Monthly Archives: August 2012

Walking Around On Swinging Bridge Road

Hello everyone! “Mavis” found my blog and commented on it. Hi Mavis! It’s fun when someone I don’t know finds me and LIKES me! Just so you’ll know, I can’t see who is following the blog unless a comment is left. I can see the number of views, and I can actually block IP addresses for spammers or trolls, but I don’t really know who reads until a comment is left. I know I like Mavis because she is a canner. Yeah Mavis!

So…I worked today. I’m working until the end of August! Anyway, I got home from work and as my diet has blown up this past two weeks, I decided to go for a walk.  Mike was going to take the “dear girls” (our dogs Gracie and Luckie) for a “loop” on the “outer belt” of Mendota (large Swinging Bridge Road loop) so he dropped me off. I decided to take you along on my walk.

This is the first little face I saw on Swinging Bridge.  Let me introduce you to Patty.

Patty is a rescue dog. She has quite a big of Great Pyranese in her, but today that is not what she is talking about. She is talking about the very bad haircut her Mommy gave her.

Patty:   “Look…she cut my fur!!

 Punkin:  “You don’t expect me to look at you, do you?”  

Patty:  “I don’t care how I look..I love my Mommy.”

And just like that, it was time to visit the chickens.  As we enter the wire enclosure, we’re greeting by a Welcome Feather.  These are no ordinary chickens.

These chickens live at the Dean’s Hen Hilton.    How many hens do you know that live like this?

The sunflower shelter is made completely out of recycled materials.  I had to insert a large picture.   (I’m using a new photo editing software…free of course…hope it’s not all elongated!)    Very cool.

Speaking of needing a haircut…see the feet on this chick…

I think Margie said that the chicken pictured above is a Brahma.   We weren’t quite sure if this is a rooster or a hen.  No one is crowing but no one is laying yet!   It will happen soon!

Here’s another sweet girl…actually two sweet girls.  Margie and one of her Aracaunas.  This chicken is special as her eggs will be a blue green color.  Very pretty.  It’s a color Benjamin Moore would like to copy I’m sure!  Once she is a bit older, she’ll start laying and I’ll show you a picture of one of her eggs.

Check this out…what do you think this shelter for three of the girls is made out of?

Did you say it used to be a table?

It’s time to leave.  In just a short while, I’ll be visiting Margie and the girls weekly as they begin laying eggs.   I have committed to one dozen beautiful, healthy free-range eggs each week.   If we don’t eat the eggs, I’ll whip some scrambled eggs up for the dear girls.

 I head out Swinging Bridge.   Not much going on this evening.  Here’s a truck.  We have way more trucks than cars in Mendota, and if someone doesn’t have a truck, they probably wish they did!   I feel like I’m walking through a salad bowl at I approach this shady area.  Have I said that before?

Almost home. I walk by the unfinished barn which is being built of recycled materials.   The work is going slowly but at least there is shelter for some hay. The goats will need that this winter.   You’ll never hear me complain about someone who works a little slower.  My projects take three times as long as everyone else!

 

I’m home from my walk. I have a large project ahead of me this weekend. I’m going to reorganize my pantry closet where I store cleaning supplies, filters, vet supplies and quite a bit of my canned goods. I wanted to share the BEFORE picture to keep me motiviated to tackle this project this weekend.

Two window treatments and the pantry. I will be a happy camper if I get this done by Sunday.

Thanks for reading my blog. It means a lot to me. Talk later!

 

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Mendota Daily August 14

I get Pottery Barn’s catalog. I order one thing per year so I’ll stay on the mailing list.   Confession…I order more than one thing but not too much more.    So many good ideas!!

I’m trying not to be such a CONSUMER… shopping just for the hunt. However, I do like swapping stuff around and interchanging things, and sometimes I end up buying something. But I’ve been really careful spending money.  Since I haven’t been working, I haven’t been getting paid.  You get the picture!   Recently I moved things around in my living room, and I realized I needed something in a blank spot on the wall. The CONSUMER started coming out, and oh well. 

I tried to do an arrangement with this giant B pictured below that is actually cardboard. I’d hauled it from Georgia several months ago and hid it. Mike doesn’t care when I buy things but it was a cardboard B.  I had a vision for it (Anthropologie) and I didn’t want to try to communicate what I saw in my head into what I wanted him to see in his head.   It doesn’t work.   We are wired differently.

I spray painted the B a metallic color thinking that you might not realize I got it for $9 at Joanne’s Fabrics. Did I fool you?

Looked pretty bad. The B went into the closet for a few days.   I then came up with a brillient idea to put it on top of the entertainment center with a plant.   This left a big blank wall spot, and while I wanted the entertainment center in the room, (Just a little over a week ago, I had made a big deal of it and made Mike help me carry the thing from the garage to the house)  it looked like a big tall chimney.    It’s really a dilemna in this room.  It’s a cathedral ceiling so anything short looks squatty but the entertainment center is tall and skinny by itself.   Like a lonely soldier.

