Around the neighborhood this morning…

To garden or not to garden….

It’s only the 30th of March, the garden centers are stocked with annuals, and I’m like a racehorse at the gate!  Do I plant, or do I wait?

I keep holding off, checking the forecast, it’s all good, I’m tempted to just go ahead and dig in the dirt, but I’m trying to hold off.  In the meantime I have something more to occupy my time, more about that later, possibly today ;o)

Or I could go on a picnic, this is one of my favorite spots. So many possibilities, but right now I’m going out to sing in the sunshine…

An evening drive…

Hubby had a meeting here tonight, so I took the girls and went to the duck pond.  The sun was setting on this second picture, what a gorgeous creature this is!!!!!!!

Once a country girl, ALWAYS a country girl…

I see beauty everywhere, even in this old barbed wire fence.  As I’m getting older, I’m finding that life really does come full circle.  I’ve always enjoyed the country, but now it’s more of a need.  I “need” to be with nature and experience it’s  daily rituals, life not dependent on what man has created, but what nature intended.

I can’t imagine a life lived indoors, with no “need” to experience the rhythms of the season.  I was born into a country life with nature as my playmate, and now, I find that once again it is thus, and I appreciate it more now than ever before. 

Country life, it’s a beautiful thing….

I’m not a photographer, but…

How can you not take good pictures when Mother Nature is giving us such a gorgeous palette to work with this spring.

I uploaded an album to Picasa, and thought some of you might enjoy the intensely amazing colors.  When I was working with the photos, I thought, “oh my, these pictures are so green they don’t look real.”   It’s just stunningly beautiful outdoors, so pretty that it’s hard for me to stay inside.

So take a peek at my album, sit back with a cup of tea and enjoy the beauty of nature.

~ jan

Deanna’s Kitchen Table

 

Didn’t my daughter-in-law do a great job with her spring table?  I love her Humpty Dumpty Cookie Jar, and her cake stands and those little mugs are so cute!  She posted this picture on her FaceBook page and I snagged it for all of you to see.

I do love a good tablescape, and this one is just spectacular!  Good job, sweet girl!!!!

The Bobbsey Twins at Home

When I was a little girl I loved The Bobbsey Twins. My favorites were "The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore" and "The Bobbsey Twins in the Country." I read my books over and over again when I was a child, I've loved to read my entire life.

Tonight I was messing around on my iPad and on a whim I Googled "the bobbseyntwins .epub" and right away this book popped up, I downloaded it and now I'm reading it, and I'm eight years old all over again. I can't help but wonder if Abby will enjoy these little stories or, belonging to this generation of children, will she be too sophisticated for these simple books. Time will tell, and you can bet that Grammie will do her darnedest to instill my love of reading the children's classics to my sweet little granddaughter.

Maybe I'll start picking them up on eBay now, and by the time she's old enough for them I'll have a big collection for her to chose from. Oh, would I have loved having more of these wonderful books when I was a little girl...

And who says you can't go back in time. Sure you can, you just have to be open to finding ways to experience life again through the eyes of your grandchild...

 

 

 

Don’t you love a pretty sunset…

It’s that time of year, switching out my closet….

Now, this is a job I detest in the best of times. My mother had a saying for chores she dreaded, and it was “I’d rather take a lickin’ from a chicken” and I most certainly would rather take a “lickin from a chicken” than switch out my closet, especially this year!  I long for my closet in our last house, hubby took a bedroom, complete with window seat, and turned the entire room into this wonderful closet, tons of shelves and bins, a dressing table, a white ceiling fan, it was wonderful and we wallpapered it in this really wide girly pink and white striped wallpaper, it was pure heaven and I never had to switch out seasons. *sigh*  And even though he gave me the walk-in closet in our master bedroom in the condo, there is no way that it will hold all of the clothes that I never wear.

So he got my summer clothes out of the attic, and I painstakingly, and I do mean painstakingly went through them and sorted them into piles.  Here’s how it went…

I have this enormous pile of cute clothes,  I call it, “not a shot in hell!”

I have a large pile, I call it, “if I diet religiously until July and eat nothing except salad-in-a-jar with no dressing, I “might” be able to wear some of this crap.

And then there is this itty bitty puny pile that I call, “if I really, really suck it in and ignore the muffin top, don’t button my pants and never look at myself from behind, I can wear these butt ugly clothes.

