The Case of the Missing Bowl...

We interrupt this broadcast to bring you the following ------ Be on the lookout for a deranged, thieving, dangerous criminal!  Something strange is happening at the farmhouse.  An investigator or a ghostbuster may need to be hired to solve this crime.

It all started when one black and white female feline subject arrived at Sand Flat Farm about 2 weeks ago.  Everything was clicking along just fine.  Said subject was settling in to her new home and new routine with no problems.  Subject was taking her meals on the front porch of the farmhouse located at Sand Flat Farm from white Corelle bowls that her owners brought out for her each day usually during afternoon hours.  There was also another piece of evidence in addition to the Corelle bowls - an antique berry bowl that belonged to the feline's owners also went missing.

The bowls were left overnight on the front porch to allow our feline subject to eat to her heart's content and upon rising in the mornings, the bowls had mysteriously vanished without a trace.  Feline subject was questioned extensively but seems to have no knowledge of the thefts and to date has not been charged with any crime due to lack of evidence. If she does know something, she's not talking.  Her owners started placing her bowl on top of a rustic white table meant to hold flowers and attractive junque thinking that perhaps this would be a safer place to put the bowls and feline could eat in relative safety.

This didn't work either.  Another attempt to thwart the theft of the bowls was made by placing them into a pet crate under the table.  Again, the bowls disappeared.  To date there  have been a total of 6 bowls that have gone missing.  Owners have checked and searched all under the bushes in front of the porch and around the yard and even made searches on foot through surrounding pastures, but to no avail. The bowls seem to have vanished without a trace.

Was it a packrat?  Is there a family of rats up under the farmhouse that do their dirty work at night?  Did our feline subject transform into the Incredible Hulk Kitty and drag the bowls off the porch and table and pull them up under the porch herself?  This is not believed to be the case as the bowls are almost as large as the feline. It is impossible for the human species to see under the porch because the building comes down almost even with the dirt.

Upon further investigation, a large, odiferous pile of canine  excrement was found near the scene of the crime and this led all involved in this case to suspect that the perp may be either the neighbor-down-the-road's mammoth Pyrenese dog that uses our land as his cut-thru to other places he wants to visit (always with two large nanny goats in tow - they go wherever he goes) OR the mange-y loner coyote that has been banished from the pack and has been spotted in the late evenings hanging out by the pond and the surrounding woods for the last 3 years.   The suspect visits the porch after daylight hours to confiscate said bowls and removes them to his lair.  That is the thinking at this time. Owners will have to stay up very late at night and keep watch to see who our suspect is.  We will keep you updated on this case as soon as facts are available.

Meanwhile, bowls will have to be replaced.  Heavy crocks are being considered as well as disposable bowls, however landowners do not want to see bowls all over pastures and surrounding countryside.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

Edited to add:  Aunt Amelia is worried about little Alice.  Let me say that Farm Kitty Alice usually stays up under the porch where nothing can reach her.  If she hears a bump or sees something out of the ordinary, she's a blur getting under the porch.  I think she'll be okay.  Hey, she's a farm cat - she'll have to be tough and act like one.  We can't keep her in the house - Me and Hayley are highly allergic, unfortunately...

My Sis & Me & Alice

This past weekend, my sister came to the farm to help me make jelly and pickles.  We've got plums running out our ears around here from my daddy's tree.  We had two big ole 5 gallon buckets and another bucket full on Saturday.  I'd already put up a slew of jelly already, but we can't let this go to waste. There's also another bucketload of ripe plums still on the tree and a bunch on the ground! We've been givin' 'em away!

