Dear friends,

Welcome back down Henny Penny Lane...

 Hope you still are my friends. Forgive me for going away and not saying goodbye or I will be back or anything! Life sure can get crazy. I won't try to back up and bore you with all the details...just go from here. 

Must share with you though, we lost our sweet Eli last Tuesday. Of course, our hearts are broken. Our little house is just not the same. We have a big empty chair in the living room. It has been several months since Eli could even climb into his chair. Eli was going on 13 years old. He was certainly showing his age and had lost the muscles and most of the nerves, the vet said, in his back legs. He will forever be in our hearts...

Eli's vet says he lived a nice long life but not long enough for Poppy and me. Seems like just yesterday we brought this little ball of fur with the white eyelashes home...

It will take a while to recover from this one. 

How's your summer been? Hopefully, not as hot and dry as it has been here in our part of North Carolina. We have broken records...hottest June...dryest June...most days without rain! We were in a terrible drought all through spring and most of this summer. 

Only one pear survived on our two pear trees...

Funny, after that crazy ice storm in February, remember the one where I chopped up all my towels with a potato rake?? :) Well it warmed up so much that the pear trees bloomed, then we had winter come back in March. :(

Not a good year for gardening either...here are a couple of sunflowers. I always love a sunflower...

and this one trying to top the old birdhouse...

and Poppy took this one on our walk with Ellie this morning...

Not a very exciting post. Thank you if you're still here. I have missed you all!

Love, Henny

Seriously! Where do the days go?

It's been raining here for the last hour or so. We sat on the front porch. The rain brought down lots of little willow oak leaves. It looked like fall. Lifted my spirits.

Before the rain I was up at the teeny tiny greenhouse where the little succulents are growing and making themselves quite at home.

Can you tell they've grown? A few years ago, neighbor Ann gave me the faded, paint chipped, pots. Someone had thrown them out so Ann gathered them up and brought them to me. I think these pots are just right for the little succulents.

In case you're wondering about the junk under the pots...

Well, I had to move all the "old motor-grader road" museum items up to the greenhouse. Poppy said to throw them in the pile going to the junk man, but I simply could not part with them. For those of you who don't know...

the dirt path we live on used to be called "the old motor-grader road".  For a long long time, with every walk, we found old rusted metal pieces; plow points, nuts & bolts, tools, old bottles, etc.. I just can't part with them. Most pieces are probably over 100 years old. Maybe I'll hang a little sign on the greenhouse; "Old Motor-grader Road Museum".  :)

Who knew, I would love succulents so much??

Such pretty little plants...

Okay, enough is enough!

The Antique Tractor Show last Saturday...where I was a vendor...well, it wasn't as much fun as the last one. Not as many vendors, not as many folks walking around. I made a measly $58.00 after all the work and toil of packing, setting up, standing in the hot sun for hours...

The older gentleman with the Model T was there but had his wife along so we didn't see much of him. Last time he was buying bonnets and giving everyone rides. Hummm!

Here's a picture from last time...

Anyhow, here's some of the little dolls I made and carried to the sale...

and a group of homely looking little fellows...

Guess I will get up from here now and go put supper on the table. Don't know what struck me but yesterday I cooked collards, turnips, sweet potatoes, dried butter beans, and cornbread. Had plenty left over so will just warm it up. 

Thank you friends for stopping by. Seems like I had something important to post...oh!!! I just remembered!!! It's Poppy's brand new carport...

Never really wanted a carport but now that its here, it's kind of nice. I like it okay...Poppy LOVES it. 

Thank you!!

Love,

Henny

Big Picture Post!

Through the tangle of trees and vines, I saw the early morning sun shining on the east facing side of the house...coming home from our walk with Eli and Weetie.

Dear friends,

Thank you for the nice comments on my last post. Sorry for not getting back to reply to each one. One of these days! 

Oh, the sun has been shining warm and bright, and temperatures reaching 70 degrees yesterday and today...

My camera was in my pocket, for a change, so I took pictures of our walk...

and guess who tagged along with us...

going 10 miles per hour...

Can't you go any faster, asked Weetie!

Nope, and if you rush me, I won't go at all.

Need to come on. Poppy and Eli are leaving us! So we walk to the end of this road then turn around and... 

coming back to the house, we turn and go down a little path here at the end of the goat lot and that leads to the pond...

after weeks and weeks of dreary rainy weather and dark days...the sun makes it all look beautiful.

and since we pass the bunny lot on the way to the pond...

these are the three bunny condos I built using cinder blocks and tin. The bunnies seem to love them. I filled each one with lots of soft hay. 

Seeing as how this is a big picture post...here's another kinda neat one...

from the living room I noticed a Cardinal looking in the window. The flag was blowing behind him.

Maybe this second picture is better. Couldn't decide. I love it! Our State bird, the American flag!

It's bed time...I hear feet coming this way...Eli's and Poppy's. Better go. 

Love,

Henny

Shoot, I had the most adorable pictures of our little Great Grandson Kendall. Will post later.

