A lovely, productive weekend

We spent the weekend at a lovely cabin in the mountains at Mentone, AL. My father-in-law bought a house with property up there and built a few cabins and some "bunkhouse" rooms off the main house. One cabin looks like a barn, one looks like a church, and two are just cabins.



The first two pictures are in the main room of the main house. My darling daughter is sleeping on the sofa because there are no televisions in the "bunkhouse" rooms. There is a massive fireplace just out of view on the left of the first pic. The blanket on the floor is for our dog.














The third pic is the view from the bed I woke up in, in one of the "bunkhouse" rooms. You see why I keep putting "bunkhouse" in quotation marks. The rooms are furnished in a not-so -rustic style. The word bunkhouse doesn't really seem to fit.

Last is a pic of the true nature of our visit. We were loading up the old kitchen cabinets that were being torn out for the remodel of the main house kitchen. I am so looking forward to having cabinetry in my kitchen.

To be continued.........

Hope Springs Eternal

.

Eternally hoping for Spring......Hoping for eternal Spring.....Oh, sorry. Rambling.

It's just that I'm so giddy. He did it! My dear, kind, thoughtful husband finally got the tractor to wake from her long Winter's nap and tilled my garden spot. What a rush! All the sins of last season wiped away! Hmmm....I must try to make the very best of my fresh start.

What service! He fumigated it too! Poor tractor needs attention. Is the garden still organic?

By the way, THAT friends and neighbors, is a tiller.

Just a reminder...

to myself really. We do actually make progress here. The first picture shows how overgrown and shaggy this side of the property was when we got it. (although, it was taken before all the vines and brambles had started to green up in the Spring) The shadow line in the center of the picture is as far as you could walk. We didn't even know what the rest of it looked like until we started getting it cleared.

If you look closely at the "after" picture, you'll see the pond area at the back. Close ups can be seen of that area in my post about tractors.

Anyway, we just need to remember to give ourselves credit sometimes. But, by no means does this mean we are going to rest on our laurels and stagnate in a pool (or pond)0f self congratulation! No! We will press on with renewed hope for further and greater accomplishment! With that in mind, tomorrow my DH has promised to till my garden. Yay! I just love new beginnings, don't you?

Let's just pretend I haven't been absent for 6 months

When I started this blog last year, I envisioned wonderful, witty, fascinating posts flowing daily from my keyboard. Didn't so much happen, did it? Oh well, as I always say, "so what?". It's a whole other year now so let's move along.

Things I Want To Accomplish This Year

1. Actually plant my garden. (so that I have something to photograph and blog about)(obviously that's not the only reason:feed my family, save money,etc.)

2.Finish the @#$% bathroom. (wanting a sink in the bathroom doesn't make me high maintenance does it?) At least it doesn't look like this anymore.

Odds-n-Ends

I've been pretty scattered the last couple of weeks. Here are the highlights:

At home.

Away from home.

From Alabama to Enid, Oklahoma to Wilmington, North Carolina and back again in one week.

Saw this in OK. Oh, phooey! I forgot to turn this picture over and now I don't know how! Sorry!

Saw this in Wilmington. I know, I know, reeeaally bad picture through the windshield. But hey, you saw the itinerary, no time for proper picture taking.

(It's a battleship.)

Saw this on the way home. I bet they have a full bath in there. Maybe a hot tub too.

We got home just in time for this.

This is the annual "Thunder on the Mountain" fireworks display over the statue of Vulcan on Red Mountain in Birmingham, AL. We hadn't been in the last couple of years, but my older daughter lives on a street right under Vulcan, so we sat on her front steps to watch. Fun!

Oh, and I thought I'd show that not all of my garden critters are scary.

Cute, huh?

Oooh, nature, my favorite

Hi there! I just thought I would post a little post about gardening so that you all might learn from my vast experience.

Some reasons not to let your garden get overgrown with weeds.

1. It is unattractive to the human eye and artistic sensibilities.

2. The things you have actually planted in your garden suffer due to competition.

3. It will sadden and embarrass you to see your once lovely garden in such a state.

4. You will feel compelled to remedy the situation. If you do not use chemicals this may mean hand pulling an obscene amount of grass from a ridiculously large area.

5. If it is hot, this is unpleasant.

6. Bad, bad things lurk in weeds.

OK, so it is technically only one bad thing (and her cottonball of billions of baby bad things).

It is clear isn't it? You do know what this is, right? No? Look it up.

I pulled up a clump of grass, and there she was. I missed grabbing her by about a centimeter.

That was the end of the weed pulling that day.

I would like to say "live and let live" or something about all God's creatures....but no. I smushed her and her little ones too.

Can ya dig?

My super cool neighbor chick posted about needing a tractor and since I can relate to that, I thought I'd share some of our tractor history. We talked about needing a tractor for about 2 years before we actually got one. This is my husband on our first tractor, a 194?(or was it 195?) Ford Workmaster.

This served us well until we(read he) broke the axle. We found a neat old guy who fixes and sells old tractors and he gave us a good trade value for a very slightly less antique International Harvester B-275. I can't seem to find a pic of that one. We are still using it 2 years later, although there is a laundry list of things it needs(tires, brakes, you know, nothing very essential). I really wish I could find the pic of our daughter driving the Ford. She was about 14 and Dad taught her to drive it. And let her drive it! Freaked me out a little but it really was cool.

Last summer we decided that this spot needed to have a pond.

So we did what any"normal" person would do, we rented a backhoe. Now mind you, it had not rained at all for about 2-3 months. Perfect time to dig, says we.

Quiz: How do you break a record drought? Why just rent heavy equipment for the weekend, of course! It started drizzling immediately upon delivery and did not stop all weekend. By the way, this was at the end of the week that the Governor of Alabama had declared a "week of prayer" for rain. It was awsome timing in that regard, but I was still a little irked.

That's me in the blue raincoat being irked and supervisory all at the same time.

I'll put up recent pictures soon (I'll have to take some).

Oooh, know what you get when you get a pond?

TADPOLES! Lots of tadpoles.