Autumn, Aprons, A Rose is a Rose...

What a glorious morning!  The last couple of days the temps have been in the upper 60's first thing in the morning when I go out to feed and water my chickies.  I feel a little "fallish" coming on!  I don't wanna rush but it makes me long for cool days, sweaters, soup on the stove, and one of Becky's soy candles in Pumpkin Spice burning on the table.  You know that delightful shivery feeling of autumn?

Well, we've got upper 90's again coming back, but it sure is nice! What's going on in your neck of the woods?  I'm trying to get a little painting done today.   Something new for me - I'll be sure and post pictures over at South Light art blog later - link on my sidebar if you're interested...

Here, at the farm, let's see who's minding the henhouse....

Well, for starters, Mr. Black/Yellow Garden Spider is keeping watch on the back side of it, and...

Miss Gypsy is guarding the front.  Actually, I had thrown some rolls to the chickens and she tried to do some digging to get one of them and I had to shut that down.  I even gave her one of her own and she buried it behind the AC unit outside.  Silly dog.  She comes to the back door every morning and asks for her dog biscuit.  Sometimes, she eats it, sometimes, she buries it.

Did I ever show you  my vintage apron collection?  Well, if I did, you're gonna see it again.

I didn't mean to have a collection, but it just happened.  I had a couple of aprons that were my grandmothers' that I'd saved through the years.  As I visited garage/junk sales, vintage aprons kept drawing my attention and were so cheap (most of the time).  When I looked at them, I immediately thought about the women who wore them, the work that they did to feed their families, the hands that dried themselves on them, the eggs and garden goodies that were collected in them, the children who grabbed onto them pulling at their mom for some attention, and perhaps even the tears that were shed on them.  

One by one, another worn and faded apron came home with me on my forays.  I now have 18 - EIGHTEEN - yes, you heard me right, 18.  It just happened.  But you know what's fun now?  When we have friends over to the farm for supper, I shall have all the ladies put on one of my vintage aprons while we're getting everything ready.  It'll be fun for all of us!  The aprons all hang on the door in my kitchen so they're easy to grab one up and go.

See what my sweet husband brought home last night?  He stopped and bought me 3 bouquets of Tyler roses!  They are so beautiful.  "Just because..."  And they smell heavenly...  I had enough to make two pitchers full.  I love roses - I don't care if they're not the swanky long-stemmed ones.  I think I actually prefer the little Rose-stand roses - they're lovely, really smelly (  :)))) and easy to put in my vintage pitchers and vases.  He was so thoughtful!  And I'm so lucky!

Take care, friends - you coastal folks look out for that hurricane a-comin'.  And by all means, no matter what you do, Keep Your Dress Down!

What Do We Have Here?????

Be glad you were not at my house Thursday and Friday...  I was SOME put out...

Thursday, I had a nice lady call me and offer to adopt Lucy, my son's calico cat I told you about.  She was coming on Friday to look at her and possibly take her.  I had put Lucy on Craigsl*st to see if I could find her a good home.  Well, I went to take Lucy's collar off  because it seemed to be bugging her (which I had bought her a couple of weeks ago - it had a bell on it - I like to know where she is...) and it had irritated her neck  and she'd been scratching and her neck was all red and angry-looking.  So I thought I'd put a little  N*eosporin on it just for good measure.  I also tore off a clean piece of towel and safety pinned it around her neck so she'd not be able to scratch and put her in the laundry room in her basket to go to bed.  Ok, everything seemed to be fine.

We went out to eat at our favorite Mexican food place Thursday evening and when we got home, of course, it was dark.  I saw Gypsy out in the front yard playing with something and having the biggest time.  Altho the house porch lights were on I couldn't tell what it was that she was playing with.  We got out of the car and walked up to the house, and what do we have here!  There was a rooster laying in the yard that immediately hopped up and jumped on the porch with great difficulty and hid under the wicker settee.  There were tail feathers laying in the yard. Oh great.  We have a chicken ketchin' dog.