We cooked  plums down nearly all day long, and also made jelly while we waited. My seester is my bestest friend in the whole wide world. We're both country girls 'n we figger we can do just about anything alone or together that a man can do -'cept pee standin' up!  And we could probly do that, too, just might not be able to hit what we're aimin' for!  Why wait on your husband to do somethin' for ya when you can probly do it yourself, and you don't hafta wait!  Together me 'n her have gotten into some fine messes, but always got ourselves out of 'em.  We can fix stuff, build stuff, we can fish and hunt, and clean a deer & fish, we can re-wire a dryer from gas to electric (actually seester did most of that), you name it, we've probly done it.  We hung around with our do-it-all dad all the time.  He is still the bee's knees to us!

OK, back to jelly.

Here are the plums cookin' down. It smells heavenly to breathe in all that lusciousness!

Here's me in my farmhouse kitchen warshin' more plums for the jelly...

Sis is dipping up juice to run through the strainer. We put the whole plums in the pot, and the skins and seeds come out in the strainer and we're left with just juice!

We're havin' a laugh over somethin'.  We laughed all day long. AND we never could figger out who took our picture together. Was it Mom? She was there for awhile, or was it my daughter? She was there for awhile, too! Not the most flattering of photos, but good memories nonetheless!  And voila! The final product!!! I sent half home with her for her family and some to mom and dad.  It was so good!  Now with some homemade bread and real butter, I'll be in hog's heaven!  We still have almost a whole 'nuther bucket of plums, ripening and fermenting. I hope I can git 'em done before they rot!

Alice the farm kitten is doing so well.  She is growing right before our eyes.  She's getting less skittish and runs out to the car when we get to the farm.  Loud noises still make her nervous and sometimes she'll take off and run under the porch.  But she's getting better.  She's finally started purring whenever you pick her up and scratch her.  It's been awhile since I've had a cat.  I've had cats all my life and it's nice to have another one. I still think I'm gonna git her a buddy.

Is this not the cutest kitten you've ever seen? She always has dirt in her nose from playing under the porch all the time.  She seems very healthy and playful and she's eating like a little pig.  I'll have to get her to the vet for a check up soon.   Take care, people!  Have a great week!  And keep your dress down!

More Rain & Our Trip to Jefferson, TX

Hey my lovelies - over the last two days we've gotten about 10 inches of rain. Can you believe it? We caught up on our rainfall totals for East Texas all in two days! Some places around here are having problems with flooding, bridges washed out and roads washed out, and even a few homes flooded. I personally didn't have any problems. You oughta see my pastures and my garden! WOW - what a little natural rainwater can do!!!

Guess I must apologize for my crudity on my last post. Most of you avoided acknowledging my crass-ness when I called our torrential rains a gully-washer, a frog-strangler, and a t*rd-floater. Ya'll made me feel bad, so I deleted that. However, I did have one blogger buddy comment AFTER I'd already deleted it that a t*rd-floater is exactly what they called it, too. Yea! Somebody understands where I come from! But, to those of you who were offended I apologize.

OK, on to other matters! If you follow Debbie Wisdom at her blog, Wisdom, then you'll know that she, Tara from New Day, New Seasons and I had a blogger buddy get-together and we all met up in Jefferson, Texas, on Tuesday! We had the BEST TIME EVER!!! We visited this very cool Confederate cemetery first...
This was the Scottsville cemetery just outside of Marshall... Beautiful monuments of old, lots of stories that we'll never know, babies, soldiers, husbands, wives... I always wonder what their lives were like... This was the family chapel...


Here is one of the monuments - the cemetery was very well cared for...

Here's Debbie checking out some of the headstones. A bunch of the gravesites had little wrought-iron fences around them, and alot also had footstones...


This beautiful monument was called the weeping angel - it was gorgeous & I'd love to paint it someday!

And I don't wanna bore you with too much cemetery stuff, but here were my two buddies having way too much fun in such a  somber place!

In Marshall, we visited the old rennovated Weisman Building - a used-to-be a department store downtown. It's now been converted into a lovely antique place with a WONDERFUL eatery where we had lunch. I forgot to take a picture of my lunch but it was DELISH - chicken salad, tuna salad, spinach quiche, banana nut bread, fruit - YUM!

