm here!  You just live with 'em and deal with 'em.

This morning, we had a some excitement here at Sand Flat Farm.  I went out early - 6:45 to feed and water my chickies before work. Fresh water, fill up the feeder, strew a little corn to scratch, clean out the night's poo... you know, the usual. Upon exiting the run, I happened to glance to the side, right by the doorlatch, and lo and behold, I saw THIS ------>

WARNING - Graphic photos - not for the squeamish nor faint of heart!!!

I MUST HAVE JUMPED BACK TEN FEET!

This fellow slithered into the coop probably a couple of days ago. I wondered why the chickens only laid 2 eggs that day when they usually lay 5-6.  I thought it was just too hot outside.  Evidently, the snake had come through the small gauge chicken wire and ate his fill and then couldn't get back through with such a full stomach!  He was a good 4 to 4 1/2 feet long

Rat snake, right?  At least I hope so. We've seen him a couple of times around the yard.  He'd always shoot up under the house when he spotted us looking at him with an evil intent in our eyes.  Can you count the bumps along his stomach?  SIX, there are six bumps! Horrors!

Slowly, I eased out of the coop trying not to disturb him. I started for my hoe, but decided to go get Tony out of bed and have him come out. He dressed quickly and got the hoe ready.  Tony took the snake's tail and carried him twined around the end of the hoe out to the orchard and neatly whacked his head off.

Good job!  Another farm critter bites the dust!  Glad that was all he bit!  Tony got a plastic bag to dispose of this booger and I went to check the coop just in case there was an early egg or an egg from the night before.

GUESS WHAT!  That dumb snake swallowed all six of my golf balls that I'd put in the nests to show the hens where to lay!!!!  I imagine he did eat a couple of the previous day's eggs, and then later decided to eat the rest of them!  JOKE'S ON YOU MR. SNAKE!  I'll bet he had a major case of indigestion!  Now, don't think us bad folks for killing this guy - he would have died anyway trying to pass those golf balls.

Sooooo,  we retrieved my golf balls...

Lookie there ^ - see all six lined up in a neat row!

Kinda gross actually, but at least I got my balls back - to be cleaned and disinfected for sure - reptiles have really nasty mouths - full of germs and bacteria.  Yuck, maybe I just need to get some more...

Now, have any questions?  Well, then you've just seen #273 of 300 ways to catch a snake.  Great way to trap a snake in your chicken coop!  You're very welcome.

Keep yer dress down.

What's Going On ...

Good morning, my friends out there!  Sorry I've been so busy this week.  Big son, Adam from Nashville, is home for a week or so.  He hasn't been home since the end of April and I have SURELY missed him!  I think he's getting a bit tired of me huggin' on him, but too bad!  Sunday was his birthday and we had 4 of us together minus the girl child in nursing school.  We had cake and we got him a nice gift that he'd been wanting for a long time.  We had grilled hamburgers and all the trimmings and enjoyed ourselves immensely!

Ever CAN'T find a good box for a present???

Enter Ch*rrios box - family size!  Works great!  AND I wrapped it in Sponge B*b Square P*nts paper!

Since I have my guys here this week, some long-needed projects that need man muscles and know-how were scheduled to be completed at Mom's request.  I've been wanting running water out to the  garden shed for a couple of years now - much easier to water that side of the garden AND water any chickens or livestock in the future.  It will eventually run out to the tractor barn which is another 100 yards or so but for now at least I won't be dragging 200 feet of garden hose around to water.  That sucker gets heavy!

A trench was dug out to the garden shed from the tap in the back yard and PVC pipe was laid.  Also, they ran the line up directly to the garden shed  porch and put a spigot there so I can have my old washtub right under it and wash veggies.  The drain run-off will have a short hose attached to direct it back to the garden or a small flower bed beside the garden shed. Fabulous!

Covering up the ditch with our trusty steed...