I jumped all over Gypsy and yelled at her - she knew I was mad.  She was very cowed down and submissive.  I clipped her leash on and  tied her where she couldn't get to the rooster.  I'm sure she thought I was going to be so proud of the cool play-purty that she brought home - you could just tell by her happy bouncy smile when we drove up.  The rooster was injured and looked like it definitely had a broken wing, so Tony went in and got one of his pistols and shot the roo and put it in a sack in a  box in the back of his truck.

Not sure where the rooster came from, but I know sometimes our neighbor's free-range chickens come on to our 80 acres on the north end.  Whadaya do?  Yes, I need my dog to stay on my property.  But there's dogs everywhere around here and they all run loose in the country, as well as the chickens and coyotes.  Got any good advice out there?  I'm going to get some chickens, too, and I don't want Gypsy playing with or killing them. Perhaps I'm being too optomistic here, but usually I can tell her or show her something that I want her to do or don't want her to do and she seems to understand.  She picks up things real quick and she really wants to please me.   I THINK I might could teach her not to mess with the chickens, but I can't teach her that if I don't have any right now.  Any and all advice would be appreciated.  I sure don't want to have to give Gypsy away and I can't keep her tied up all the time either, but I don't want my neighbors mad at me either.  'Course, they ARE letting their chickens run on our place...

Later in the evening, I went out and took Bug to potty (the chihuahua) and I was sitting on the settee waiting.  Gypsy came over, creeping up submissively and apologized so sweetly and I pet her a little bit.  Then she started barking at something we heard out in the darkness.  We could hear something moving about and didn't know if it was a varmint or what. She's such a good watch dog!  We eased over in the direction of the noise and it seemed to be coming from the back of the truck.  What do we have here? That dad-gum rooster was having post-mortem spasms or something!  It was moving around in the sack!  And it was deader'na doornail!  Is that possible?????  Scared the pee-diddle out both of us!  I told Tony and he said he was NOT going to shoot the rooster again.  He shot it 3 times.  And it was already dead.

Friday morning, I got up early (I always do) and made my way to the laundry room to let Lucy out.  Well, what do we have here?  CAT PO*P and CAT THROW-UP all over the the laundry room floor and the rug, too!!!  Evidently, she had gotten under that towel I'd put around her neck and licked all the Neosp*rin off and it made her sick to her stomach and she was going both ways!  Poor Lucy!  POORER ME!  Guess who gets to clean it all up?  Tony looks at me and says, "She's your cat, don't look at me!"  So I cleaned it up.  So, a lesson - if your cat gets clogged with hairballs, Neosp*rin works great!  (disclaimer - I don't recommend it - try some oil of some kind...)

Then I walked outside to let Bug out.  What do we have here?  I'd been putting Christmas items out on Thursday, and had some boxes sitting on the porch.  Gypsy had helped herself to one of the boxes FILLED with newspapers, and she had shredded both the box AND the newspapers and they were strewn all over the front yard!  I thought when I went to bed the night before that I really needed to move those boxes.  Thank goodness newspapers were all that were in the box! 

SOOOOO, as I'm cleaning up the mess in the front yard and as the morning work traffic is whizzing down our little country  road and all eyes are panning RIGHT to see our beautifully decorated (with cardboard & newspaper) yard with me in my flannel plaid sleepin' pants and jacket and no make-up and bed-head scraping up and picking and chasing down in the wind little slivers of newspapers and trying to keep them in the garbage bag!  TALK ABOUT WHITE TRASH!  And Tony says, "you're the one that wanted animals".  And smiles real big.