I could not figure out what to do, and that’s where the Pottery Barn catalog arrived and gave me the idea to use a floating wall shelf.  I could place pictures on the shelf and use it to “step down” to the couch so the entertainment center doesn’t stand out like an ugly tree.    I didn’t want to pay Pottery Barn prices compounded by the fact that we have no Pottery Barn around here,  so I went to Hobby Lobby and found one for $44. Of course, I had the 40% coupon, so it wasn’t too bad..less than $30.

Here’s what it looks like…I just ran and put these pictures on it. Not sure if they are staying.

I like it!

Here’s what it looks like from a few steps back…the couch looks awkward in this picture…I’ll clean the room and get better pictures this weekend.  And draft…another tall skinny picture.    


Don’t look at the coffee table which is stacked full of magazines and stuff.  It’s just in your head. It doesn’t really look that way…I have a vision…

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Common Things in Mendota

When I lived elsewhere, I bought flowers each week at the grocery store. It wasn’t terribly expensive…maybe $8-$10, but it did add up.

I seldom buy flowers since returning to Mendota. Each year I put out several rows of zinnias. They are at our entry gate, the garden and in the meadow.

I have pretty, fresh flowers all summer long. Free. I don’t even buy the seeds since I save them each year. At the end of the season, the flowers dry up and look like this…

The one pictured is not quite ready to be picked. However, in a few weeks, I’ll go out with a bag and pull these dead flower heads off and drop them in a brown paper bag. I’ll store the bag throughout the winter and then in the spring, I sprinkle them wherever I want to see zinnias. They never fail me.

I have some very nice vases, and I use them, but my favorite vase is the canning jar. The one in this picture is a two-quart jar which I purchased new in a pack of six at Food Country in Abingdon. The zinnias and the canning jar are useful, good looking, and they are common to my house. Works for me!

That’s my thrifty tip. Move to the country and plant zinnias and save $8-$10 per week. Are you sold?

I went back to work today. Fun seeing everyone but even though it’s just for three weeks, I missed having the time to be creative and work on my projects at home. So…I came home…and…I got out the CHALKPAINT!! Because I canned so much yesterday, I made a little picture to put above my cooktop.

I’m feeling better already!

Now if I could find one pair of my many pairs of scissors, I’d work on my wreath or curtain project.

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Mendota Daily August 12

I wasn’t in love with home canning at first.    It was the winter following the summer I learned to can that I fell in love with canning.   This hasn’t been all that long ago–less than ten years.   It was snowing and we didn’t go to the grocery store as we’d planned.   I made spaghetti and instead of a salad to accompany the spaghetti, we had green beans.   The spaghetti was topped with my sauce and the green beans were from the jars on top of the cabinets — all from the summer before.

Those green beans not only looked good on top of my cabinets — they were good.    I thought…I did this!   

 I then read a great book by Barbara Kingsolver called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and I realized how beneficial it is to eat local food.    I love that book…if you haven’t read it, you should!    The library has the book and the CD.   

On Saturday, I started this post describing my excitment over canning tomatoes.   I realize it appears I have a small life to be excited about canning tomatoes, but if you haven’t tried canning, it’s difficult to understand the satisfaction achieved from preserving your own food.  I think that many of us are still “wired” to want to gather and prepare for winter — even though Food City and Kroger are doing a pretty good job of taking over this responsibility!

Anyway, I canned 65 pints of homemade spaghetti sauce and 12 quarts of tomatoes — right at 100 pounds of tomatoes.   The spaghetti sauce grew challenging as I grew more tired.   I started yesterday and did not finish completely until 5 pm today.   I had to scald the tomatoes to get the skins off.  Then I had to skin and core them and put them in my handy KitchenAid food processor which I’d researched last winter in preparation for its use in dicing tomatoes   Great job!  Once I got about 20 cups of the diced tomatoes, I added seasonings and placed the mixture  on the stove to simmer for 25 minutes.  AFTER that, it was into the jars and then into the pressure canner for 40 minutes.  The worst part about this whole process  besides a sea of red sticky mess was waiting for the pressure canner to cool off enough to open and remove the jars.

I’m not complaining.  I have a pantry full of wonderful, yummy stuff that I’ll be quite smug about this winter.   I’m droning.  Here’s a few pictures.

Aren’t these girls pretty?   They are in the “hot tub” getting scalded.    Ouch.

