New Blog Buddy Debbie

Hey people - get on over to my new friend Debbie's entertaining blog - Attracted to Shiny Objects! She is so funny - read back about her funny escapades - I think her blog title attests to her personality for sure (Just kiddin', sorry Debbie!)  She has a charming country home and is racing around chasing her tail like most of the rest of us with a million and one projects and a lovely family! Very sweet gal - go see her, and tell her I sent you!

Garage Sale Finds

Sunday night, a quick review of Friday garage sales.  I only went to one this week, squeezing it in between bank runs and post office.  I've been looking for something to help me organize my little garden shed at the farm and I stumbled upon the neatest thing!!!  No, it's not pegboard. You know how you stack all your garden implements in the corner and they all slide eventually and fall down and you step on them and they're in the way, or you get too many in that corner and then you can't find anything you're looking for cuz you grab a handle and have to follow it down with your eyes to see what you've got ahold of, and dirt and hay collect behind them and you have to move every stinkin' one into another corner so you can clean out from behind it? (how's that for a run-on sentence?)

It's THIS!  Can you tell what it is???   Or once was???  Here's another picture...

Now, do you know what it is???  It came out of an old lumber yard.  It used to house WEATHER STRIPPING of all different sizes.  Isn't it a cool color?  Vintage green.  Must've been a really "with it" color back then, because I see SO many different things painted this color.  And it was only $10.00!!!

Anyway, I thought it would make an excellent storage place for all my garden tools.  There are slots in the top that you can slide your hoes, shovels, rakes, etc. down into.  It has a cool lid, too, but of course I can't close it with the stuff in it.  I thought it made quite a unique storage place.

Also, I found at the same sale, all these wooden boxes, made from pieces of old produce crates.  Some were small with lids that swung open sideways attached on only one end by a nail.  Some were old drawers with dividers that had been used at the lumber yard to store different size nails and hardware.   I thought some of them might be of storage use in the garden shed or I guess could be used as planters.  $ .25 EA!I'm open for suggestions on these boxes - what do ya'll think could be done with them?  I'd love to get some more ideas for them. Would you paint them different colors or would you leave them alone and let the old produce marking show?  That was mostly on the bottoms. It wouldn't show anyway. 

Some of the drawer pulls were made out of old coke bottle lids with a screw.  It was definitely a make-do situation on these little boxes.  I love how frugal people used to be and would just make do and be creative and use what you had on hand to make things work.

Anyway, we worked all day at the farm. Sorry I didn't get any fall pictures taken. There is so little time on the weekends - we have THREE houses we're trying to keep up right now - our home, my in-laws' house, and the farmhouse & land.  It's running us ragged.  We've got to do something with one of the houses QUICK!  I'm going to have an estate sale at my inlaws' house ASAP.  Gotta do it before the holidays or just wait until maybe February or March.

Well, girls, Ya'll have a wonderful Monday - I 'magine I'll be staying pretty busy this week.

Keep you dress down!

Calling all Pellet Gun Owners!

Would somebody please come down here to my office building and take out these stupid crows on top of my metal roof PLEASE!!!  The sweet gum balls are falling on my roof and it sounds like those mini-buzzards are playing soccer up there.  Jumping up and down, cawing, and trying to stab the sweet gum balls and digging them out of the gutters. It's not pecking - it's hammering!  Sounds like a jackhammer!  They've made my office roof their new playground for the last 2 weeks! I'm surprised I don't have a leak in the roof yet!

Gopher Broke!

Got gophers?  We do. Hate them little suckers, rather diggers.  They are digging up our entire yard at the farm.  They are in the hay pastures and I guess that's alright, but I don't want 'em in the yard.  When you have sandy soil it's perfect for digging and burrowing.  It's a little scary to walk in the yard because you might step in a hole, or at least a soft spot and twist your ankle. Don't need to do that.

I bought me 4 traps. I've caught about 5 gophers in the last week so far and am working on the others.  Yesterday afternoon, it was a battle of wills with this one particular gopher. I knew he was purty big cuz he had huge dirt mounds and large holes in the ground.  I'm gettin' pretty good at finding the main tunnel. I poke around the mound with a long sharp stick and feel for a soft spot, dig straight down in a single motion and lift out the dirt. There you can see the run. There's kind of a talent to finding the main run and I guess I've acquired that talent.  Something extremely valuable I can use in the future.

Then you tie a string or a piece of wire on the back of the trap so's the gopher won't pull it down in the hole, set the trap and stick it way down in the hole - check.  Then you wanna make it a little dark in there so they won't see the trap. I shove some leaves or some loose grass and dirt down in there - check. Sometimes I put a little peanut butter on the square metal piece on the end for bait - check. (Hey they make poison peanuts to kill them so I figure what the heck)  Now, the trap's in the hole, the hole's covered up, and the other end of the string or wire you stake it in the ground outside the mound - check.  Now sit back and wait.

Sometimes you have to wait just a little bit, sometimes it may take a day or two.  If you haven't caught anything after a couple of days, it's probably a dry run and you need to try another mound.

ANYWAY, yesterday, I was going after this particular gopher, dug out a hole, found the run, set the trap, staked my string, and went to set a trap elsewhere.  Ok, I go back about 10 minutes later, move some of the leaves and dirt away and lo and behold, MY STRING HAS BEEN CHEWED IN HALF and the trap's gone!  I had to dig down and to the side another foot and finally found the trap - still unsprung and just a little piece of string still attached.  So I reset everything, put a new piece of string on the trap and waited.  Come back about 15 minutes later, SAME THING!  This time I had to dig even farther. Found my trap still unsprung.