AND what ELSE do we have here?  My wonderful, thoughtful, kind and generous husband, dressed and ready for work and he's standing on the front porch enjoying my frustration.  Not only that, he's singing, "Welcome to my world! won't you come on in????"  waving his arms like an opera singer with an audience and making up silly verses about living on the farm and the animals and all the crap and inconvenience and mess they make!  Did he offer to help??? NO way!  He's thoroughly enjoying my dilemna.  I was so perturbed but he was having such a great time and singing at the top of his lungs - I'm sure anyone with their car window down could hear him.  I just had to bust out laughing - he was so funny and I couldn't help myself.  I had to laugh cuz I was too mad to be mad.  I'm still keeping my critters and I'm gonna get me some more.

How was YOUR weekend?

California Trip Part 1

Thought I might share a few photos of our California trip that my husband and I took together last week. We flew into LA, rented a car, and toured all around up the Pacific Coast Hwy 1, and had a fabulous time together!  I know now why people love living in California - it's beautiful, the weather was practically perfect, not too hot, and there's SO much to see and do!

First thing we did was drive down to San Juan Capistrano. I've been wanting to see that mission forever!  I love old Mexican missions and the architecture.  So Tony indulged me and I took so many pictures there I have LOTS of painting material!  Let me show you just a few:

Below is a photo of the new sanctuary that was built a while back.  Part of the old mission was damaged (I believe in an earthquake) and the new building was built later.  It's beautiful inside and out!

The only thing I bought myself (besides food) was a nice coffee table cookbook from Mission San Juan Capistrano that was put together by the local ladies organization there.  I'll have to show you a  picture of it. It's got lots of paintings of Capistrano in it - it's the most painted and photographed mission of all the California missions from what I understand.  I'm anxious to try some of the recipes in it, too!

Our trip was so much fun - it was a great time to get away as the kids (in California) were back in school and there were no crowds anywhere we went.  I'll be back tomorrow and show you some of the La Brea Tar Pits and fossils in LA!  I know you can't wait!

To Be 17 Again...

It was all about the car back then. All the girls wanted to date him.  We met when we were 15.   My boyfriend (later to be husband) had undoubtedly the coolest car in our high school. I kid you not. A 1970 sky-blue Pontiac Firebird with the flip tail on the back with white leather top and white leather interior.  While most speedometers went up to 120, this car's speedometer went to like 160. (I hope he never went that fast.)  There were a few roads in our area with steep hills, one of which was called Suicide Hill, that he took me on a time or two.  It was too scary for me.  I thought we were going to go airborn!  He now says he doesn't know why his dad let him have that car - he wouldn't have let our boys have a car like that!

At our high school, Ag was the big thing. Very country town with lots of agriculture/cattle stuff going on. You were cool if you were in Ag/FFA and raised cows and had horses, etc.  He did. He and his daddy raised Charolais cows.  I was immediately attracted to him. I thought he'd never notice me until I drew a very detailed  picture of a horse and "accidently" dropped by his desk in English class.  He never knew what hit him.  He was all over that, and the rest was history. 

He was, at our red neck high school, a leader, made good grades, was Student Council President and class president and all that.  We attended all the dances together & it was so much fun!  We knew all the same people, and also, there were about 6 of us couples that were high school sweethearts that wound up getting married, and all but one of them have stayed married and live in our hometown still!  I did Drill Team (which I loved). Why, when Earl Campbell took our high school to the State Playoffs in 1974, we got to strut our stuff in the Astrodome!  Cool for a small town girl! 

Our school counselor, Mr. Brown, also taught Ag, so he'd get his favorite Ag guys out of class and they'd go mess around during school hours - go to the donut shop, go to the school farm, go run errands for Mr. Brown - man they had a great time. I wasn't so lucky to get to do that!

Look at the styles in this photo - short shorts for guys and girls, too, but this day I didn't know we were going to be washing his "Blue Baby".  This was a year or two before we became engaged I think. We didn't marry til we were 21, with college and all that.  I ran across this photo a day or two ago, and I just wanted to share it with you - good memories!  I'd love to find a car just like this one and give it to him.  He wishes for it back sometimes... Ya'll have a great weekend! Stay warm!