Sue Cressel a nurse practitioner and friend taught me to can.   She went strictly by the Ball Canning Book.    This was 8 or 9 summers ago, and she and I canned 168 quarts of green beans along with many pints of tomatoes,  pasta sauce and salsa.  My right elbow hurt from breaking beans.   I am not sure why I did not learn from my mother…I think she saw me more as a bean breaker than a bean canner.     

So…much of the weekend, I was looking down into a simmering pot of this…

 

Even though I was busy in the kitchen, I tried to do other things during the “down” time when things were on the stove.  In the country, there is always something to do.  If we’re bored, we can go out and mow grass.

However, I did laundry as we’d had company all week.  I hang my sheets out to dry.  I have two washing machines, so I can zip through the laundry by using both machines and the clothesline and the dryer.   The sheets smell really good, but this has its hazards.  From above, the birds can poop on them, and if I hang them too low, the cat runs up and pees on them.  That red sheet is definitely in the danger zone.

 It’s always something.   And how has your weekend been?   

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Getting Ready for Company!!

There is always something to do when you live in the country.  In the city there are green projects to ensure that vegetation is present.   In Mendota, we have to beat vegetation back with a stick just about every day to keep it from getting into the house.   What type of weed eater one owns is a constant source of conversation.    It used to be who had the fastest car…now it’s who has the best weed eater.

I just finished mowing my small part of the yard.  I like to do the push mowing for the exercise, but I’m so over it now.     I am ready for fall.

I go to a small country church, and as I’ve mentioned before, the weather is included in the prayers each Sunday.  Last week, Joey said…”Father we appreciate the rain and pray for those who need it so badly to get some of it…we could probably use a little less.”    Always grateful. 

I have been very busy today.   Our son, possibly daughter in law,  and granddaughters are coming for a visit, and this requires that we clean everything possible.   Anyone else have this fixation?    We have no food in the house for them, but the house must be clean.    I’m not sure why we have this mindset but I knew that the windows must be cleaned for their visit.  And then…I started rearranging furniture.  Now the living room looks like this…

I  decided to move the old, ancient entertainment center out of storage.   It’s an Ethan Allen piece that we bought when Fred and Wilma Flintstone were popular.     I wonder when it will become an antique?  It’s over 30 years old.   I am actually not minding it.   Imperfect but fine with me.    Notice that I decorate with a vacuum cleaner hose…it’s in almost every picture on this blog.

Also check out the giant B.   That might be part of collage of pictures.   Or it might go under the bed.

Here’s another shot….

See the Post It notes on the wall?   That is where I’m reminding myself or Mike that a paint touch up is needed.   There are quite a few Post Its!!Also, the couch used to be floating in the center of the room…now I’ve got it in the corner and we may leave it there.

Mantle…I like propping up pictures so I can change them easily.   That picture in the black frame is the first in the Bristol Rhythm & Roots series by P. Buckley Moss.   I may buy the second one…need to think on that.

 

Hey…look at that fireplace!  Doesn’t the way the gas logs are stacked up make it look like some sort of little monster?     I have a fire monster in my living room!   Grrr….

Back to the mantle atop Little Fire Monster…those dried hydranges do NOT go there.   They are just resting for a bit..something else goes there.   I want some long twiggy branches, but I keep trying to find a good tree and cut them myself.    Fake ones at Hobby Lobby are $11.99 each.  I am not going to pay that for a fake stick.   I put some great tree limbs with leaves up there last week, but even with water in the vase, they wilted terribly.  The look was IT throughout the afternoon and evening but gone in the morning.      Maybe the fake ones are the answer…if I can locate a 40% coupon. 

When I get this room put together a bit, probably about 8 minutes before our company arrives tomorrow, I’ll take pictures.   See Luckie’s butt in the picture?   What a sweet butt!

I mentioned earlier in the week that I was buying slipcover material for a chair and ottoman, and I meant to show it to you.    Like everything else this week, I have a delay.     I have not finalized the fabric.   I’ve shopped the local stores, and I’ve ordered a bunch of samples online.   When my swatch arrives, provided it is the right color, I’ll wash it and see how it holds up.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed I get the right fabric.  I want to get this project started.

I have a lot of unfinished projects going on right now.   I am also  starting to pull some fabric together for the master bedroom.  I don’t have any before pictures, because…well…I’m ashamed. 

The walls in the bedroom are brown but they do not have the intensity of color that I like.   They are like diluted coffee brown.   I want to add more coffee!    I’m not changing them, however, for a while.     I’ve bought a Pottery Barn pillow tic (is that tic or tick?)  duvet cover and a few pillow shams while in Georiga in May. I’m hunting for a floral print that will have blue, berry/pink and some brown in it. The only one I’ve found it this…

Is it too 80’s?

Have a great weekend. Our granddaughters may do a guesthost thing on the blog next week, so please come back and check out their creative work!