We then pedaled our way on up to Jefferson and spent the rest of the day cruising 'round the place, checking out all the bed/breakfasts (wow - they're were way more than I remembered!) and they were SO beautiful.  We visited a few shops, visited the old restored Excelsior Hotel (where I heard there were ghosts, but we didn't see any), and ate our way through the afternoon.  We had coconut pie at one eatery and a root beer float for me at another place.  Huge hydrangeas in the garden at the Hotel in this photo - they were in the fountain area...

I guess you could say this little guy could be a ghost from the Excelsior Hotel - he appeared each spring and disappeared each winter.

At the end of the afternoon, we sat outside and enjoyed some cloudy weather and scooted inside quickly as a storm hit.  We got to sit inside for an HOUR and visit and laugh and cut up!

Look who we ran into at the General Store???  Why, John Wayne!!!  Tara here had to take her turn giving the Duke a big hug!  But he kept his stoic face.  Matter of fact, he never changed his expression when each of us hugged him and posed with him!  Come on Duke - lighten up!!!

Well, I had 50 pictures I could show you, but maybe in another post.  All I know is that these two girls are precious and special to me.  I had gotten to know them via their blogs and so just meeting them in person was the icing on the cake!  We all learned so much more about each other and it seems like I've known them forever.  Our personalities just clicked and I have never laughed so much as I did Tuesday!  At least not in a long long time.  I can't remember when I've had such a fun getaway.  We missed a couple of gals that were supposed to come, so I'm hopin' we can repeat this blog buddy meetin' and just have a big ole blogger convention!!!  Thanks for Tuesday, Debbie & Tara - love you two, too!!!

RAIN!

IT'S RAINING TODAY!!!

It's come a gully-washer!  A Frog-strangler!  The 8-10 inches that we were behind this year so far is ALL COMING DOWN TODAY!    My garden may float away, but I won't have to water for 3 hours this afternoon!  It's coming down so hard I cain't even see my car from my office!!!

Lotsa farmers 'round here needed it alot worse than me, but I'm so thankful!

Cain't nobody water a garden like the Lord!!!   THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, Lord!

Pay It Forward 2

Hi folks!  Whatchy'all been doin'?  Me?  Well, lookie here what I got in the mail yesterday!

This gift is from Sunny at Sunny's Place.  She is doing a "Pay It Forward" giveaway. I'm participating, too.  Look at the lovely things she sent my way - a beautiful candle holder and votive, some handmade (by Sunny) candles from her real beeswax when she was raising bees (wait - I mean beekeeping), a little windchime that makes the sweetest sounds and this sweet book entitled His Princess, Love Letters From the King, which is just grand. I can't wait to read it. Short devotions that I will be able to share with my daughter about the love that our Heavenly Father has for his daughters in Christ.

Sunny, Thanks so much for this lovely gift.  I know I'm going to enjoy it immensely.  Now, I have 3 sweet friends that I am "paying it forward" to, so they will be getting something from me very soon!!!

Got WORMS???

Well, WE GOT 'EM! Hornworms that is - on the tomato plants. They are huge. They start out little bitty and in a day or two or three they've eaten enough of the plants that they are engorged and sure make a mess when you snip 'em in half with your garden shears.  They leave little poops everywhere, too. I wanted to just snip 'em, but Tony said he was gonna leave 'em in the metal pot in the sunshine... They've bitten holes in some of the tomatoes, too.  I've dusted with Sevin so we'll see...

Got baby birds?  Yes?  We do, too, baby mockingbirds.  The nest is in front of my kitchen window in the crepe myrtle tree.  I can do the dishes and watch the mama bird stuffing bugs down their throats. I'm keeping an eye on 'em to see when they jump out of the nest or fall out.  We've got cats all around.  I guess I should just let nature take its course.

Good night, friends.  I'm sleepy.  Take good care of yourselves and I'll see ya on the flipside!