OK, This is WAR!!!  (cue "Caddy Shack" music here)  I go to the garden shed and git me a piece of thin wire and attach it to the trap. He ain't gettin' away this time!  I'm talking and fussing out loud now - (cue Bill Murray)  Here we go again. I bring a spoonful of peanut butter outside and load up my trap, stake it out with wire and water my roses.

I pull on the wire, it's not wantin' to come out of the hole. It's stuck & I have to git my little shovel under it and bring it out.  There attached by a little piece of stomach skin was MR. GOPHER - nearly big as a rat, and he's jumpin' all around tryin to get loose.  First one I've caught alive. 

Now, I'm a big animal-lover & don't like killing animals no matter what kind - except snakes. But I can't let him loose to keep digging up the yard. I call my sister and ask her opinion. She's a big non-squeamish-do-it-yourselfer-cuz-you-don't-wanna-wait-around-on-your-husband type of girl like me. Wrong choice.  I thought she was going to tell me to take his head off with the shovel. No, she said I should let him go. WHAT?  Of course, it's not her yard and she doesn't have gophers.  So she shamed me into letting him go. BUT I let him go way down in the pasture by the pond. Hopefully he'll never make it back up to my yard.

I feel like a failure somehow. If I'm gonna be a farmgirl I've got to learn to do what has to be done. I wimped out yesterday.  I've always prided myself on being able to take care of business that has to be taken care of. It won't happen again - PROMISE!   ;o)

In the meantime, I've got Mr. Gopher by the tail and he's twistin all around trying to grab me and take a hunk out of my finger with those big ole gnawing teeth of his. Every time I tried to move him with my stick he's chompin on the stick, the trap and my gloved hands. Thank goodness for leather gloves! If he HAD of bitten me I guess I could have carried out my farmerly duties to cause his demise posthaste! So I carry him by the tail out to the pond and set him down in the dirt where he starts scurrying around looking for a place to hide.  I think he'll be alright.  I'll just let Mother Nature take care of him.

So that's what I did all afternoon yesterday.  Kathy B over at  Spot on Cedar Pond has been after moles at her place.  What'd you do fun and entertaining yesterday?

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jog!

Hi friends. Back from Nashville TN - a quick weekend trip but a long journey. From my house a good 10 hrs up there and 10 hrs back. We dawdled a bit on the way back, stopped for coffee, stopped to potty, stopped at Cracker Barrel in Little Rock, stopped at the farm, stopped to check on Tony's mom at her memory care facility - it took us about 11 hrs and we dragged our tired rear ends in about 9 p.m. this evening.

Here's Adam and Tony walking back up the alley behind Adam's apartment. I love Nashville. Adam lives on Music Row. Most all of the old homes from eras gone by have been converted into quaint little offices or apartments.  He works, lives, and does everything right there. His studio and music writing activities are right there.  I love the old house he is living in. Instead of staying at a hotel, he let us stay there with him.  We had a good time and enjoyed spending time with him just hanging out. He's supposed to send me a picture I took of him and his Texas birthday cake that is on his I-phone.

I saw this picturesque farm driving around. Tennessee is SO beautiful. Lots of little farms (and big ones, too), beautiful country with rivers and mountains and the trees were just beginning to turn color a little.

We spent the day just driving around the countryside, taking in some of the smaller towns around Nashville. My folks used to live in Dickson which is just a bit west.  It's a neat little town full of nicer than nice people. My parents lived there about 10 years ago for about 5 years before moving back to Texas. They loved it. They would be living there still if it weren't for their grandkids being here - both mine and my sister's kids.

We drove over to Franklin, too, and I decided then and there that if I couldn't live in Texas, Franklin is where I'd wanna be. A quiet homey town with a square and lotsa churches, schools, families and outside of the hustle and bustle of Nashville.  It was so friendly and neat as a pin and clean.  There was also a Civil War Battleground there as well as a cemetary.  My guys were not in the picture taking mood, but sat in the truck as I went running up and down the road snapping off a few pics.

Right behind the cemetary there was a farmers market sort of place that was all decked out in its fall finery. They had all things autumn and it was so colorful.  The guys were rushing me so I did not go in, but took a few shots from the street.

They had all kinds of veggies, pumpkins, gourds, tomatoes, etc. I would love to have lingered a bit, but NOOO.  And of course, as I headed back the car, Adam honked the truck horn right when I walked in front of the truck and scared the pee-diddle out of me. Even tho I KNEW he would do it, I still jumped!

Do not adjust your computer - your eyes are not deceiving you.  This is how most of my photos turned out whilst riding down the road.  I saw some of the most beautiful colors - all kinds of farmland, golden fields of grains, cotton, ready to harvest, some already harvested, grain silos, barns, farms, cotton gins running kicking up a dust - such wonderful photos ops. Would they stop?  NOOOOOO.  Soooo..... I did good to get the photos that I got.  Story of my life.

We ate and ate of course - why is it that all social activities and family activities seem to revolve around food? I don't know but they do.  So we indulged in that particular activity freely.  I'm full and tired and happy to have seen my oldest and now I'm ready to go to bed.  I missed you all - leave me a comment and let me know if you missed me, too!

Keep ur dress down!