Just another day in paradise….. ROARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

And did I ever mention how much I hate shopping for fat clothes?  Well, I do!!!!!!  So I won’t!  I’ll just stay in the house and wear caftans!  Long, flowy caftans, maybe  leopard ones, and I’ll wear turbans so I don’t have to straighten my hair.  Hey, it worked for Thelma Roper back in the 70’s, why won’t it work for me?

I’ll be sure and post pictures…

Oh, what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day….

I took my breakfast down to the creek this morning for a solitary little picnic, and it was absolutely, positively spectacular!  I’m enjoying this unexpected early spring so much, I haven’t spent this much time outside in years.  I snapped a few pictures, Mother Nature is really strutting her stuff this year!!!!

A little gardening going on…

It’s cleanup time at the OK Corral.  We’re busy as bees on the patio, getting the pots ready for planting. 

It was such a mild winter, a lot of my herbs are coming back, I pruned, hubby raked, it’s been a productive morning.

In the back of my mind I keep wondering if we will get a snowstorm in April.  If those temperatures dip below freezing we are going to be in big trouble. I keep watching the extended forecast, so far so good.  But it’s an illusion, it’s too early to put in annuals, I just need to contain my spring fever until this time next month, and it’s easier said that done.

And that’s my morning on this sunny Tuesday.  Hope you are all enjoying the sunshine at your house.

~ jan

In a field of flowers….

Our little Huckleberry Finn…

Abby is doing my very favorite thing to do as a little girl, she’s throwing rocks in the creek!  Her Auntie Trisher took her to the water’s edge, and she had such a wonderful time.  Is there anything sweeter than a barefoot little girl in the springtime.

JUST GIVE ME A GUN!!!!!!!!

My computer is dead, my router is dying, and now my microwave, you know the one I hate more than life itself, well the fan turned itself on and will not shut off.  And as much as I hate it, I sure don’t want to buy a new one, this one is just a little over a year old.  Oh, of course, just old enough that it’s not under warranty.

Let’s see now, that’s $2,000 for a new iMac, $400 for a new microwave, and the router, that’s chump change, probably $75.

What’s next, the refrigerator, washer, dryer???????

Just bring it on, I can take it, I’m a big girl.

And the top o’ the mornin’ to all of you, too!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spring has sprung in Heavensville…

 

So much for healthy eating….

I was being really good yesterday, eating really healthy, and then…  my neighbor sent over Gigi’s Cupcakes.  I have no willpower, none, nada, el zippo!  Were they as good as they look?  Oh yeah…..

Faith Hill without her makeup...

More pictures here

Hot Diggity Dawg…..

I’ve blogged before about how much I love my electric Wolfgang Puck Pressure Cooker, no muss, no fuss, no mess in the kitchen.

Today I made hubby that great German Potato Salad that I posted on Jan CAN Cook, so I put my whole Yukon Gold Potatoes in the steamer basket of my pressure cooker, added a cup of water, and pressured them on high for six minutes, let the steam go down naturally, they were perfect, not falling apart, not mushy, just right.

So then I had to boil eggs, and I Googled and found that I could put them in the pressure cooker, too. Six minutes on low in the steamer basket, left them until the steam subsided and they came out perfect.

It’s a beautiful thing, that pressure cooker, works for me…

Marigold is three weeks old now…

Oh, what a precious little bunny she is…

I’m going to grow moss this year….

I was talking to my friend, Trish, earlier today about my two small flagstone paths that I have in my patio, and how it’s shady and always damp and that I want to grow moss around the stones and hopefully end up with a miniature version of this photo.

My theory was to dig it up from the woods and transplant it, but she told me that I could blend moss with buttermilk in my blender, so I’m going to try it and hope that LC doesn’t realize what’s going on.  Oh sure, he won’t…

But anyhoo, here’s what I found in case anybody else is interested -

You can “propagate” moss by taking a handful of moss adding about one cup of buttermilk and one cup of water and mixing it in the blender. Take the concoction and pour or paint it onto the surfaces that you want to grow moss. Remember that moss likes moist shady conditions. If the area that you are planning your moss garden has these conditions, it should grow fine. Moss Acres sells spores online. There are many moss species native to your area which can be found in the local forests. Just take a short hike into these areas and you should find plenty of different moss species growing on rocks, rotting logs and along creeks. It is very easy to scoop some up and put it into a plastic bag for home. It transplants very easily.