We were also needing a larger compost container. We had a little makeshift one for a couple of years but it was coming apart and we  noticed that some little varmints were getting in there and strewing some of the ingredients around outside.  My guys built this much nicer, much stronger, and much bigger compost container.  One side of it comes completely off - they fixed it where it would slide out the top somehow and we can get the tractor bucket in there to pick up loads of compost to put in the garden.  Ingenius!  Don't you think?  It's about 4'x8' in size and about 3.5' to 4' high on the sides.  I'm wondering if we need to put a top on it?  Doesn't it break down quicker? I think I read that somewhere - will have to do some checking on that...

My husband at first thought it was kind of unnecessary to have a compost bin, but after he saw how cool it was to have all that luscious broken-down good stuff to put in the garden, he really got into it.  He's always out there turning it and "going out to check on the compost", he says.  He's totally with the program now!

Now I'll have to really stay on top of collecting things from the kitchen, etc., to put in the compost. I sometimes forget and toss something in the trash or think it's something too small to worry about, but I'll be more watchful now.  I wanna have lotsa good compost to put in the garden next year. Oh, it's not big enough to do the whole garden area, but it'll sure help.  I'm thinking of adding a few raised garden beds next year and see if I like them as opposed to rows of continuous crops like I've been doing.  Cuts out a lot of weeds and easier to water and walk around.  We'll see...

Well, that's all I've got today.  We've got big plans all week long.  There's always so much to cram into the time that we have with our kids when they come home.  Fishing, shooting, cooking out on the grill, family get-togethers, golf for the sons --- speaking of,  I just LOVE when both my sons are here and they "hang out" and do "guy stuff" and all the male bonding.  My husband is with them as much as possible, but I love to see my two sons are spending precious time just with each other.  All of us who're moms and dads love that I'm sure!  I'm off to take some pics of my boys shooting! 

Keep your dress down!

Cats, Christmas and Tractor Girl

Guess what I did Saturday afternoon?  You'll never guess.  It won't be that exciting to you, but I had fun.  We had cleared some big piles of old rusted hay rings, old fencing and aluminum gates, etc., hauled all that off to the bulk metal place and gotten our little pile of money.  Then what was left was a jagged, holey and hilly landscape behind the barn - not huge, but unsightly and you couldn't drive on it easily.  So, hubby was manning the burning pile, and me?  Well, ME was manning the tractor and doing some leveling.  Moving dirt from here to there - there's a trick to handling the bucket and I think I've got it!  It's sorta fun!

None of my friends know how to run a tractor and bucket and brush hog and box blade but I do. I'm sure alot of you people do, too, especially those of you that have a farm or ranch. Imagine this - It was 65 degrees and the wind was blowing. The husband was cleaning up and piling up stuff for the burning pile (and there was alot of stuff), loading metal onto the big trailer, and here I am in my capris and flip-flops and a cap driving the tractor around dragging the bucket across big mounds of dirt to level it, picking up big loads of dirt and dropping it in the gulleys. Husband said I did a good job. Sorry I don't have a picture.

Guess I'm a farm girl now - cuz I can man the tractor  AND  I can operate that tractor in capris and flip-flops! Now how's that!  Actually, I think probably some of my friends and family think I've absolutely lost my mind, but that's okay - I'm doing exactly what I've wanted to do since I was a small kid. I'm still plotting when I'm gonna get my chickens.  I'm determined to have chickens in the spring. I'm gonna get my dad and me and him are going to get my coop built. I think I've about worn the husband down into letting me get some.

Went to the Farm/Ranch/Feed store Saturday, too, to pick up some more gopher traps. It was customer appreciation day, and Joe Bob had cooked two huge cauldrons of beef stew! Hot and mild - with big man-sized chunks of beef and vegetables, and a good seasoned broth with jalapenos and a touch of chili pepper.  MMMMMAAAAAANNNNN!  I think Joe Bob makes the best stew I've ever eaten!  I ate two bowls full! With crackers and cookies and soft drinks!  I love customer appreciation day at the Feed Store! And Joe Bob's stew!

Wanna see sumpin' purdy?