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A Tobacco Farmer’s Daughter

My father was a tobacco farmer…not a large scale farmer…a very small farmer. We just got by. I left southwest Virginia in my 20’s  and when I returned around the year 2000, I wondered…”where’s Mr. Burley?” Tobacco had been on every patch of land in Poor Valley, and it was gone! He had his faults but Mr. Burley kept us warm in the winter and we got new shoes for school in the fall.

Companies work so hard to develop teamwork today. and I think know the real secret…necessity builds teamwork. Small farmers helped one another in every aspect of the tobacco crop’s life…they worked as a team because they needed one another to succeed.

I was too little to do the hard work of tobacco. I remember only having fun riding the tobacco sitter and singing songs…keeping Pepsi Cola cold in the creek.  If a mule team was involved, I rode the mules.

In my home, there are bits of my tobacco heritage throughout the house…

The dining room table my husband built me..it’s a beautiful table, but it’s the barn siding from a local Mendota tobacco barn that was being torn down that makes it unique.

 

In the den where I cleaned yesterday (finally), there’s wormy chestnut from old Burley tobacco barns everywhere…the table, the mantle, and the picture frame are all wormy chestnut. Soon an entertainment center will join them.

And is there any home in Southwest Virginia that doesn’t have one of these hanging somewhere?

I love home decor and like changing things out. However, I’ve found when I stay true to things I love or are a part of my history, I am the happiest with the results.

I like this red room.   Do you have a tobacco basket?   Do you have it hanging somewhere?

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A Little Bit of Fall and Dishtowel Winner

Good morning! I’m still reeling from singing Bible School songs…suffice it to say at this time, I know I am one of the sons of Abraham. It has been such a fun week, and we’re not quite finished, but tonight is an easy night. We have singing, refreshments and then Johnny Wolfe is taking us on a hayride. If you are reading from far away, it’s worth the flight to Bristol just to ride with us in the haywagon behind the tractor. We are going to have fun!!

Because of all the fun I’ve been having, I have not posted the winner of the dishtowel. In fact, I haven’t been on the blog to see who won the dishtowel myself. It is Brenda Dean of Hiltons, Virginia, and DRAT…I just saw her at the Rally Mart!!! I could have given her this had I got on this blog earlier today. Congratulations Brenda on your great dishtowel from Target. Here it is…you will be basking in loveliness as you dry your dishes. Oh wait…Brenda is married to Alan (Allen?)…maybe she’ll be one of the lucky ones and he will be the one basking in loveliness.

I haven’t done much around here this week. Good intentions but no results. I did, however, make a quick trip into the jungle that continues to call itself a garden…here it is…

There are about 500 little gourds that volunteered and survived because I didn’t bother to hoe the garden. I used to grow decorative pumpkins in this area–that was about five years ago–now each year these little guys come up. I went out yesterday and tossed a few to the side…here they are..

Washed them off…must have got a little soap in this baby’s eye…it’s crying…

Once they dry, I sometimes spray some poly (I will not even try to spell that word) on them. It makes them last longer. By the time I get these gathered, I usually have about 200 tucked in corners of every pot in the house. I’ll keep them and enjoy them until around Thanksgiving…or until the rot smell starts. At one time, I thought my cats were peeing everywhere because I had such a strange smell in the kitchen. Poor kitties…they took so much abuse, and it turns out, I had about ten rotten pumpkins tucked in above the plate rack that had went beyond looking bad to dripping yuck, gook and ugh. Nasty stuff.

But today, we are far away from the time of smelling rot. They are all nice and shiny….

I put a sheet that I use as a drop cloth underneath the gourds when I’m spraying them.

Now…this would be the time for me to show you these gourds in a pretty bowl in a clean room. However, I don’t have that. Yet. Instead, I’m going to show you what the den looks like…NOT CLEANED. Later today, you’ll see it all cleaned with my gourds on display.

It’s a mess…those ladders are where I’m cleaning the bookshelves and I accidentally discovered a book…I started looking at it…I started reading it. You get the picture.
Will update you later today!!

Update:

I’m not sure how many gourds I actually got but there was enough to put them here and there. They’ll really look good when fall arrives and I add some pumpkins, etc. Fall is my favorite time of the year for decorating the house.

Cleaned Den>

Picture above the mantle with little gourds below…

Hope you like the picture…chestnut genus. It’s framed in wormy chestnut. Mike made it. He and my brother-in-law, Gerald, also made the mantle which is also wormy chestnut. I love the story of the chestnut tree and what it meant to the people of Appalachia. I’m hopeful we’ll see the chestnut tree again. Lots of good work being done at the American Chestnut Foundation in Meadowview, Virginia.

Here’s a chestnut coffee table. I really like it as it’s so hard and durable. It takes a beating with feet, Wii games, etc. That’s tobacco barn siding on the “apron” of the table.

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