Wildflowers along the path

Many of the wild flowers that bloom in the fall are yellow. I love them! The masses of Goldenrods growing along our dirt path are not in bloom yet. A big pot of Goldenrods for the table on the front porch. That's what I am waiting for.

Poppy and I were out and about early this morning. My plan, you know, was to shop for some fall decorations. Shoot! couldn't find anything. Most of the artificial stuff looks too, well, artificial for a log cabin. We did manage to ride home with a bag of fall colored candy corn but my Advil had worn off and the last thing I wanted was sugar on my hurting teeth.

Jimmy, from the little driver's license agency/seed and feed store, where I hang a few aprons and bonnets, was in Food Lion yesterday. He pulled thirty dollars from his pocket for Poppy to bring home to me. Some sweet lady had bought a bonnet and apron. Food Lion has for sale, large pots of fall colored mums, two for ten dollars. Think I'll buy two and a pumpkin. That would be a good start, don't you think?

Just wouldn't be complete without these two.

Poppy just cut the TV off so I will get a move on. Hope to be back soon. :)

Love,
Henny

A day for visitors

Today neighbors have stopped by from up the road...

and neighbors have stopped by from down the road...

which was fine and dandy. I enjoy the neighbors stopping by. But then these two visitors showed up...both at the same time.

I went in the chicken house to check on a hen that was cackling awfully loud and gasped at the sight. No need in running for the gun, I can't shoot a snake so I ran for the camera. Three times I held my breath and peeped in to get a picture of the snake eating the eggs...

then slowly backing out I happened to look up and saw this above my head...

My friend Nellie was just telling me about a black snake chasing somebody she knows. I closed the chicken house door and ran back to the house. Poppy will be home in ten minutes. 

It has definitely been an unusual day.

Okay, here it is bedtime again. But surely you will want to know what happened. Poppy got home and I told him there were two big snakes closed up in the chicken house. He got the shotgun and went in...He fired one shot, the door opened and Poppy brought out a six foot rat snake. The second snake had totally disappeared. :(  We searched and looked and raked the straw, but no snake.

Whew! What a day. Snakes don't crawl at night, do they? Sure hope the chickens are safe. 

Thanks for visiting. 

Love,
Henny

Gloomy Sunday, Rainy Monday

All day long it has looked like rain, but none yet. This has been a quiet gloomy sort of Sunday. Cloudy with a little breeze blowing. Anyhow, I have piddled around wasting time, doing nothing much of anything.

I picked up an old picture album and turned through the pages, pulling out two special pictures that made me smile. Both are pictures of Poppy and our Granddaughter Madison. Madison is sixteen now and driving. But back then whatever Poppy was talking about sure had her attention...

A few years later down at the pond trying to catch a fish. Those little legs! Now she swims and works as a lifeguard during the summer months...

Good Monday morning! We woke up at 4:30 this morning to the sound rain...a much needed rain. What a good morning this would have been to roll over and go back to sleep, but not so. Poppy had to be at work at 6:00.

On my way up the path yesterday, heading toward town, I noticed the Goldenrods beginning to open. Lots of Goldenrods. I was worried they had been trampled down or mowed over.

Even on a gloomy day these bright yellow flowers bring a little sunshine...

and Black-eyed Susans...

A vase of these flowers on the front porch makes me happy. Looks like the rain is here for a couple of day so picking flowers will have to wait.

Okay, time to get busy. With it wet and raining, I have no excuse for not getting the dust wiped off everything inside this house. Yuk! I'd rather plow a field!

Thank you for visiting.

Love,
Henny

Queen Anne's Lace and Daddy

On my way to town this morning I noticed a few Queen Anne's Lace blooming. Only a few. Some years we have them all along the path. Queen Anne's Lace was my daddy's favorite flower. Look at the ants on this one...

Someone recently posted about this beautiful flower which made me think of daddy. Daddy used to warn us about Poison Hemlock which looks a lot like Queen Anne's Lace. He said we could tell if it was Queen Anne's Lace by the dark flower that is found in the center. Poison Hemlock doesn't have that. I love an old dirt road...

Daddy loved nature. He loved to go for long walks in the woods and was always picking up unusual rocks. Sometimes mama would get tired of him bringing in rocks and leaving them around everywhere. I remember her, a time or two, throwing some of the rocks out the back door thinking daddy would never know the difference and find them again. Don't they say it's the little things in a marriage that drive each other crazy? :)

Daddy could name just about every tree and every plant. There was no excuse for us kids not knowing all there was to know about every reptile, butterfly, insect, wild animal, tree, plant, or rock because there was a book on each of these things in the bookcase.

I love this old old picture of daddy which I've shown before. Probably taken long before I was born. He was a big fisherman too. Loved it! Sure wish I had more pictures of mama and daddy.

Here's an old one from the early 1940's. Always with a cigarette. No wonder he died so young with a heart attack...

Daddy taught me a lot. He is the reason I love being outside so much of the time. I was in ninth grade when this picture was taken...

This post was going to be about the garden and how much we need rain. The Queen Anne's Lace changed my thinking...

Thank you for visiting.

Love,
Henny