My roses are popping! They look great right now.  Thought you folks in the blizzard zone might like to see some flowers right about now...  It's just now starting to get cold. We've had only a couple of freezing nights or just below and the flowers are still thriving.  Here's another...

The window box is full of petunias.  The flower beds could use some attention, and the yard actually needs mowing one more time before real winter sets in.  Cain't even see the edge of the bed right now! The dadgum clover junk starts growing when it gets cool and tries to take over.  Gotta squash that quick!

I've done a good raking once already, but will have to do it again. The catawba trees are dropping their foot long bean pods and they ARE messy.  And they'll keep adroppin' 'em til spring.

Not much Christmasing going on yet.  We are having some renovations done at our house and so it puts a damper on trying to decorate - we're getting a new roof and gutters due to hail damage.  We had the outside painted, and next is the inside... May be putting the tree up on Christmas eve!!!

New topic - I'm looking for a new home for my kitty, Alice.  I've tried every way I can think of to keep her. She's having to stay in the house all the time now due to Jasper.  He beats her up if she steps one little toe out of the door.  He's been neutered, and Alice spayed, but we think he's just being territorial and agressive towards her.  He beats her up and he's so mean to her.  Otherwise, he is the sweetest and nicest cat you'd ever meet.  The other reason is that my allergies to Alice are making me sick.  I thought I was gonna have two nice outside cats, but I can't let her out or...

THIS is where she stays!  Up on the roof!  And in this weather, I just can't let her up there.  Jasper can't follow her up the big oak tree - he's too heavy, but he CAN get on the roof and chase her.  I'm scared she's gonna fall off.  AND she's not being a mouser/gopherer.  Jasper catches mice and gophers all the time! He's such a great farm cat - and HE is what I was looking for.  He eats his kills - all except the heads - he leaves them around for us to find them.  Ugh.  I've contacted family and friends and hopefully I'll be able to find a good home for Alice.

Hope your holiday busy-ness is fun and Christmasy and cozy! I appreciate you all more than you know!

Walk in the Woods...

Like to take a little walk with me?  I  usually walk around the farm through the woods for exercise most days when the weather is nice.  The trees are just about peak right now in color altho the leaves are falling fast and the wind is blowing.  Just grab a little jacket and come along with me on my walk...

Not sure what kind of tree this is along the fence line but it always turns this brilliant orange color. Let's turn along the woodline now. Okay?

I love how the leaves are strewn across our path...Look at the colors...  I wonder what's just around that bend in the path up there???

Up a little hill we must go.  Are you out of breath yet?  Let's keep going!

Oh lookie here!  Here's the turtle pond!  The pond is down - it's been so hot and dry this summer and we haven't caught up on our rainfall this year yet... Keep an eye out along the bank for snakes!

There's some kind of marker there on that tree - this must be the way!  Thank goodness!  I sure don't wanna get lost in the woods!

Deer antlers on this tree!  Wow.  Do you think maybe the Indians that used to inhabit this area put them there for some kind of marker???  Maybe!

The woods smell dark and dank and earthy and moist.  Let's keep going...

Oooo - I don't guess these are edible at all but they're kind of interesting-looking, aren't they?

Don't go through this way! There's an old gulch and creek down there over that little ridge.  Might be dangerous, might be snakes!  Sometimes the water's runnin' high!

But it looks like today it's running dry but you can see the water line on the trees.  There are lots of animal tracks in that sand there.

Here's a hickory nut tree that we moved from the deeps woods to this area.  I sure hope it makes it.  It was being swallowed up by all the trees and couldn't get any sun at all.

Looks like we're getting to end of our walk and we gotta kinda go around this big ole sweetgum tree.  It has a big hole in the front here that's sometimes full of water.

Look at this gorgeous, huge Hickory Nut Tree!  We've got several and they turn the most beautiful golden color in the fall!



Who's that there lurking in the woods with his chainsaw!  Hope there's not gonna be any funny business going on with that saw!

And here we are back at the farm house and the barn.  Thanks for going on my walk with me! Come back any time!!!